Even stranger ideas began to enter his head. That Rath in her basement, doling out information, was someone he’d made up out of convenience. That Sintra had no mysterious life beyond his own. That he’d written the words on the scrap of paper pried from the dead man’s hands. That the soreness around his neck came not from the skery but from sleeping in the wrong position. That he would wake up to find Sintra was his wife. The gray caps had never Risen. He still worked for Hoegbotton & Sons as a courier, but Wyte was an obedient wire-haired terrier he’d bought for Sintra. There was no Spit. No bay. No towers.

Instead, they reached Stark’s headquarters: through one last doorway, hinges splinters of wood, the door missing. Ripped apart? How long ago?

Bosun straightened up, Finch beside him. Stepped into a room aboard some kind of ferry. Passenger seats stripped out leaving the metal skeletons of chairs. The high, curving ceiling showed in faded paint a scene from an opera, people in balcony seats applauding. Below that hung a chandelier from which almost all the glass was gone.

A long wide space stretched out before them. Like a dance floor. Timbers stained with dark red swirls and smudges. The soft smell of soap couldn’t dull the sharp assault of the blood.

At the far end: a couple of chairs, a desk, and a large figure hanging a painting on the wall. As they approached, Finch recognized the painting as a reproduction. It showed the Kalif of another age demanding fealty from a defiant Stockton king. Back when Stockton had kings. Hunting dogs stood in the foreground, but fiendish, with forked tongues and jowls curling back to reveal metal daggers. The composition more surreal than photographic. All of it the echo of a time lost to the present.

The large man nodded to them even as he kept moving the painting. Trying to catch it on the nails in a wall covered with bullet holes and dark bloodstains. Splatter had swept across the divide between wall and floor.

Finch noticed now the dark sheets in the farthest corner. Roughly man-sized.

“You found Bosun, I see,” the man said. A deep voice. “Or he found you. Either way, you’re here. Finally.” The painting caught on the nails. Held. “There.”

The man turned toward them. “You can call me Stark.”