Finch sat on the upper deck of a houseboat in the Spit. From the towers across the bay, green fire gathered. It leapt out at them. Became huge and sparkling over their heads. Burned into boats all around them. Splintered timbers. Sent up waves of flame. A fire that never seemed to reach them. And yet was inside him.

Wyte and Finch’s father sat on a whitewashed bench opposite him. His father was the hunched-over specter he’d been at the clinic, in the last days. Coughing up blood. Wyte was, mercifully, as he’d been before the vainglorious charge from the chapel.

“Getting close,” his father said.

“Getting close,” said Wyte.

“Hang on,” his father said.

“Soon it will be your turn,” Wyte said. “Will you be ready?”

“Ready for what?” Finch said.

“Never lost.” Now it wasn’t Wyte sitting beside his father, but Finch as James Crossley. Youthful. Neatly trimmed beard. Eyes bright with confidence. The James Crossley who’d worked as a courier for Wyte.

Finch smiled. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you. Could’ve used you earlier, James.”

His father had disappeared. Duncan Shriek was sitting next to James now. Flickering in and out like a faulty bulb.

Finch stared at them both. While the Spit burned down around them.

Shriek said, “You can’t survive much more of this. You’ve got to find a way out.”

Finch grinned painfully. With each new bolt of green light another part of him was disintegrating. Falling away.

“Easy for a dead man to say. I’m still in the world,” he said.

Something was calling. Some noise was exploding in his head.

“You’ll be back,” Shriek promised, fading into darkness.

Woke, finally, to the sounds of combat. Rockets. Gunfire. The recoil of a tank blast?

Through the window, through the blood in his eyes, Finch saw intense flashes of light. Nothing like the gray caps’ spore clouds. Or their fungal displays. That light was more like a mist. This was harsh and sudden. Unforgiving.

Blood tickled his throat. The Partial had taken teeth. Each a raging agony in his mouth.

The Partial sat on the couch, tapping his foot. He’d turned the chair so it faced him.

Finch laughed. An unhinged laugh that ended on too high a note. Thought, “Could the interrogation be getting to the fucker?” But had said it aloud. The Partial crept behind him. Felt a soft sawing around his numb hand. A sudden flowing release.

Still the rockets went off. So they must be real. Not hallucinations.

No one’s coming for me. No one.

The Partial placed Finch’s bloody pinkie finger on the table. It looked like a white worm.

“Don’t disrespect me again,” the Partial said. Breathing hard. Something almost sexual in the way he swallowed. Let the tip of his tongue show through his teeth. “Or there’s more where that came from.”