Next to him, medicine and food. Two more cots and another table. A one-burner portable kerosene stove and a pot on this second table. Along with a rifle and several boxes of ammo. His sword. His gun.

Between him and the doors: a globe of the known world on a rosewood table. Four ornate wooden chairs. Rathven sitting in one of the chairs. Watching him.

“I brought your maps down here,” she said, indicating the table. “A cane to help you walk. A chamber pot. A bottle of your whiskey. You need to stay here. Out of sight,” she said. “You need to rest.”

“Clean yourself up. Find someplace safe to be, Finch.”

“What about Feral? Where is he?”

“I’ll bring him later, if the boat doesn’t spook him.”

Outside, he could lose himself in the fight. Could join the rebels. Could join the militias. Could do something. But, overnight, he had become a broken-down old man. A pensioner well past the days of pensions. Waiting for better days.

I am not a detective.

“What about the towers? Has anything changed?”

“Nothing. Don’t worry—I’ll let you know.”

“What is this place?”

“It’s an old library,” she said. “From above it’s just rubble. You can’t get to it. But this one room I found intact. Although it didn’t have many books in it to start.”

“Found the rest?” he managed.

“Yes. I brought them here from all across the city.”

“Why?”

She had the look of the true believer, of someone who still had hope, as she said, “Finch, here you’ll find every book I could salvage about the city. Every book by any Ambergrisian author. Every book of history, of politics. Biographies. Novels. Poetry. They’re all here. Much of it knowledge that was lost in the wars, because of the Houses. Because of the gray caps. But someday, Finch, when all of this is over…”

Finch looked away. Ashamed by her passion when he had so little left.

“Ever afraid of being found out?”

“All the time.”

“The cots?”

“Before they disbanded the camps, I’d shelter escapees here. Or people who had been released but were injured.”

“And now?”

“Apparently, this is now a haven for cynical detectives.”

That made him smile. A little.

She stood. “You lost a lot of blood. But I stopped the bleeding. It’s your other injuries I need to work on now. I’m not strong enough to turn you over. I’ll need your help.”

She got gauze, bandages, and other supplies. Water from the underground channel. A kind of ritual and finality to the way she set the supplies on the table next to him. That made him shudder. Thinking of the Partial with his knives and scalding water.

She saw his look as she set a pot to boil on the little stove. “I have to clean the wounds, Finch,” she said.

He nodded. “I know.”