I shot a look at Molly before answering, but there was no easy way to say it. “William . . . isn’t the man he used to be, Uncle Jack. He had some kind of confrontation with the Heart, before he left . . . and something bad happened to him. He held himself together long enough to go to ground, but then . . . he had a breakdown. He’s currently residing in a sanatorium.”

“A lunatic asylum?” the Armourer said incredulously. “You mean he’s crazy?”

“It’s not such a bad place,” Molly said quickly. “They’re looking after him properly there. Eddie and I visited him just recently. He was . . . distracted, but he was also quite sharp, for a while. I think the Heart did something to his mind. Now that it’s gone, perhaps the effects will disappear too . . .”

“I’m sure he’ll feel a lot better, once he’s back in the Hall,” I said just a bit weakly.

“Hell,” the Armourer said gruffly. “This whole place is a madhouse at the best of times. He’ll fit right in.”

“New weapons?” I said, figuring that was the best way to take the Armourer’s mind off things.

He sniffed loudly again. “I don’t know if I want to trust you with any of my good stuff. The Bentley came back covered in scratches, and I still haven’t forgiven you for breaking my one and only reverse watch. And you lost that special directional compass I made for you!”

“Let us take it for granted that I am careless and ungrateful, and never appreciate anything you do for me, and move on, shall we?” I said patiently. “I still have the Colt Repeater, but I could use something more . . . dramatic.”

“I’ve still got that nuclear grenade . . .”

“No,” I said, very firmly.

“All right, how about a portable sonic generator that can make your enemies’ testicles swell up and explode in slow motion?”

“Oh, please!” said Molly.

“Tempting, but no,” I said. “I’d prefer something a little less . . . conspicuous.”

“You were always fussy with your food, too.”

“Moving on, please . . .”

“I’ve got a short-range teleporter I’ve been fiddling with,” said the Armourer, scrabbling through the junk piled up before him on the workbench. “Jumps you instantaneously half a mile, in any direction. Just think of a place, say the Words, and go. Completely untraceable. And unlike Merlin’s Glass, completely undetectable.”

“That sounds more like it,” I said. “Why only half a mile?”

“Because any farther than that, and you tend to arrive in an arbitrary number of separate pieces,” the Armourer admitted reluctantly.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” said Molly.

“You are not alone,” I said.