“I have a reasonably clear notion of how the other half lives, thank you.” She gave me a rueful look. “Besides, it is a bastion of Truebloodedness, and they might be rude to you during visiting hours.”

“I could stand it.”

The Ticker shook her head and gave another little snort. “Truebloods. What, then, are humans? False? Artificial bloods? All blood is true.” Her voice was deteriorating into a whisper, which must have been more comfortable. She turned her gaze from me to the shaded windows. “By its nature, all blood is true.”

“Except…”

Tick-Tick watched me and waited, her eyebrows up.

“I don’t know. I was thinking of this drug of Rico’s, and the way it changes people.”

“Are you saying that people like the girl, Tiamat, are false-begotten, untrue creatures?”

“No, but they’re not quite… one thing or the other.”

“Some say the same of half-elves.”

“But that’s not true. They’re a whole new thing that happens to be part elf, part human.”

“What of Wolfboy?”

“He’s himself.”

“And before he was himself, there was nothing like him. When the Elflands returned, they changed everything. But the Borderlands have never ceased to change, since then. They have produced, and will go on producing, objects and people that are not one thing or another. They have already produced a human with a fey gift, and an elf with a human talent.”

I grinned. “Oh, if you’re going to make it personal…”

“You never listen if I don’t. The Borderlands are the kingdom of change and transformation. The children of this drug may be more truly the children of the Border than any of us. I told you that there was something in Tiamat that seemed to me more elf than human.”

“I’d hate to think that the natural result of being a child of the Border is that you croak early.”

“So would I. It would suggest that the Borderlands themselves could not live. And this is my home.” She sighed. “I wonder when it became so? It’s not mere spite any longer, that makes me say I have no wish to return to the Elflands. This place is strange, uncertain, difficult, and beautiful—and mine. I would not leave it.”

“Except for the ‘beautiful,’ that’s a good description of your apartment.”

She pulled a pillow out from behind her head and threw it at me, which set her coughing.

“You’re not supposed to do anything,” I reminded her.

“Then see you don’t provoke me. What’s for dinner?”

“Takeout from Godmom’s.”

“Lavish.”

“Well, you don’t want to eat my cooking, do you?”

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