The timing, I realized with an uncomfortable rush of anger mixed with something else, wasn’t accidental, and the heat in my face wasn’t all from the match. I held her eyes for a second, to show her I’d caught the trick, and drew the flame into my cigarette.

“Do you want me to leave you alone?” she pressed.

“What, couldn’t you tell?”

“You have a better poker face than I gave you credit for,” she said lightly. “I’m sorry, it’s a habit. Some people bite their nails; I manipulate as a reflex.”

I watched the ash grow on the end of my smoke. “What about Tiamat?”

“I hope you’ll pass on anything I need to know, but you don’t have to. Hell, if you really want out of it entirely, you could leave town.”

I looked up at her, outlined in moonlight. “I can’t leave town.”

“Because of Tick-Tick? She could go into the hospital. Or you could hire a nurse to stay with her; there are good ones around.”

“No. I couldn’t—I couldn’t go, and not know what was happening. She might not mind, but I would.”

“And you objected because I insisted on taking responsibility.” There was ever-so-slight mockery in her voice.

I took a mouthful of smoke, and was glad the cigarette hadn’t gone out. The last thing I needed was another revealing match. “We go way back.”

“That’s a mixed commodity in this town, have you noticed?” she said, and the mockery had been replaced by a sort of mild speculation. “Friendships of long standing are valuable. But a long friendship, here, is four or five years. And nothing goes back to before, either to the World or to the Elflands. Before we came to town. We all pretend that when we hit the Borderlands, our pasts were cut off like six inches of out-of-fashion hair.”

“That’s part of the point of coming.”

“Of course. But it’s still just pretend.”

It doesn’t take nearly long enough to smoke a cigarette. I flicked the remains of mine into the middle of the street and stood up. “If the results are the same, what does it matter?”

“Are the results the same? You don’t like hospitals. You’re not sure you like yourself. Is that because of things that have happened to you since you got here?”

I was angry. It seemed to me she was picking at a scab, and I wasn’t even certain whether it was mine or hers. And when had I given her permission to tell me about myself? “I don’t know. What do you think? You’re the one with the father who was a bad cop.”