That was all she said. I could have asked why, but that would only have been stalling. Sunny pulled the helmet back on, and I put the bike in gear.

Chapter 11. Paradise Lost

At the door to room 24, I looked at the bed with Tick-Tick in it and had two thoughts at once: The Daughters were wrong—she was sleeping; and I was too late—she was dead. I was wrong on both counts.

A Daughter I hadn’t seen before was in the room. She wasn’t bustling around, or measuring things, or taking a pulse. She was just sitting, keeping watch, keeping the Ticker company. Now she stood up and touched Tick-Tick on the shoulder, and said, “Your friend is here. Is there anything you want?”

The Ticker’s eyes were closed, but she smiled. “Not now.”

The Daughter nodded as she passed me, and left the room.

I sat in the chair she’d vacated, which was in hand-holding distance. I didn’t take advantage of that.

“How goes the quest?” the Ticker whispered.

“We’re winning, I think. We found the source, anyway.”

She opened her eyes a little, just enough to squint at me, and I remembered her complaining that the light hurt them. The light in the room was already low, but I leaned over and blew out the lamp nearest the bed. “Too late,” she said, with a dry, windy chuckle. “I got a look at you. Was this source in a midden?”

I’d forgotten the state of my grooming. “It’s sort of a long story. But we had to borrow your bike. Sunny’s car got blown up.”

I regretted it the instant it was out of my mouth. Pain moved her features. She shook her head a little on the pillow. “A Triumph Spitfire. The dearest things—part of their value is that they cannot last.” Then her eyes squinted open again, and she grinned. “Blessed Mab, what an awful thing to say at such a time.”

I clenched my hands on the chair arms. “Sunny wouldn’t mind.”

“Sunny be damned. You know what I meant.”

“Stop it.”

She closed her eyes and frowned. “If you mean to be mealy-mouthed, go away and send the nurse back in. I did not wish for your company so that I could share in a lie.”

“The middle of the night is always the worst time for sick people. You’ll be pretty damned embarrassed about this in the morning.”

“You are wasting time, and I at least have very little of it. Stop playing the fool.”

The Daughters of Brede was hardly like a hospital at all: no bright, hard lights, no hushed terrors, no smell of pain and death, none of the things that Bolt Street Clinic couldn’t help but remind me of. But pain and death could still enter here, and the people who had to sit helpless and watch them come felt just the same, wherever they did it.