There was, as it turned out, only one person left in the building. And he might have been able to damage us, in some other place, at some other point in his life, under some other set of rules. Just then he was sitting at the table where the kids had been packing contraband, holding up his head with both hands, staring at the tabletop.

This time Sunny did the rap in a language I could follow. “Police. Don’t make any sudden moves, and keep your hands where I can see them. I accuse you of taking life and of conspiring to take others, and declare that your freedom is forfeit until such time as this accusation may be tested in fair trial. If you attempt to flee this test now or in future, it is my sworn duty to stop you, even unto the resort of causing your death. And I have to admit, that would give me a lot of satisfaction right now.”

Not the same one she would have used on the kids; and I was pretty sure that the last sentence was not standard.

Our quarry looked up as she began to speak, his eyes wide, and as she went on his face, his whole body, sagged. It was one defeat too many to be called a setback. “So!” he said when Sunny finished. “My dear companion sold me out to his fellow officers, did he?”

Sunny shook her head. “He’s next.”

Bitter satisfaction flew across his face. “That’s more than I had hoped, that the others might be held to some account.”

“Why shouldn’t they?” Sunny said, seeming about as casual as the context allowed for.

“Oh, they meant the blame and all the payment to be mine. Small minds are the same in any land. I did the best work I could with what they gave me, and they never gave me what I asked. But here is all come to ruin through their smallness, and it’s ‘Hai, Malicorne, you evil dog, you have set the Gatherer upon your own race!’ They will lie, they will lie, but it was none of my doing. None. Upon the Crown and upon the Hill, I meant no harm.”

It’s not true that elves can’t cry. That’s a piece of slander left over from what the World used to believe about witches. It’s true that they don’t do it easily, however. This one certainly didn’t. Grief and fear swallowed up his fey prettiness; his white skin blotched pink as the tears ran past his nose and down his chin. He gave a gulping sob and his long fingers scrabbled at the tabletop. Then he pushed himself roughly out of his chair and turned his back on us, his shoulders hunched.