The furniture was various and battered, but well-made. There were three big dark wood tables sidled up against a wall, one of them in use—at it, a woman uniformed in silver was reading the top sheet of a pile of yellow paper. Two rows of cushioned side chairs occupied the middle of the floor, none of them matching; I thought of a dozen dining rooms like my mother’s, all of them missing a chair. A little table stood between two of them, holding a chess board with an unfinished game. A map of Bordertown covered most of one of the room’s walls, and another offered quite a nice painting of the Chrystoble Bridge and the riverbank.

As we entered, an elf came out of a door at the other side of the room. He was very tall; I thought the dip of his head as he went under the lintel wasn’t required by instinct alone. Age is a subtle thing in elves, but he seemed older than Tick-Tick. His long white hair was drawn tightly back and braided, which added to the length and angularity of his face, and focused attention on his eyes, warm gray and large. On him, the silver uniform jacket seemed like formal wear. He smiled at Rico, and she returned it with a nod.

“Captain Hawthorn,” she said. “What brings you to this end of town?”

“Work, Detective. Speaking of which, aren’t you here a little late?”

He had a lovely broadcaster’s voice without a hint of Elflands accent. I wondered if he’d been born in B-town. He seemed like the wrong generation for it, but again, I couldn’t be sure of that.

“Some. Do you know if my partner’s here?”

“Yes, he said if I saw you to tell you he was waiting. Nice running into you, Detective. Don’t burn it at both ends, hear?” With that fatherly admonition, he went out into the night.

“Gracious,” I said, looking after him. “Does he always sound as if he’s auditioning for ‘My Three Sons’?”

“Hawthorn’s all right; he gets it from his co-workers. The Suits up on the Tooth don’t exactly trust the Soho cops. Probably afraid we’ll go native under stress.”

She got to the door Hawthorn had come in by and stopped. “What I did, in the car,” she said suddenly. “That was wrong. I’m sorry. I’ll try not to yank your chain again.”

“The choice of words there is unnervingly apt.”

“I know. I’m sorry about that, too. But I have to have your help.”

I wasn’t sure what she was waiting for, but I said finally, “Here I am.” It seemed to be enough to get us through the door.