“You don’t want to be a good cop,” I said. “You want to be a Knight of the God-damned Round Table. There’s a limit.”

“There is a limit,” she said, in a fierce, quiet voice. “I know exactly what it is, and you don’t. Now shut up and go downstairs. You’ll find Cascade and Wally and Kathy Hong in the lobby guarding the doors. Send them up.”

I had to go, or I would have choked on the coal in my throat. If she forgave me for those last words, it would be more than I deserved.

Cascade was the green-haired halfie cop from Chrystoble Street, and Wally was her human partner. Kathy Hong I remembered from the remains of the derelict apartment building. I sent them up, so they could read the elf her rights, or whatever the real-world equivalent was in Bordertown. I was so tired I could have dropped down and slept on the floor. I wanted to go away, but it would have seemed like breaking something. And I wanted to go back upstairs, but I knew I had no place there. I sat downstairs in the lobby and told myself it was so I wouldn’t have to look at Hawthorn lying there being dead.

Eventually I felt a touch on my shoulder, and raised my head off my knees. It was Sunny.

“Can I go home now?” I asked. “All my furniture is out in the hall.”

She raised her eyebrows. She’d taken the sunglasses off, and she looked almost as dazed as I felt. “That’s not delirium talking, is it?”

“No.”

“Well, you can’t go home, because if I’m going to have to sit up watching you sleep again, I’d just as soon do it in the comfort of my own place.”

“That’s right. Oh, boy. I get to find out what having your throat cut is like.”

“If you’re lucky, I’ll time it right, and it won’t come to that.”

“Did you know Hawthorn was in this?”

“Not until he sent me a message asking me to meet him here. I thought there might be somebody besides Toby—I couldn’t see Toby running the thing—but I didn’t know who until then. As soon as I got his note, I realized he was it, and the note was his one stupid mistake. So I came early and brought some friends.”

“You trusted them—Cascade and Whatshisname, Wally, and Hong?”

“I had the least reason to mistrust them, anyway. Why were you here?”

“Because I didn’t know you already suspected Hawthorn.”

She snorted, and rubbed her eyes. “Well. I’m glad you did it.”

“Ye Gods, why?”

“You don’t think you helped?”

“No. No, I think—” The hot thing materialized in my throat again. “I’m sorry for what I did and said up there. I didn’t mean it.”