Matt waited in the hospital. Corbin Rafferty slept curled around himself, covers crinkled by his body. Matt felt uncomfortable watching him. He hadn’t often seen another man sleep. Rafferty’s position reminded him of Claire’s on the couch.

The hospital room had two chairs. Claire sat in one, Matt in the other. The light was off. Matt didn’t think he had slept, but there was no way to mark time here, with the curtains drawn. He read a few magazine stories about places that did not exist as far as he was concerned, about people whose problems might as well have been made up. He went to the bathroom. Wandering the halls, he found a pot of weak tea and cups made of a pale foamlike substance that sat badly against his skin and tasted like aerated bone. He returned.

Claire watched her father.

Corbin woke.

Just a snaking beneath the sheets at first, a protrusion of knee from covers. He thrashed against synthetic pillows. Claire’s sudden tension made Matt look. Rafferty’s eyes were open, staring straight up as if a sword hung over his bed. No sword, though, only a pitted moonscape of drop ceiling.

“Father,” Claire said.

Matt thought he answered “Daughter,” but the word was really “Water.”

She poured him a cup, brought it to the bedside, and set it on the table, just in reach. Rafferty did not look at the cup, or at Claire.

Matt thought he should not be here. He almost excused himself, then realized his movement would draw more attention, and kept still.

“I took care of the deliveries today,” she said. “The girls are well.”

“I saw something last night,” he said. “It was last night.”

“Yes.”

“I wasn’t in my body.”

“You were.”

“I was and wasn’t. I remember. I hit Matt. And Sandy.”

“You almost hit Ellen.”

“I scared her.”

“Us.”

“I was angry.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been angry. Angry or drunk. For a long time.”

“Yes.”

“I can do this. I can hold it together.”

“Sleep, Father,” Claire said, and he did.

Matt and Claire did not speak on the ride back.

*   *   *

The gargoyles were not gone by the time the Blacksuits arrived. The toll of battle was too great. The demons had carved deep grooves in the gargoyles’ stone, and dried moonlight coated their limbs. Cat stood among the fallen. The Suit kept her standing. It pressed her wounds together and filled her mind with song to drown out the background wash of pain.

Raz slumped on the dais. Tara leaned against a wall, shadows trembling around her, bleeding and exhausted but whole. The reporter, Jones, was trying to help Aev stand. Shale lay still; stone around him decayed to dust as his wounds knit. Nor was he the only Stone Man—she corrected herself—the only gargoyle in need of healing.

The demonglass steamed away. Large pieces endured longest, like gutter snowdrifts in new spring.