“You cut me, and I’ll tell you something, sure. Maybe I’ll even tell you the truth. Or maybe I’ll tell you what you want to hear, just to make the pain stop.” She could hear Twilling’s voice in her head. “I want to tell you what I know. If he’s dead, I want to help you find his killer.” And step four: the price. “But I need to know you’re not lying to me, first. Think about it from my point of view. I don’t know you. You might be lying. You might have killed him.”

“I didn’t.”

“I believe you.” She didn’t, exactly, but the girl didn’t need to know that. “But I need proof.”

Izza’s lips thinned to a line. Kai closed her eyes and waited for the cut.

It did not come.

The knife lifted from her neck.

“You walk with a cane,” Izza said.

“Yes.”

“You’ll walk with me instead.” She rolled off Kai’s chest, and waited by her bedside, knife out between them. “Get dressed.”

As Kai sat up she felt a sharp-edged, rectangular piece of paper under her left hand. She palmed the business card and, when she risked a glance down, saw Ms. Kevarian’s name flashed in gold.

Chapter 44

44

Kai wore a red shirt to hide the blood from her neck. She slid Kevarian’s business card into the pocket of her slacks as she tugged them on. Izza watched from the corner, knife at her side. Kai exaggerated her limp, leaning heavily on nightstand, dresser, wardrobe. She didn’t try to run. Even fully healed, she doubted she could have outrun this murderous whip of a girl.

“Where do you come from?” Kai asked to relieve the silence. She didn’t think Izza would answer.

“The Gleb,” she said.

“Long way from home.”

“What’s home?”

Kai tried again as she buttoned her shirt: “How did you know Margot?”

“He saved me.”

“From what?”

“From someone who was asking too many questions.”

Kai left the button at her neck undone. “Let’s go.”

“Put on a coat.”

“It’s hot outside.”

“Put on a coat.”

She took a linen blazer from her closet. “Why?”

“You’ll have my knife at your back. So you don’t try anything.”

She pulled on the jacket, and limped toward the stairs. “Give me a hand?”

“Use the rail.” Izza gestured down the stairs with her knife.

“I might fall.”

“Then you fall.”

She descended slowly. Her knees buckled, but she kept her feet.

She waited in her living room for Izza.

The girl wrapped her arm around Kai’s waist beneath the blazer. The knife pressed up into Kai’s side. If she tried to run, the jacket might rip, but it might also pull Izza along—they’d both fall, and the knife could end up anywhere.