He started for the armchair, realized she was sitting in it already, and stopped. “You don’t see what’s out there. Kavekana’ai’s far above the docks. There’s war on the street. Always some local god from the Southern Gleb who thinks he’ll catch like wildfire here. Sailors bring in strong stuff from the New World. Even the drugs are getting worse: not just plants anymore, new compounds refined with Craft. I saved a kid from flying the other night. He’d taken some Rush, you know, lets you soar for a while, knocks you out for three days after. Problem is, the comedown’s fast. We found two guys last week in cane fields on the north slope, broken as if they’d fallen from a height only there wasn’t anywhere around to fall from. Some water rat sold it, sailed off on his ship, and left us to pick up the mess.”

“What’d you do with the kid?”

“Tied him to a bed. He hovered a few inches off the surface, but a fall from that height onto a mattress wouldn’t hurt.” He closed his eyes. “I didn’t come here to talk about work.”

“Why did you come?”

“To see you.”

“Here I am.” She held out her arms. “All my bits fit together, at least according to the doctors.”

“And to ask how you’re doing.”

“Fine.”

“And if there’s anything I can do for you.”

“No.” She liked that silence. Claude was the man with answers. Ask him any question, and he had a reasonable reply. That wasn’t why their fights began, but it didn’t help once they did.

“Four weeks,” he said, wondering.

“They wanted me kept for observation.”

“All on the mountain, though. They didn’t move you down to Sisters?”

“They had reasons for keeping me out of the hospital. Nothing serious.”

He sat on the couch. His feet rested next to hers on the carpet. Creases in the shiny black patent leather of his shoes distorted their reflection. “Kai, how can I help?”

She tried to remember how their last fight started. Her hours, maybe, or his, or else something they’d tried to do in bed, and that stupid seed grew into further foolishness until voices rose and words sharpened and a glass broke and the small house gaped empty and hungry around them. “You can leave,” she said.

“You’re hurt. You’re tired. Jace said you pushed yourself so far there was little the doctors could do for you. I know I haven’t been good to you, but I want to help and the least you can do is trust me.”