Klaus’s hands shook. She tightened her grip. He shook his head. “No,” he said, his voice dead and empty, his face slack. When his gaze finally came back to her, there was no affection there, only pain. “No,” he repeated. “I can’t make that promise, Barbara. There are things that I will never tell you. There are things that must always remain hidden.”

She nodded, not wanting to agree but knowing that she had no choice. Not now. “Then we should talk about the Committee, what we need to do going forward from this, what we need to do to recover.”

His head was shaking before she finished. “Do what you feel you need to do, Barbara. Whatever seems best. As for me…” He took a long, slow breath as his good eye closed, as if he wanted to shut out the entire world. “I don’t know if I can do this anymore. I don’t know.”

“Klaus…” she began, but he let her hands drop away.

“I’m so tired,” he said, and he began to walk back toward the hospital wards. “So tired,” she heard him repeat, speaking to the air.

She watched him go, wanting him to stop, to turn, to reach back for her, but he did not.

After a moment, she followed.

Maseryk hadn’t fired him. Instead Franny had been placed on administrative leave. Told to take as long as he needed.

As he was leaving the office the captain had clapped him on the shoulder. “Ray told me what you did over there.” Franny cringed, waiting for the tally of all his sins and failures. “Kind of ironic, isn’t it? All these damn aces and it’s a nat that saves the day.”

“It wouldn’t have happened without all those aces.” He had almost left the office when he remembered and turned back. “What about Baba Yaga, sir?”

“D.A. won’t file charges. Lack of jurisdiction. And apparently a handful of jokers don’t rise to the level of a crime against humanity so Brussels won’t touch it either.”

“So she skates?”

“Looks that way.”

Franny had just shaken his head, but it gnawed at him. Filled every waking hour and even invaded his dreams driving away the gasping nightmares of Talas and the Dark God. In the brief intervals when he did sleep he alternated between terror and fury.

He had decided Baba Yaga deserved to know that Tolenka’s last thought was of her, and indeed his final word as well so he was back at the Jokertown Clinic. She hadn’t noticed him yet standing in the door of her room. She was dressed in a chic businesswoman’s skirt and jacket. There was a full set of Louis Vuitton luggage. She had clearly replenished her wardrobe.

Did the means justify the ends, Franny wondered as he watched her place a final item in the largest bag. Yes … probably when literally the fate of the world had hung in the balance, but—