“She’s dead, Isaac,” said Lemuel softly. “I’m sorry, mate. I really am. I’m sorry, but she’s gone.” He moved back. Isaac stood, stricken, shaking his head. His mouth opened as if he was trying to cry out. Lemuel was shaking his head slowly. He looked away from Isaac and spoke slowly and quietly, as if to himself.

“Why would he keep her alive?” he said. “It just . . . It just doesn’t make sense . . . She’s a . . . an added complication, that’s all. Something . . . something it’s easier to dispense with. He’s done what he needed to do,” he said, louder suddenly, raising his hand to gesticulate at Isaac. “He’s got you coming to him. He’s got revenge and he’s got you doing his bidding. He just wants you there . . . doesn’t matter how he gets it. And if he keeps her alive, there’s a tiny chance that she’d be trouble. But if he . . . dangles her like bait, you’ll come for her no matter what. Don’t matter if she’s alive.” He shook his head in sorrow. “There’s nothing in it for him not to kill her . . . She’s dead, Isaac. She’s dead.” Isaac’s eyes were glazing, and Lemuel spoke quickly. “And I’ll tell you this: the best way of getting your revenge is to keep those moths out of Motley’s hands. He won’t kill ’em, you know. He’ll keep them alive, so’s to get more dreamshit out of them.”

Isaac was stamping around the room now, shouting denials, now in anger, now misery, now rage, now disbelief. He rushed at Lemuel, began to beg with him incoherently, tried to convince him that he must be mistaken. Lemuel could not watch Isaac’s supplication. He closed his eyes and spoke over the desperate babble.

“If you go to him, ’Zaac, Lin won’t be any less dead. And you’ll be considerably more so.”

Isaac’s noises dried. There was a long, quiet moment, while Isaac stood and his hands shook. He looked over at Lucky Gazid’s corpse, at Yagharek standing silent and hooded in the corner of the room, at Derkhan hovering near him, her own eyes filling, at Lemuel, watching him nervously.

Isaac cried in earnest.

Isaac and Derkhan sat, arms draped over each other, sniffling and weeping.

Lemuel stalked over to Gazid’s stinking cadaver. He knelt before it, holding his mouth and nose with his left hand. With his right he broke the seal of scabbing blood that glued Gazid’s jacket closed, and rummaged inside its pockets. He fumbled, looking for money or information. There was nothing.

He straightened up, looked around the room. He was thinking strategically. He sought anything that might be useful, any weapons, anything to bargain with, anything he could use to spy.

There was nothing at all. Lin’s room was almost bare.