Murphy was still talking, her voice steady and soothing. I dimly realized, a minute later, that it was the tone of voice you use with crazy people and frightened animals, and that I was breathing hard and fast despite the lack of any exertion to explain it.

“It’s all right, Harry,” she said. “He’s dead. You can let go of me.”

That was when I realized that my left arm had pulled Murphy tight against me, drawing her across my body and away from the corpse as I’d gotten ready to do…whatever it was I had been about to do. She was, at the moment, more or less sitting across my lap. Wherever she was touching me, I was warm. It took me a moment to figure out exactly why it was a good idea to let her go. Eventually, though, I did.

Murphy slid carefully away from me, shaking her head. “God,” she said. “What happened to you, Harry? What did they do to you?”

I slumped, too tired to move my foot out of the water, too tired to try to explain that I’d failed to stop the demons from carrying away a little girl.

After a moment of silence Murphy said, “That’s it. I’m getting you to a doctor. I don’t care who these people think they are. They can’t just waltz into town and tear apart my—” She broke off suddenly. “Hngh. What do you make of this, Harry?”

She took a step down into the water and bent over.

“No!” I snapped.

She froze in place.

“Jesus, those things get predictable,” I muttered. “Silver coin just fall out of the corpse’s fingers?”

Murphy blinked and looked at me. “Yes.”

“Evil. Cursed. Don’t touch it.” I shook my head and stood up. The wall had to help me, but I made it all the way up, thinking out loud on the way. “Okay, we’ve got to make sure there’s no more of these lying around, first thing. I’m already carrying one. We limit the risk. I carry them all for now. Until they can be properly disposed of.”

“Harry,” Murphy said in a steady voice. “You’re mumbling, and what’s coming through is making a limited amount of sense.”

“I’ll explain. Bear with me.” I bent over and found another stained denarius gleaming guiltily in the water. “Moron,” I muttered at the coin, then picked it up with my gloved hand and put it in my pocket along with the other one. In for a penny, in for a pound, ah hah hah.

Damn, I’m clever.

Footsteps sounded, brisk and precise, and Luccio walked into view beside Gard. There was a subtle difference in Gard’s body language toward Luccio, something a shade more respectful than was there before. The captain of the Wardens was wiping her sword clean on her grey cloak—blood wouldn’t stain it, which made it handy for such things. Luccio paused for a moment upon seeing me, her expression carefully guarded, then nodded. “Warden. How are you feeling?”