It’s a dead end, sir. This one’s had it and that one won’t talk. And just look at the dog. It’s his scent she followed. And now she’s grieving over him.”

“He’s not dead.”

They came in without knocking, or at least I did not hear them. Suddenly they were there. Gentlemen in suits. And a crippled dog dragging its hindquarters on a little two-wheeled cart. It has been strapped to it with a belt. A fat man holds the leash.

“He’s not dead,” I say again and this time my lips move with the words. I don’t want them to leave me alone again. Not while he—it—is still in the room.

The fat man hears me. He walks over to the water jug and pours me a glass. While he watches me drink he orders one of his men to hold a mirror to its mouth.

“I can hear ’im breathing,” I say. “He’s broken. But I can hear ’im breathing all the same.”

The fat man nods as though he understands, pulls up a chair and sits next to me.

“Tell me what happened here. We already know the half of it. Lady Naylor was here, and perhaps also her daughter. And a man came to visit, I should wager, a bookish man with a foreign accent.”

She nods.

“Do you live here alone?”

“My ’usband is away.”

“What about that boy over there?”

I do not look where he is pointing.

“He came here. I don’t know why. He hit me. But mostly he just held me. Held me close. His Smoke—” I break off. “He isn’t human.”

The fat man nods, pats my hand, and asks me gently worded questions. I answer a surprising number. Somehow, it is good to talk.

I do not tell them about my husband. Not about his condition, nor that he went along with her. Nor do I put into words what it has been like, sitting there, listening to it breathe, so faintly that half the time I convinced myself it was already dead. Sitting there, alone in the dark, listening, trying to pluck up the courage to cut its throat. I could have left, I suppose. It’s like it was when I was living with Father, yearning for escape. I could have left. Even before Tobias. But you never do, do you? You sit in the dark and endure.

They revive him. It does not take much. They stand over him, pouring water on his face, shout at him, get angry, wreath him in faint Smoke. The next moment he sits up. Like a jack-in-the-box.

The fat man bends down to him, asks question after question. It’s like his gut is filled with them. The one on the ground has no face anymore, just a swollen mess, the tongue disturbingly bright within its blackness. But he speaks clearly enough.