That's what I must have looked like. I know it was pretty much what I felt like. But there was no help for it. Maybe if I didn't stop to check for the ground underneath my feet, I'd keep going indefinitely. I looked away from Mab and tried to tend to my hand as best I could. It still throbbed, and disinfecting the wound was going to hurt a lot more. I doubted it would need sutures. A small blessing, I guess.

A manila envelope hit my desk. I looked up to see Mab drawing a pair of gloves onto her hands.

"What's this?" I asked.

"My request," she replied. "Within are the details of a man's death. I wish you to vindicate me of it by discovering the identity of his killer and returning what was stolen from him."

I opened the envelope. Inside was an eight-by-ten glossy black-and-white of a body. An old man lay at the bottom of a flight of stairs, his neck at a sharp angle to his shoulders. He had frizzy white hair, a tweed jacket. Accompanying the picture was an article from the Tribune, headlined LOCAL ARTIST DIES IN MIDNIGHT ACCIDENT.

"Ronald Reuel," I said, glancing over the article. "I've heard of him. Has a studio in Bucktown, I think."

Mab nodded. "Hailed as a visionary of the American artistic culture. Though I assume they use the term lightly."

"Creator of worlds of imagination, it says. I guess now that he's dead, they'll say all kinds of nice things." I read over the rest of the article. "The police called it an accident."

"It was not," Mab responded.

I looked up at her. "How do you know?"

She smiled.

"And why should you care?" I asked. "It isn't like the cops are after you."

"There are powers of judgment other than mortal law. It is enough for you to know that I wish to see justice done," she said. "Simply that."

"Uh-huh," I said, frowning. "You said something was stolen from him. What?"

"You'll know it."

I put the picture back in the envelope and left it on my desk. "I'll think about it."

Mab assured me, "You will accept this request, Wizard Dresden."

I scowled at her and set my jaw. "I said I'll think about it."

Mab's cat-eyes glittered, and I saw a few white, white teeth in her smile. She took a pair of dark sunglasses from the pocket of her jacket. "Is it not polite to show a client to the door?"

I glowered. But I got up out of the chair and walked to the door, the Faerie Queen's heady perfume, the narcotic scent of her enough to make me a little dizzy. I fought it away and tried to keep my scowl in place, opening the door for her with a jerky motion.

"Your hand yet pains you?" she asked.

"What do you think?"

Mab placed her gloved hand on my wounded one, and a sudden spike of sheer, vicious cold shot up through the injury like a frozen scalpel before lancing up my arm, straight toward my heart. It took my breath, and I felt my heart skip a beat, two, before it labored into rhythm again. I gasped and swayed, and only leaning against the door kept me from falling down completely.