“You have something of mine, Templeton,” Death whispered. “A spike.” He raised his arms, letting the cloak shift back and expose white skin. A spike was stuck through one arm. The other arm was bare, save for a bloody hole.

“It wasn’t my fault!” Templeton screamed. “They insisted! I don’t have it!”

“Where.”

“Sent by courier!” Templeton said. “To Dulsing! I don’t know more. Oh, please. Please! They demanded I recover the spike for them. I didn’t know it was yours! It was just a rusting piece of metal. I’m innocent! I’m…”

He trailed off, realizing that the fire had started crackling again. He blinked, focusing again on the window. It was empty. A… a dream after all? He turned and found Dechamp’s corpse still leaking blood on the floor.

Templeton whimpered and huddled down. He was honestly relieved when the constables burst into the room a short time later.

Wayne shucked the awful, heavy cloak and held up his arm, healing his wounds. Not much left in his metalmind. He was going to have to be sparing after this. Those bullet wounds earlier had taken a lot out of him.

“You didn’t need to actually cut holes in your arm, Wayne,” Marasi said, joining him in the garden—he’d trampled some very nice petunias to get to the window.

“Course I did,” Wayne replied, wiping away the blood. “You’ve gotta be authentic.” He scratched at his head, and shifted the wires that held two half spikes hovering in front of his eyes.

“Take that thing off,” Marasi said. “It looks ridiculous.”

“He didn’t think so,” Wayne said. Inside the house, the constables dragged Templeton Fig away. The information in the ledger Wayne had found should be enough to see him well and truly incarcerated. Poor chap. He didn’t really do anything wrong. You can’t steal from a person that’s already dead. But then, people were strange about their stuff. Wayne had given up on trying to figure out all their little rules.

He’d send the fellow some fruit in prison. Might make him feel better. “How was the accent?” he asked.

“Worked well enough.”

“I wasn’t sure how Death ’imself would sound, you know? I figured all important-like, like Wax when he’s tellin’ me to take my feet off the furniture. Mixed with some real old-soundin’ tones, like a grandfather’s grandfather. And grindy, like a man what is choking to death.”

“In fact,” Marasi said, “he’s quite articulate, and not at all ‘grindy.’ And the accent is strange—not like anything I’ve heard before.”

Wayne grunted, taking off his head spikes. “Can you do it for me?”

“What? The accent?”

Wayne nodded eagerly.

“No. Not a chance.”

“Well, next time you meet that guy, tell ’im he’s gotta come talk to me. I need to hear what he sounds like.”

“What does it matter?”

“I gotta hear,” Wayne said. “For next time.”

“Next time? How often do you expect you’ll be imitating Death?”

Wayne shrugged. “This is the fourth so far. So you never can tell.” He took the last swig of Dechamp’s brandy, then slung his cloak over his shoulder and started through the mists back toward the road.