“You do not have a true name, and yet there is, as I have said, something. Or rather, the complete lack of something. Which is, in itself, rather something.”

“I know you’re trying to dumb it down for me, but I think you’ve gone a smidge too far.”

“My tests show nothing,” Nye said impatiently. “Absolutely no trace of magic within you. Zero. Even in the most mundane mortal, there’s a sliver of a trace. Not enough to ever activate or ever affect anything or be affected, but a sliver nonetheless. But within you, there is nothing.”

“So Darquesse took everything with her.”

“Yes. But that’s not important. The complete lack of magic may not necessarily indicate that there’s no magic within you. It may instead indicate that there’s something blocking you from magic.”

“But since I don’t have a true name—”

“Then you’re an empty vessel,” said Nye. Almost excitedly. “You are something unique. Something I’ve never seen before. And, like any empty vessel, you’re just waiting to be filled.”

“So how do I get … filled?”

“I do not know. As I said, all this is conjecture. I will know more after the autopsy.”

“I’m sorry,” said Valkyrie. “The what?”

“I’ve done all I can with your living body,” said Nye. “Once I’ve dissected you, I’ll know more.”

“I won’t be much use to you dead.”

“That’s what every living person says. They’re always wrong.”

“But there have to be more tests you—”

“This is why I do not like conversing with specimens on my table,” said Nye, interrupting her. “Arguments. Discussions. Appeals to my humanity. I am a Crengarrion. I am not human. I will now cut you up into little pieces that I will weigh and catalogue. You only interest me from this point on as a collection of body parts.”

“What about the soul?” Valkyrie asked. “The Nye in my reality was always looking for the soul. Don’t you want to do that?”

Nye leaned over her. “The soul? I found where the soul resides four years ago. Rest assured, I’ll be dissecting that also.”

Civet came back in. He walked stiffly. He looked terrified. “Professor …”

Nye turned to him. “Yes? What is it? What do you—?”

Civet was shoved sideways into the wall, and a silenced pistol gripped by a red hand was aimed straight into Nye’s startled face.

Nye raised its hands. “Wh-what is this?”

“What does it look like, you ridiculous creature?” Nefarian Serpine asked. “It’s a damn rescue.”

54

THE DEAL

n Valkyrie’s reality, Emmett Peregrine was a Teleporter who had been dead for years, killed by the Diablerie. In this reality, he was alive and well and waiting for them in the corridor outside Nye’s laboratory. With her stick in one hand, Valkyrie grabbed his arm and Serpine took hold of the other, and suddenly they were outside.