Five minutes ago he’d felt so empty it was like he’d never cast a spell again, but there was power in fear, and in anger, and he got to his feet. He felt like he might be able to get a spell out of it, but before he could try Betsy took three running steps and launched herself at Lionel like a big cat—the knife must have given her a whole suite of powers, strength as well as speed and protection. Lionel turned quick and got off another burst, but the knife ate them up effortlessly, and then she was too close to shoot. They waltzed drunkenly around the pool table, Lionel grunting as she butchered him standing up.

Curiously, there was no blood. The knife met very little resistance—it sliced up through his torso, down through his collar bone, then she forced it deep into his chest. It went through him like a wire through wet clay. The next cut took his head off.

It fell and rolled through the leaves. It didn’t speak, but its eyes blinked. The stump of the neck looked like gray stone.

“Huh,” Betsy said, standing over the headless corpse. “Golem. It figures.”

Huh. Though it seemed like a notable fact that she hadn’t known he wasn’t human before she started murdering him. Only now did Betsy start breathing hard, like it was all catching up with her at once: the job, the flight, the fall, the killing, the case, the whole comprehensive fiasco.

“Where’s the money?” Stoppard asked.

“There isn’t any,” Quentin said.

It was catching up with him too. They’d been blindsided by the monks and then double-crossed twice: first by Betsy, then by the bird. It must have planned to kill them all along instead of paying them off. There never had been any money. He was farther back than when he started. Farther from home. Farther from Alice.

Though they did have the case, or whatever was left in it, unless the bird was coming back for it. For now it was gone; Quentin hadn’t even seen it go.

Betsy jumped down from the pool table, and her knees almost buckled when she landed. All the strength had gone out of her.

“I thought they’d try that.” She sounded weary and, for the first time since he’d met her, very young. She couldn’t have been more than a couple of years into her twenties. “Figures. Never trust anything without hands. Or with hands for that matter.”

“Thank you,” Stoppard said. “You saved my life.”

“Eyes are up here.” Betsy pointed. “But you’re welcome.”

“What is that thing?” Quentin said.

“This?” Betsy held up the knife, studying its edge. “This is why I’m here. This is what I’ve always wanted. This is a weapon for killing gods.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Have you ever met a fucking god?”