“Find another way if you want my help,” Carn said. “Sorry, Lord of Loss, Marquis, I can’t support this.”

“Step away, then,” Lord of Loss said. “Stay in sight. No phone calls.”

“I’ve lost your trust so easily?” Carn asked.

“My trust isn’t the question,” Lord of Loss said. “Theirs is. I trust you enough, but I can’t have their mistrust for you or yours for them disturb business.”

Carn hesitated. Narrowed eyes swept over all of us. He walked off a distance, to one of the large rocks in a front lawn that served as a roost. He sat on it, not facing us.

“I know this woman with the glasses and black hair,” Lord of Loss said. “She was popular with several of the people who had cabins in the same area. Usually they kept to themselves and wanted their isolation, but she ran poker games twice a week and most attended.”

“That’s a potential list of people who could have ties to her and the greater operation,” I said.

“One that exists entirely in my head. I won’t give you that list. I’ll call and inquire myself,” Lord of Loss said.

“That would help,” Capricorn said.

It helped, but it left me less sure of Lord of Loss and of this stage in things.

“The investigation hasn’t moved forward, has it?” Marquis asked.

“We made some significant progress sharing information just now,” Capricorn said.

“I didn’t mean here. I meant media, government, and courts,” Marquis said. “Any progress? Answers from those in power?”

I shook my head. “No news. They aren’t naming culprits, which is weird. People need that closure.”

“Pay attention to that,” Marquis said.

He said that, and I felt a chill as the sound of his voice echoed with memory.

On the battlefield after Gold Morning. Amy. My traitorous, mutilated heart had soared on recognizing her.

She’d veered between cultivated confidence and being distraught. I hadn’t recognized any of the faces she’d shown me. I didn’t recognize the voices.

Here, I could match Amy’s voice from back then. I recognized the cadence, and the confidence.

She’d picked it up from being around Marquis.

I’d claimed there was no real connection and now it was harder to defend that claim. It was a stupid, mindless link between past and present, and I still felt chilled.

I couldn’t even remember what he’d said just now, or the conversation before it.

I was saved from embarrassing myself only by Lord of Loss stating, “That one arrived last night and hasn’t left today. They’ve been here for a little while.”

He was indicating the phone with the pictures, which Marquis was holding up for him to look down on.

Capricorn took a step forward. “Which? May I approach?”