Snuff deposited the Old Man across the back seat, knees folded. I sat by the man’s head, and Sveta perched over him and the area just behind the driver’s seat. The angry, staring-into-the-distance look on Sveta’s face wasn’t going away.

“Then, whether you invite me or not, it’s understandable if you don’t, you’re going to want to go talk to Cradle, Love Lost, or the idiot, to get information on the mercenaries that were hired.”

“Talk to Dragon at the same time,” I said. “Her tune might have changed.”

“It hasn’t, I’m betting,” Tattletale told me.

“She was entertaining the idea—”

“A little bit. But mostly she worries you’ve gone off the deep end, inventing a conspiracy.”

That stung.

“But,” Tattletale said, her voice gentler. “They’re getting closer to believing us. One more lead or bad coincidence and they might change their minds.”

“Let’s hope,” I said.

Tattletale seated herself and slammed the car door. Snuff started up the engine. “Let’s not hope. Let’s keep them in the dark and maybe even do stuff to help them believe you’re bonkers. Because the second they come around, Antares, whether it’s because we dish out that final clue or they find it while investigating on their own, that’s going to be when Teacher drops the hammer and this gets ugly. Soon. Within the next forty-five minutes soon.”

Black 13.10

“You’ve been doing this for years,” Tattletale said. “Uh huh. Yeah, no, I’m not going to say I don’t have some sympathy for you.”

She moved her head to one side.

“Be better, then. Be smarter. Be more mature. If he’s being a dildo then you do have Mrs. Bishop as your nuclear option.”

Tattletale looked at me in the rear-view mirror of the car.

My eyes dropped. The Old Man was draped across the back seat, braced by Sveta. Bruises crept along his arm and the side of his face, and my gloved fingers held a wad of sterile cotton swabbing Tattletale had had in the glove compartment against the wound. He’d been knocked out as part of the fall, and he stayed that way for seven minutes before stirring awake. Tattletale had looked in his eyes, then drugged him with another of the drugs in the glove compartment. Something to ease the pain and make it easier for him to sleep. My leg kept his head stable, while my other leg was a spot for my mask to rest on. Black with gold tracery, it stared at me, accusatory. Or maybe it was accusing of everything it looked at.