“Penetrating questions from someone I don’t know all that well.”

“You really are your mother’s daughter, hm?” he asked.

“Can I verify you? Can you tell me things only you would know?”

“You had a stuffed lion, once.”

I gave him one nod.

“I remember…” his voice was almost wistful. “Maybe it was Crystal, but I think it was you. You were small, no older than my kids are now. You were lying on the floor of the living room, and your parents had a horrible carpet, like a scrub brush you’d keep by the sink. You stared up at the ceiling and you said, over and over again, ‘I wish I was a superhero’. With conviction and emphasis and constant repetition, sometimes yelling it, as if you could make it happen with sheer force of will and determination. Sometimes you’d pound your fist on the floor.”

I smiled. “I almost forgot that.”

He wore no smile. Just a bit of a sad expression.

“Well, you’re verified, I think,” I told him. “You’re my uncle or you’re a very good mind reader, and if you’re that good a mind reader, there’s nothing I can do anyway.”

He nodded.

“Crystal’s in my corner,” I said. I glanced back. A few people had vacated the church, and there was nobody really in earshot, so long as we spoke quietly. “Everyone else has kind of let me down.”

There was a bit of an awkward silence.

“Sutures,” he warned me, holding up the curved needle. “I’m a little out of practice.”

I could have taken over, doing the task, but I kind of didn’t want to leave him with nothing to do. I felt like he might walk away. I shifted position to give him better access to my side. The skin at my ribs hurt the most.

“Are you happy?” I asked him.

“The world is ending.”

“But… before that. Or past that.”

“Reasonably happy,” he told me. “I tried retiring. Turns out that if you neglect your powers—”

“You lose control,” I finished.

“Yeah. My power became hair-trigger. Almost like it was ready to go off if I sneezed. I made a deal with the local PRT. Helping the police, someone to watch the back door when the police kick in the front. I see in the dark, so I sometimes catch things. Couple of times a month.”

“And after Gold Morning?”

“Tent cities, protecting the area. We only got a place to stay last month. Now everything’s in five boxes in another tent.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugged, and he did it with a languid ease, the movement of his shoulders not affecting the dexterity of his fingers. “You’ve had a rough time, I hear.”

“What have you heard?” I asked him. It was me who tensed a bit.

“Brockton Bay had its trials. New Wave stuck it out in one of the most talked about areas, then disbanded. I was—I was horribly sorry to hear about Eric and Neil.”