“I’m trying to think of the words. I liked that she reminded me of who I used to be. Who I wanted to be, back when I got started. I think I lost sight of all of that.”

“Aw,” Lookout said, leaning forward, hands on her ankles, with her legs crossed. “That’s sweet. You shouldn’t steal, though. Don’t do crime.”

“Uh huh,” he said, leaning back. He tried to seem casual, even while the light admonishment made him want to react, to leave. “Out of costume, she was a much quieter person. Like she saved up her energy for the performances when she put her mask on. I liked that part of it. She’d make dinner one night, I’d make it the next. We’d skip lunch, sometimes skip breakfast too, just to sleep in or do other things instead. The way we traded off on the chores and work, it’s like we took turns taking care of each other. It was calm. Even when we were in costume. But—”

“What about Skitter? Sorry, I interrupted you. What were you going to say?”

“It’s okay.” Brian paused. “What about her?”

“She was important to Chicken Little. And you and Skitter dated, Chastity told us.”

“It was a different period of my life, a different time in the city. We weren’t together for long. But she offered me support and she did it when things were worst. I think, if she’d stuck around, if I’d gotten cancer, or if we had another bad spell, she would have tried to help, no questions, no complaining. I don’t know if she would have been good at it, but… yeah. I’m probably being unfair to Cozen, thinking she would have left. Maybe she would have taken care of me for weeks or months, instead of one or two days at a time before it was my turn to do the chores and look after her.”

The smile had fallen from Lookout’s face. She tilted her head to one side. “You liked her. Cozen.”

“Year and a half. My longest relationship. We were together when the world ended.”

“You—” she said, at the same time he said, “And—”

“Go ahead,” she told him.

“It didn’t matter,” he told her, his voice echoing in the dark room with walls and floor of shadow.

The little girl smiled and laughed softly to herself, “What?”

“Maybe this is too heavy a way to explain it or say it,” he said. “I thought I’d approach you seriously, straightforwardly. I don’t want to say my experience is everyone’s or it’s what you should expect, it’s how I saw it.”

“What didn’t matter?” Lookout asked.

“My… at the end. I died fighting Scion and it wasn’t any harder or easier because I had someone I loved at the time.”

“But… no,” Lookout said.