No wonder Radul Segesvar was having a hard time coming to terms with what I’d done. Told this tale of muddled loyalties and blown-off course rerouting, the man who’d come to him two years previously for backing would have laughed out loud in disbelief.

No, you wouldn’t have laughed.

You would have stared, cold with detachment as you barely listened, and thought about something else. About the next New Revelation slaughter, blood on the blade of a Tebbit knife, a steep-sided pit out in the Weed Expanse and a shrill screaming that goes on and on …

You would have shrugged the story away, true or not, content with what you had instead.

But Koi drank it in without a word. When I paused and looked at him, he asked no questions. He waited patiently and once, when I seemed to have stalled, he made a single, gentle gesture for me to continue. Finally, when I was done, he sat for a while and then nodded to himself.

“You say she called you names when she first came back.”

“Yes.” Envoy recall lifted them from the depths of inconsequential memory for me. “Odisej. Ogawa. She thought I was one of her soldiers, from the Tetsu battalion. Part of the Black Brigades.”

“So.” He looked away, face indecipherable. Voice soft. “Thank you, Kovacs-san.”

Quiet. I exchanged glances with Brasil. The surfer cleared his throat.

“Is that bad?”

Koi drew breath as if it hurt him.

“It isn’t helpful.” He looked at us again and smiled sadly. “I was in the Black Brigades. Tetsu battalion wasn’t part of them, it was a separate front.”

Brasil shrugged. “Maybe she was confused.”

“Yes, maybe.” But the sadness never left his eyes.

“And the names?” I asked him. “Do you recognise them?”

He shook his head. “Ogawa’s not an uncommon name for the north, but I don’t think I knew anyone called that. It’s hard to be sure after all this time, but it doesn’t chime. And Odisej, well,” a shrug, “there’s the kendo sensei, but I don’t think she had a Quellist past.”

We sat in silence for a little while. Finally, Brasil sighed.

“Ah, fuck.”

For some reason, the tiny explosion seemed to animate Koi. He smiled again, this time with a gleam I hadn’t seen in him before.

“You sound discouraged, my friend.”

“Yeah, well. I really thought this might be it, you know. I thought we were really going to do this.”

Koi reached for the plates and began to clear them onto the ledge behind his shoulder. His movements were smooth and economical, and he talked as he worked.

“Do you know what day it is next week?” he asked conversationally.

We both blinked at him.