And Winger was letting her little man be himself.

Usually it’s like she has her hand up his behind, using him for a sock puppet. I mumbled, ‘‘Must be the wonderful compliance device at work.’’

Not so. These people are just happy. Good things have been happening while you were away.

‘‘Good to know not everything will head for hell in a handbasket if I’m not there to manage it.’’

Old Bones sent,You have not had a good past few days.

‘‘There’s the understatement of the decade, Chuckles. Take a peek in here and see how they went.’’

He helped himself to a big dollop of Brother Garrett’s days of misery, sorting bits for processing in various minds. The man is becoming melodramatic as he approaches his elder years. Garrett, these past few days have been interesting but do not qualify for a place in your worst one hundred.

Melodramatic? Me?

Meantime, Tinnie worked the crowd, making sure everybody got a good look at the backside of her left hand. I snapped, ‘‘What the hell are you doing, Red?’’

Dean forestalled her by bustling in with a huge tray way overloaded with finger food. Singe was right behind with a teapot and a pitcher of beer. My mouth watered. I forgot Tinnie’s strange behavior.

My right hand was headed for my mouth, loaded with something made of meat and cheese tangled up around a sliver of sour pickle. Miss Tate managed a left-handed interception. I growled, ‘‘Hey! I’m trying to eat here. I’m starving.’’

‘‘What is it that you don’t see?’’

‘‘Huh?’’

That aura of psychic—or psychotic—amusement spread through the house again. Sour old Dean managed a full-bodied chuckle.

‘‘My hand, Malsquando. Right there in your face. What is it that you don’t see?’’

I felt the abyss opening under my feet but I couldn’t help myself. I said, ‘‘I don’t see why you keep waving it in everybody’s face.’’

The girl has a little more tolerance for my density than I usually admit. She took a couple of deep breaths and counted to ten thousand before she told me, ‘‘That’s because there’s something missing, dear heart.’’

I grunted. That seemed safe enough.

‘‘There’s this man who’s going around telling people I’m his fiancйe. But here I am, totally naked of any of the paraphernalia. Not to mention, he never bothered to ask my opinion on the subject.’’

The abyss has no bottom. It goes right on down, all the way, right out of this world into others where men blissfully shove their feet down their throats. Would I run into some blind fool falling the other way?

I would’ve expected a little more moral support from my dependents. Theydo depend on me to keep a roof over their heads.

I began to shake.

The full flavor had begun to take hold.

‘‘Look out, there!’’ Jon Salvation said. ‘‘He’s going to have a seizure. Or maybe he’s going into cardiac arrest.’’

Winger said, ‘‘He’s gonna try to skate out on a bad health excuse.’’

I met Tinnie’s eyes. I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. I tried. Hard. Though I don’t know what I wanted to say.

Anything coherent would have been useful.

She was merciful. She pushed my hand on toward my mouth. Food entered the gaping maw. ‘‘Chew, Malsquando. Chew. We’ll talk when we don’t have an idiot’s gallery kibitzing.’’

It took only a little of Tinnie having her own neck stuck out for her to back off. Some. For a while.

A reckoning was coming.

Now that the entertainment portion of the evening has ended, suppose we consider business?

I hadn’t come home to do anything but stuff my face, brood about getting snakebit, and hit the sack. But, yeah, oh yeah, now. Anything to distract me from ‘‘Where would we live?’’ and ‘‘What about babies?’’ and ‘‘Just how much responsibility does a man have to endure?’’ Not to mention ‘‘Why did you bail on everybody down there just when they were beginning to pick up the pieces?’’

There was a chance that these things were somehow related.

A picture is coming together. Thanks to Miss Winger, Mr. . . . Salvation, Barate Algarda, and Garrett’s observations. With invaluable contributions from Miss Penny Dreadful.

‘‘What? Come on, Chuckles. That street kid can’t have anything to do with this.’’

In fact, she can. As an indefatigable foot soldier in the campaign to collect information. That she was not there besideyou, flashing ax in hand, when the World came apart around you, does not lessen her contribution. Nor does that lessen the contributions of Miss Winger and Mr. Salvation, both of whom have done yeoman work.

‘‘Mrs.,’’ I said without thinking. ‘‘She’s a Mrs.’’ Winger had kids and a husband somewhere, just not in TunFaire.

Refrain from retailing trivia. And it is too late for regrets about having walked away when there was still much to be done and seen.

He had me there. Even trudging home, with Tinnie getting burned because of my sullen silence, I’d felt increasingly guilty about shoving off in the middle of everything. And that just after I’d begun worrying about what Max and Gilbey would do.

‘‘I had to catch my breath.’’ Feeble, of course.

Amusement.Perhaps. About Miss Dreadful. She is a reservoir of little-known myth and legend. Which I will share if you will relax. What is done is done. And there is nothing you can do about the other thing, either. Let us move on.

I grunted. And considered my company. Was Kyra under the influence of something besides the Weider elixer? Why was Kip’s hair such a mess?

The compliance device does not appear to be operating. I can only suppose that the younger Miss Tate shares a genetic flaw with her aunt.

A shot. ‘‘That’s lovely.’’ I shuffled in place. I had to do something. I had nerves so bad sparks should’ve been crackling off me. Tinnie just sitting there . . .

Singe chimed in with a total non sequitur. ‘‘Garrett, there was a message from a Mr. Jan. He says you need to come in for a fitting.’’

‘‘Ha!’’ A grand new distraction. I’d focus on worrying about how the old tailor would react to what had become of his loaner coat.

It didn’t work.

Miss Dreadful had no direct—or indirect—knowledge of the entity beneath the theater. But she has suggested a possiblelegendary creature that fits the body of data that we have developed.

‘‘Which would be what?’’ He was playing to the full gallery, setting himself up for plaudits.

Startled, I realized that I’d only thought that question. The scary elder Miss Tate, looking rattled herself, had offered the verbal version.

Inspiration. ‘‘Keep an eye on Kyra, sweetheart. She’s doing her damnedest to lead that boy into temptation.’’ The kid was too young to get caught in the kind of cleft stick that had me squeezed.

Tinnie puffed up like a big old toadie-frog, turned red— then exhaled. What Kyra was doing to Kip was hard to defend even employing the most acrobatic, convoluted female logic. If there was malice. Though I promise you, the boy wasn’t going to complain, either way.

Of course, he might be working a little magic of his own.

No, Garrett. I told you. The compliance device is silent. And the girl is not deliberately teasing. Both are acting their age. Can we get to business? Please?

‘‘Go. Talk to us. Legendary creatures.’’ I got to work on food and beer. Concentrating on the latter.

We may have found a dragon.

I sprayed pig-in-a-blanket. Dean barked at me. I ignored him. ‘‘No! You’re shitting me.’’

Not necessarily a dragon of legend. Not necessarily one of the absolute, lord of the scaly ones, slippery monsters of story. But an entity that fits the traditions, unseen.

When I think dragon I picture a big-ass flying thunder lizard tearing stuff up and starting fires. Big fires. Kind of like an oversize, reptilian Marine.