People still knew things they hadn’t told me.

Something passed between the Windwalker and her father. A silent argument, the bottom line of which was that she wasnot going to be quiet.

Another bizarre angle to that relationship. Silent communication.

Not the same as us. They are just close. And, after a reflective pause,But a gap seems to be opening. I caution you, urgently, not to yield to temptation.

I glanced at Tinnie. ‘‘I don’t think you need to worry.’’

I must. I am at the mercy of human nature. Of which you demonstrate an abundant excess.

Algarda got right back on his horse. ‘‘She has a point. The best thing that could happen would be for this dragon to go back to sleep. It would seem that they do sleep for geological ages.’’

Tinnie said, ‘‘Maybe they’re waiting for something. Maybe they have a whole different sense of time and ten thousand years is like a few hours to us. Or maybe they’re booby traps. Like for gods, or something. But once in a while some idiot finds a way to trip into their trigger line.’’

That’s my gal. Escalating the whole damned thing into the realm of the divine. Me, being me, I wound up to spout something about the immorality of us passing our troubles to generations not yet born.

A dozen staring eyes brought the urge under control.

Me making the argument would be weak, anyway. The great philosophical thread tying my life together is, put off till tomorrow whatever doesn’t absolutely have to be done today.

The best course, indeed, based on the evidence available. Assuming we want to return to the situation that obtained a month ago. So we must do what we have been doing. Only more effectively. Mr. Prose.

The formal address tumbled off into limbo.

Kip!

The boy yelped. And flinched away from Kyra. Betraying a guilty conscience simply by thinking he needed to open some space. «What?» In a breathless panic.

You do understand that primary responsibility for events in the theater and its environs lies with the Faction? That it was your ill-considered experimentation that caused this dragon to stir?

Being a teen, Kip was inclined to argue. But the pressure of the eyes was too much for him, too. ‘‘Yeah. I guess.’’ He scratched his noggin.

Then you and the Faction are obligated to make sure nothing you may have left lying around, or, more particularly,anything you might have sneaked out and squirreled away, in any way exacerbates the situation.

When you’re dead and don’t have to pause for breath, you can reel off sentences like that.

Do I make myself plain? Do you understand?

That is what the gallery overheard. I was sure there was more communication on a private level.

Kip’s surrender was meek and complete. I half expected the ancient formula ‘‘It shall be done.’’

Excellent. Going forward from this moment Miss Winger and her associate will accompany you everywhere. For your protection.

Winger received instructions on a private level.

Kevans is partially responsible for this problem, too.

I grumbled, ‘‘We already established that we can blame everything on the Faction.’’

Barate Algarda responded on behalf of Family Algarda. ‘‘Kevans will cooperate. Cypres. I believe Zardoz is the one who’ll have to make this all right.’’

‘‘Yes, sir. Zardoz and Teddy. And Mutter. And Slump and Heck and Spiffy.’’

I said, ‘‘We might see if John Stretch can find a few more rats to put down there. Just to ferret out any dead-ender bugs. Or any recent hatchlings.’’

You might consider speaking more carefully in this company,Garrett. Miss Winger being no less dangerous than the Algardas.

I might, indeed. I’d been focused on what John Stretch had said about the rats likely being unwilling to go down under again. I should have been thinking about guarding his secret. Winger has a huge mouth. And no telling what Hill types would try if they got control of somebody who can master rats.

They were all gone, including Tinnie, who insisted she couldn’t trust Winger and the Remora to properly chaperone two reekingly hormonal teens. Which made sense. The part about not trusting Winger.

I didn’t remind her that she hadn’t been much older than Kyra when we’d met. Of course, nothing more than a bad case of bugged eyes on my part came of that. Tinnie Tate was my good buddy Denny’s tasty young cousin. Practically family. She and his sister Rose were both off-limits. At the time.

Times changed. Tinnie and Rose grew up. Rose turned wicked. Denny got himself killed, accidentally. Tinnie and I locked horns during the cleanup and got something going that neither of us has shaken since. No matter what distractions turned up.

I drew me a pitcher of Weider’s most potent dark and retreated to the solitude of my little office. Which I share with the memory of one of my most potent distractions, Eleanor.

I filled my mug. I turned my chair. I stared at the magical painting. ‘‘What do you think, sweetheart? Is it time Tinnie and I go to the next page?’’

The artist who painted Eleanor was an insane genius, slave to a powerful inner sorcery. All his work had been charged to crackling with magic. His portrait of Eleanor fleeing the horror of her past was his ultimate masterpiece. He poured bottomless love and hatred on top of everything else that made his works objects of such power and dread.

He’s long gone. The magic in his work began to bleed away the night of his murder. But its connection to the soul of long-lost Eleanor will never fade to nil.

The painting is never quite the same when I come to it.

Eleanor is my moral and emotional coach, crutch, and mirror. More so than the big lump in the other room. Who had troubles of his own tonight.

He’d had almost no luck picking brains. The most interesting people all had the split personality thing going. What he could read made no sense. The heads that were open contained nothing of interest. So now he was sulking and trying to work out what had happened.

Everybody, including my self-proclaimed demigod of a partner, insists that Eleanor doesn’t exist outside my imagination. I’m content with that. It’s even true, in its way.

Their truth or mine, Eleanor does exist. We communicate.

Reflection set some thoughts in motion. Like some multiple-minded Loghyr I fiddled with those while Eleanor helped me weigh the pros and cons of what looked likely to be Garrett’s next big adventure.

I asked, ‘‘How come I always turn melancholy when we get together?’’

She made me understand that melancholy was the price I paid, here, because the only person I could share my inner truths with comfortably was on the other shore.

I couldn’t argue with that. Everybody on this side has the power to judge and down-thumbs me. Even Singe, who comes near being as comfortable as Eleanor.

Note that with me outside his little fiefdom the Dead Man didn’t horn in. Not once. Might not even be eavesdropping.

Probably wasn’t.

Almost certainly wasn’t.

I’ve known Old Bones longer than Tinnie and almost as long as Morley. I live with him. I drown in him, sometimes. Yet I know him less well than my best friend or the light of my life.

Somebody came pounding on the door. I didn’t respond. Singe and Dean had gone to bed. After a while the Dead Man paused in his ruminations long enough to sendOur would-be visitor was Colonel Block. He had business reasonsfor being here, but his principal motive was a need for contact with persons not one hundred percent vile. A lonely man, the colonel.

I had no wiseass response. In my mood of the moment I could only empathize with Westman Block, a good man doing his best in dreadful circumstances. ‘‘So what business reason did he have for an excuse?’’ He’d as much as admitted having rifled the good man’s mind.