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loathed them. They ran soup kitchens. They ran shelters. They ran free clinics. They had made a bid for control of TunFaire’s grand, totally corrupt charity hospital, the Bledsoe. They did a lot of good for a lot of people. Their healers were minor magic users. The Hill turned a blind eye to their unlicensed operations because they confined themselves to charity work.
    Cynicism being my nature, when I thought about the Children, I mostly wondered where they got their funding.
    Saving the life of a friend of the Queen of Darkness might shake loose a serious donation. Unless she decided to have the healer drowned so he wouldn’t talk about Morley’s condition or whereabouts.
    “Excuse me,” nameless round character said. Nobody made introductions. He pushed through and plopped his carpetbag down near the head of the bed. He began examining what was left of my friend.
    I urged Belinda over to the window. I used my left thumb and forefinger to measure the gap before I shut it again. “As soon as he can survive it, I want to move him to my place.”
    “Factory Slide or Macunado Street?”
    “Macunado. Nobody will come after him there.”
    “I’d rather move him out to my place in the country.”
    I didn’t argue. There’s no point with Belinda. She would go on doing things her way while empires collapsed around her. This time, though, she could be right. The Contague residence didn’t have a live-in Loghyr but it was a fortress. The facilities and amenities were superior.
    “It could be a long time before he’s in shape to travel that far.”
    I have visited the Contague digs under a range of circumstances. A man could live comfortably there. He could also go in and never be seen again.
    Belinda told me, “He won’t go anywhere before he’s ready.” One pallid finger, tipped by a long carmine nail, tapped the windowsill.
    I nodded.
    A patch of something lay there, glistening. Something drying out. It reminded me of the trail left by a migrating slug.
    I whispered, “Send me a pound of salt.”
    She might have been Belinda Contague but she was a girl. She didn’t know about salt and slugs. Puzzled, she said, “All right.”
    The healer announced, “I’ve done what I can. He won’t die. But he will be a long time getting back to normal. He may have been stabbed with cursed blades.”
    That smelled religious, which made no sense. Morley had enemies who would happily poke him full of holes if they could get away with it. They weren’t religious wackos, nor were they so abidingly nasty as to go after his soul as well as his life.
    Belinda concluded, “Must be a woman.” No man was that vindictive.
    “I don’t know what’s been going on in his life. I see him only when we stop in at the Grapevine after a show. You know my situation.”
    “I tried to talk to Tinnie. I wanted her to know what’s happening.”
    I didn’t like her tone.
    “I was polite and respectful, Garrett. She was not.”
    I really didn’t like her tone. Tinnie could get hurt. “She’s really insecure . . .”
    “I just tried to explain the situation. She didn’t endear herself. It wasn’t about her.”
    Almost certainly my dearly beloved had failed to become more intimate with fierce pain primarily because she was my dearly beloved. Could she be made to understand that anymore?
    Tinnie couldn’t have changed that much. How could she? She was brilliant. She understood the real world. She had shared its harsh realities with me. She could figure things out. She had discovered, years ago, that Tinnie Tate was not the center, fulcrum, or favorite child of the universe.
    I had this chill like it was midnight on the boulevard, and I was fixing to whistle my way past the graveyard.
    I had an epiphany. “We’re seeing symptoms, not the disease.”
    Belinda grunted, more interested in watching slime dry.
    I stopped worrying about my troubles and checked my pal. His color and breathing had improved. He looked ready to wake up.
    The