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come back. No matter how hard he scrubbed, no matter how much air he blew through the place, he would never get rid of the black splotch on the floor or the acrid stench—not completely. Then there were the pits melted into the asphalt surface of Elk Street, leading up to the saloon: pits shaped just like footprints. They would always be there, reminders of the burnt man. Once you were marked, Travis knew, you could never forget.
    However, he didn’t tell Deirdre what he thought. She had been an amazing help these last three days, an unexpected source of light in the midst of this darkness.
    “There’s a fan up in the rafters in the storeroom,” he said. “I’ll get it.”
    He came back with the fan a few minutes later, a bit grimier for the effort, and found Deirdre arranging chairs and wiping down tables. The saloon’s door stood open, but no customers had come through, only hot air and dust. Travis put the fan in the window and turned it on, but it only seemed to blow the grit around.
    “Don’t you have to be at the Medieval Festival?” he said as he helped Deirdre pull a table away from the wall.
    She grabbed a chair in each hand and swung them into place. “Just on the weekends.”
    “Are you sure? It’s not like I paid you enough to do all this. I don’t want you to miss out on making some money.”
    She dusted off her hands. “With this heat, there isn’t much at the festival to miss. People with sunstroke aren’t the best tippers.” Her voice grew quiet. “Besides, it’s not me you need to worry about.”
    Deirdre glanced at a corner, and Travis followed her gaze. So someone had come to the saloon after all.Travis sighed, then approached the small table in the corner.
    “Max, you should be home. What are you doing here?”
    Max grinned his hound-dog grin. “I wasn’t sure you could handle the place on your own, Travis. So I thought I’d come down and make sure everything was all right.” His expression tightened into a grimace, and he gripped his right wrist. The hand was mummified in white bandages.
    “Max …”
    “It’s all right, Travis. Really.” Max unclenched his fingers from his wrist. “I just … I just didn’t want to be home by myself.”
    Travis drew in a breath, then nodded. It was when Travis was alone that he heard the burnt man’s words most clearly. But the pain written across his partner’s usually cheerful face troubled him. Somehow, Max’s hand had been badly burned when he touched the man in black. By the time they got him to the Castle County clinic his entire palm had blistered. Now sweat sheened Max’s face, but despite the heat he was shivering. He was feverish—he needed to rest.
    Or was there something else that might help Max? An idea came to Travis, along with a memory. He saw Melia, huddled in a blanket outside the heap of rubble that had been the White Tower of the Runebinders. Falken had made a brew for Melia, and Travis remembered how it had eased her shivering.
    He glanced at Deirdre. “I’ll be back in a minute. I have … I have to get something.”
    Deirdre met his gaze, then nodded. Max only stared into space.
    Travis headed for the back room, then bounded up a steep staircase to his apartment above the saloon. The long, narrow room was stuffy; heat radiated from the pressed-tin ceiling. Travis moved to a scuffed bureau, leaned against it, and shoved it away from thewall. He stuck a finger into a knothole in one of the wall’s rough-cut pine boards, then with a tug pulled free a section of the board. Beyond was a dark space.
    Travis reached into the cubbyhole and pulled out a tightly wrapped bundle. He rose, set the bundle on the tarnished brass bed, and unrolled it. Inside were a pair of mud-stained breeches, a green tunic patched in half a dozen places, a silvery cloak, and a stiletto with a single crimson gem set into its hilt. Travis brushed his fingers across the road-worn garments. It seemed a lifetime ago he had worn them,