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money.
    My eyes sought a small piece of worked stone on the bookshelf that ran around the top of the wall of my study. Dylan had made it years ago when he was interested in stone carving. A smooth sphere fit snugly inside a larger sphere cut with Celtic knotwork. The inner sphere moved freely, and the knotwork had affirmations engraved in ogham runes. The one most easily read said “Life is a series of trust moments.” After our worst case together, he gave it to me. At the time, I thought he was being overly sentimental, but it was one of the few things I kept when I lost almost everything else.
    He had seen how a life could be snuffed out in a moment. Even though we hadn’t spoken to each other in a decade, he knew what had happened to me. And yet, the ease with which he talked, how he took for granted what he did, gave no hint of anxiety that it could all disappear. No hint he could end up like me or, worse, a dead homeless guy like Josef Kaspar.
    Maybe that was why Dylan had shown up. Briallen always said the Wheel of the World works the way It will. Sometimes It’s clear, sometimes puzzling, but It’s always what It is. Maybe It was showing me that I didn’t have that life anymore, but I still have a life. I still do for a living what I did before. Only I do it differently, without assuming essence abilities will make things right. I had only to engage my mind to figure out how to work with the more mundane tools I had now. But if I could do that and still have enough money to buy the couture sweater Dylan had worn tonight, I’d feel a helluva lot better about it.

4
    The Fey Guildhouse loomed over Park Square like an eccentric fortress constructed of New England brownstone. The building occupied an entire city block and rose a full twenty-seven stories above the street, peaking in several towers that in turn sprouted their own little turrets. A series of balconies and ledges staggered up the sides, taking in views of Boston Common to the north, the harbor to the east and south, and the Charles River to the west. The higher up you went, the more important you were. At least that’s the theory I used to subscribe to. Now I’m convinced the opposite is true.
    Gargoyles crammed every ledge, nook, and cranny of the old place. They clustered in the front portico, clinging to the pillars and the spines of the ceiling vaulting. Essence attracted them, and the Guildhouse vibrated with it. They especially liked the roof, where they basked in the updraft of the building, and the main entrance, where they savored the living essence of people going in and out.
    I paused under the dragon head above the main entrance. It’s big, intentionally threatening-looking, and not really a gargoyle. Maybe in the old, pre-Convergence sense, when all carvings of fantastic people and animals were called gargoyles. But the dragon had no animated spirit, and that’s what counts as a gargoyle these days. After Convergence, some of them, for want of a better word, woke up. No one knew why any more than anyone knew why Convergence happened. The ’goyles talked to people sometimes, strange mental communications that seemed prophetic but frustratingly obscure.
    What made me stop, though, was not the gargoyles but the lack of them. Entire sections of the ceiling were bare. No one ever saw a gargoyle move, but they did move somehow. I had a hunch they were checking out the residual essence up at Forest Hills Cemetery. It had to be irresistible to them. More were almost certainly down in the Weird, tasting the strange drafts of twisted essence left over from the control spell.
    The Guildhouse’s stark entry hall felt chill from lack of sufficient heat. It was the reverse in the summer. It’s not that the Guild can’t afford to heat and cool the monstrosity. It’s that they don’t want people feeling too comfortable as they wait for help. And wait they did. More people than ever had problems only the Guild could solve, which meant more people