We started our search at the Hall of Records, where Elliot worked, but the doors were sealed. Then we headed to the small flat where Lorencz lived alone in squalor, but it was sealed, too.
“Maybe she’s back in Ankham,” I muttered as we stepped back out on the street. Snow drifted down from the bale-colored sky, glowing eerily in the Pall. “She never said much about her childhood, but that ridiculous hairstyle says Ankham killkid through and through.”
“We haven’t tried Elliot’s apartment yet,” Michael said.
“I don’t know where he lives.”
“I do.” He began to walk. I had to hurry to catch up.
“You do? Since when have you been hanging around Lorencz’ boyfriend?”
“I asked him to help me compile some records while I was blind.”
“In his apartment?”
“He had some of the books I needed there, so he invited me up.”
“You know Lorencz has a jealous streak a mile wide.”
“She has no reason to be jealous of me,” my cousin protested.
“No?” I mulled over the periodic social events in which our paths had crossed. “I never noticed you having any preferences.”
“That is none of your business,” he said, almost primly.
“How often did you visit him?”
“A few times.”
“He must keep a lot of books in his apartment.”
“Yes, he does.” My cousin sounded irritable. “Look, just because you imagine having sex with everyone you meet —”
“Was Axton with you?”
“Of course he was! I could hardly walk through Cislunar blind.”
“Better make sure Lorencz knows that.”
Michael huffed.
“…Are we going to find him next?” he asked. “Axton?”
“Him or Croix. I don’t care which.”
Michael stopped.
“I think this is the street. It looks different but … I think this is it.”
If this part of bale-Cislunar was anything like the real city, Elliot lived in a ramshackle building not far from the Markets. His neighborhood looked better than Lorencz’s. Michael led us up a narrow staircase and into a hall. One of the doors hung open. The wood of the door and the paint along the wall was blackened and blistered — Lorencz had been here, all right.
“Let me go first,” I said, grabbing Michael’s arm. He yanked it away.
“Why?”
“I know her better than you do.”
Michael hesitated, then gave a reluctant nod. I stepped inside.
Elliot’s flat was small, at least in this version of Cislunar, and its walls had been scorched dark. Balefire — enough of a call to burn hot and fast, but not enough to ignite a mundane blaze. Everything was charred, but nothing was destroyed.
Lorencz sat on a chair by a bed, holding a kitchen knife. She’d slung her firefighting coat over the back of the chair and rolled up the sleeves of her soot-stained shirt. Blood ran down the length of her arms. As I watched, she slowly, methodically sliced herself again, drawing the knife through her flesh with masochistic satisfaction. A body laid on the bed in one corner, burned but still recognizable.
I turned and walked back into the hall. Michael gave me a worried look.
“She killed Elliot,” I reported.
“What?” Michael lunged forward and I grabbed his shoulder.
“Calm down. It’s just a bale illusion.”
He stopped, still looking shaken.
“But — but if she’s the kind of person who —”
“We’re all ‘the kind of person who.’ Everyone can commit murder under the right circumstances.”
Michael’s jaw set. He’d always been desperate to think the best of humanity. I can’t imagine why, given our families. I decided to tackle the subject from a different direction.
“We’re across the Line. The place drives people balemad, remember? When you go mad, you curl up into a ball. When Lorencz goes mad, she burns things. Charging in there and feeding her insanity by shouting accusations isn’t going to help.”
Michael took a deep breath, still looking upset.
“How did she kill him?”
“Balefire. How else?” I gave him a long look. “Stay out here.”
“No. Elliot’s my friend. I want to know what she thinks she did to him.”
“If you forget this is all imaginary and try to attack her, I’m going to stop you, and you might get hurt.”
“I won’t forget.”
I shrugged, releasing him. He stepped around me and inside. I followed.
“Oh, no,” he breathed, looking around with horror. His eyes fell on Elliot and he froze. I grabbed a chair and placed it next to Lorencz’s, sitting down.
“You know you’ve crossed the Line, right?” I asked, conversationally.
She lifted the knife from another cut. Blood was dripping from her arm and soaking into her trousers. I wondered if the cuts were real and if they’d remain when we crossed the Line again. Same odds as Michael’s sight, I supposed.
“I didn’t mean to,” she said in a listless voice. “It was an accident.”
“Nobody calls balefire by accident.” I pulled her coat off the back of her chair and draped it over the Elliot-thing’s face and upper torso. Might stirred. “Look at me.”
“Why?” She turned, letting the knife dangle from her bony fingers. “Got some sage advice to offer? A few pearls of wisdom from one murderer to another?”
“You’ve got a long way to go before you can even dream about comparing yourself to me.” I pulled the knife out of her loose grip, wrinkling my nose. “You never struck me as suicidal. I thought you had more guts than that.”
“I was going to cut my wrists. But I chickened out.” She shrugged, looked at the coat, and then back at me. “I guess I am a coward.”
“Guess you are.” I tossed the knife across the apartment. It clattered into a corner. “Or maybe some part of your brain realizes that none of this is real and is trying to keep you from doing something stupid.”
“Not real?” She gestured to the bed with a bloody arm.
“It’s a bale illusion. A lie. A little slice of your personal hell.”
“Yzyrchye sent us here,” Michael spoke up, still looking upset but doing his best to rally. “Remember? We were thrust across the Line when Far appeared. Yzyrchye’s trying to drive us crazy.”
Lorencz smiled without humor.
“It’s doing a good job.”
I sighed.
“Michael, get rid of the body.”
The coat flattened and the entire room rippled as Michael tried to shift the scene. For a moment everything was murky, suspended in potential. I glanced at my cousin and saw the strain on his face as he fought Lorencz for control. The room snapped back into focus. The Watch headquarters on Bitch Street. We sat on benches next to the cells.
“Not my choice,” Michael gasped, wiping sweat from his face.
“Lorencz’s always been stubborn,” I said, realizing I was back my Watch uniform. At least it was clean. I looked at my partner. “You have a punishment complex, Lorencz. Under other circumstances, I might take advantage of that, but we don’t have the time. Although I’m a little surprised you didn’t materialize yourself inside the cell.”
She shrugged, her eyes still dead.
“Maybe I’m too much of a coward to put myself in jail, too. So, what do we do now? Are you going to arrest me or tell me how to kill better next time?”
“Why’d you kill him?”
“He was cheating on me.”
“Yeah? Who was the lucky girl?” I glanced at Michael, who took a step backward, shaking his head in denial.
“I don’t know.” Lorencz’s fists clenched. “I don’t know. But there was an extra cup there, on the table. And I could smell something — a man’s cologne. When I asked who’d been there, Elliot clammed up. Said it wasn’t my business.” His voice dropped to a fierce whisper. “Got angry and tried to hit me.”
I felt a spell of dizziness. I passed a hand over my face, annoyed.
“This is not my fucking hell,” I hissed to whatever might be listening.
“And in retaliation you burned him to death?” Michael’s face was filled with loathing. “That’s —”
“Shut up,” I snapped. “A man who’s still obsessing over a dead kitten doesn’t get to pick on anyone else’s weaknesses.”
“Tegeus, you —”
“Shut up.” I turned to Lorencz, still angry. “You’re a Watch detective. What evidence did you have?”
“I saw enough. I knew. Someone else had been in her apartment.”
I slapped her and stood up. Anger kindled in her eyes and she jumped to her feet, fists flying. I caught her wrist and twisted it the wrong way until she dropped to one knee, wincing.
“Listen, idiot,” I said, keeping her close enough to think twice about balefiring me. “When Yzyrchye sucked us across the Line, Far built a simulacrum of Cislunar to help his new bitch keep her mind intact. But the simulacrum is made out of bale and you two sentinels are filtering it through your own memories and fears and whatever other trash is rattling around in your heads — and some of that trash is coming alive and fucking you up.”
“That’s why sentinels go mad when they cross the Line,” Michael said, his troubled expression clearing. “If we’d been brought across the Line without Far’s construct providing some level of stability, our every thought and impulse would take shape. Of course we’d go mad.”
“Or an absolutely disciplined mind could construct heaven.” I released Lorencz.
“There’s no such thing as an absolutely disciplined mind,” Michael rebutted. I wanted to argue on pure principal, but he was probably right.
Lorencz rose, rubbing her wrist and looking uncertain.
“You sure? None of this is real?”
“None of it.”
“Then I didn’t kill my Elliot.” Lorencz’s face was creased with agony. “But doesn’t this mean that deep inside I want to kill him? How’s that any better?”
“You don’t want to kill Elliot,” I said, impatiently. “You want to possess him. You could have just as easily hallucinated locking him up in chains as your sex slave. Control is your problem, not murder. Face it, Lorencz. You’re a jealous, possessive asshole.”
“No!” She shuddered. “I’m not jealous. I don’t want to control him. I like him smart and independent.”
“You tell yourself that, but deep down inside, you’d rather have him all to yourself. You’d like to be able to do whatever you want to do with him, no matter what he might think about it.”
“Kyrchye! Shut up, Droit.” She rubbed her face with the back of her hand. “I’m not that kind of bitch.”
“You’re human, aren’t you? We’re all bitches. It’s just more obvious here, across the Line.”
Tears trickled down her cheeks, leaving tracks in the ash.
“But if I killed him here, I could kill him in Cislunar.”
I considered hitting her again, but I was afraid that if I got started, I might not be able to stop. Might hung heavy at my side, and I realized I’d dropped a hand onto its hilt. Something about all of this was bothering me. I wasn’t sure what it was, but something about what was happening — or the way I was reacting to it — struck me as out of place.
I forced myself to uncurl my hand and hooked my fingers into the back of my sword belt just to be safe.
“You’re right. You could. You’re a sentinel and he’s mundane. You’re weapons-trained and he’s a peaceful librarian. But you probably won’t.” I turned, looking for an exit. “Because now you know what you’re capable of. That changes things, doesn’t it?”
“I can’t trust myself around him. I can’t … I can’t take the chance.”
“Of course you can, Captain.” Michael shoved his hands in his pockets and looked away, studying the desks around us. “I visited Elliot a few times, with Axton, to do some research. He often mentioned you, told me what you were doing.”
Lorencz’s expression darkened. I sat back down on the bench and crossed my arms, resigned. Michael, of all people, should know how dangerous a jealous and territorial lover can be.
“A nobilis visiting a librarian?” Lorencz growled.
“While I was blind. Axton was with me. We talked about baleblindness and the Banishat and — lots of things. City politics and court gossip and you.”
“What about me?”
Michael sighed.
“He knows you’re headstrong, careless, and a slob, but he also said you’re fearless and determined and smarter than you like to admit. He admires you. If you cleaned up your act, I think he’d be willing to marry you, but right now he’s not sure you could hold up your end of a long-term relationship. And frankly, I have to agree. Obviously you don’t have enough maturity and self-control to handle marriage.”
“And you do, I suppose?” Lorencz growled. “You’re rich and handsome and responsible, and if he met you while you were blind, I’ll bet that made you all that much more cuddly and vulnerable, is that it, pal? There ain’t enough honest guys in the nosebleed side of town, you got to poach among the poor folk? Or maybe your uptown lovers won’t play second fiddle to a bunch of lizards, so you got no choice but pick up sweet folks so impressed by your title they don’t realize what a bloody ponce you are?”
Michael flushed, pulling his hands out of his pockets and clenching them.
“Listen to yourself!” he hissed. “Elliot isn’t even interested in men.”
“That he knows of,” I commented, neutrally. “I bet I could woo him into bed. What do you think, Lorencz? Little friendly wager for our librarian’s virtue — the arsonist versus the hound?”
“Fuck off, Droit.”
“Anyway,” I said, “you’re both right. Lorencz needs to grow up and Michael needs to stop playing with lizards.”
“Iguanas.”
“Walking belts. Now, unless you two are going to get serious about killing each other, we’ve wasted enough time. Axton and Croix are still trapped somewhere, and even though I don’t care that much about either of them, I hate unfinished business.”
The two sentinels fell into a sullen silence, glaring at each other and at me. I stood. Might throbbed.
“Bandage your arms,” I said to Lorencz. “All that blood is making me twitchy. Who are we going after next, cuz? Croix or Axton?”
They were both silent for a long minute. Then Lorencz constructed a roll of bale-bandages and wrapped them around her bleeding arms, biting down on a cigar as she worked. Michael frowned, mulling over my question.
“If our theory about the way bale works is correct, Croix is in the most danger,” he said at last. “Axton’s an alienist, mundane, and quite intelligent. I expect the bale won’t affect him as much. Croix’s religious beliefs will make him more vulnerable to its effects.”
“I’ve seen and heard a few flashes from my past,” I volunteered, “but the bale doesn’t shape itself for me the way it does for you.”
“You said Far created the city?” Lorencz was fumbling with the knot. I took the bandages from her and finished the job. She called up her Watch overcoat. “Where is it?”
“Looking for the nixed kids, apparently.” I dropped the bandages on the table. “I suggest we leave before it finds them and pisses off Yzyrchye again.”
“Yzyrchye.” Lorencz’s eyes went distant. “You know, I’ve heard people talk about it all my life, but that thing — what the hell does something like that even want from humans?”
“It’s curious,” I said. “It likes to study us.” It had taken me almost ten years to figure out that I wasn’t Yzyrchye’s Hound so much as its spyglass. That realization had been one of the final nudges I’d needed to turn my back on hell.
“Is it watching us now?” Michael asked, pulling up his coat collar.
“There’s nothing we can do about it if it is. Come on. Croix’s probably at the cathedral.”
We walked out into Dockside and angled up toward the Hill. Lorencz touched my sleeve.
“Thanks for getting me out of there,” she said, her voice low.
I smirked.
“This hound’s a retriever.” I looked at her. Her expression was still drawn and troubled. “What are you going to do about it when you get back?”
“Beats me.” She tossed her cigar into a pile of dirty balesnow. “I guess I gotta think about it. If I ever hurt him like that … I’d kill myself.”
I almost told her she’d done a rotten job of it so far, but at the last minute I changed my mind. This place was playing hell with my sense of humor.