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her legs felt weak and watery, as if the beginning of grief was also the beginning of an awful incompetence. She couldn't move.

'They wanted to wallow in life right until the moment their hearts were snatched,' said Donnell. 'And, oh Jesus, it's a temptation to me now!' He turned away.

'God, Donnell!' she said, clapping her hands to her head in frustration. 'Please try!' The Baron put his arm around her, and its weight increased her weakness, dissolved the tightness in her chest into tears.

'Where's Otille?' asked Donnell casually, seeming to notice the Baron for the first time.

The Baron stiffened. 'What you want with her? She crazy gone to hell. She past hurtin' anyone, past takin' care of herself.'

'They can do wonders nowadays,' said Donnell. 'I better make sure.'

The Baron kept silent.

'Where else,' said Donnell. 'She's upstairs.'

'Yeah man!' said the Baron defiantly. 'She upstairs. So what you wanna mess with her for?'

'It needs to be done,' said Donnell, thoughtful.

'What you talkin' 'bout?' The Baron strode forward and swung his fist, but Donnell caught it - as easily as a man catching a rubber ball - and squeezed until it cracked, bringing the Baron to his knees, groaning; he flung out his hand at the Baron, fingers spread. When nothing happened, he appeared surprised.

'What you want to hurt her for?' said the Baron, cradling his hand. 'Hurtin' her ain't 'bout nothin'.'

Donnell ignored him. He opened his mouth to speak to Jocundra, but only jerked his head to the side and laughed.

It was such a corroded laugh, so dead of hope, it twisted into her. She moved close and put her arms around him; and at a distance, curtained off from her voice by numbness, despair, she heard herself asking him to try again. He just stood there, his hands on her waist.

'Maybe,' he said. 'Maybe I...'

'What?' She had a flicker of hope. Nothing concrete; it was unreasonable, all-purpose hope.

His fingers had worked up under her blouse, and he rubbed the ball of his thumb across her stomach. He said something. It started with a peculiar gasp and ended with a noise deep in his throat and it sounded like words in a guttural language: a curse or a fierce blessing. Then he pushed her away. The push spun her around, and by the time she had regained her balance, he was gone. She could hear him crashing through the thickets; but dazedly staring at the place where he had stood, she kept expecting him to reappear.

The dark shell of the house was empty. Splinters of glass glinted on the stairs between the shadows of the shredded blinds. Climbing up to the attic took all his self-control, his training; he wanted to go running back to her, to breathe her in again, to let his life bleed away into hers. Even the knowledge that the way was closed did not diminish his desire to return to the veve, to try once more, and only his compulsion to duty drove him onward. He hesitated on the top step; then, angry at his weakmindedness, he rattled the knob of the attic door. It was locked, but the wood split and the lock came half-out in his hand. He kicked the door open and stepped inside.

Part of the roof was missing, and the moonlight shone on a shambles of burst crates and broken furniture and unrolled bolts of cloth. All Otille's treasures looted and vandalized, their musty perfumes dissipated by the humid smell of the night. It was strange, he thought as he walked toward the three doors, that killing Otille was to be the summary act of his existence, the resolution of his days at Shadows, his life with Jocundra, healing. It seemed inappropriate. Yet it was essential. These aberrations had caused enough trouble in the worlds, and it had been past due that someone be elected to befriend the cadre and eliminate the seam of weakness, disperse the recruits, punish the High Aspect and her officers. He had been an obvious choice; after all, twice before the Aspects at Badagris had dealt with the cadre of Mounanchou. Such purges were becoming a tradition. It might well be time for a restructuring of the cadre's valence, for bringing forth an entirely new aspect from the fires of Ogoun. He was nagged by a moral compunction against the killing, and the frailty of the thought served to remind him how badly he needed a period of meditation. Disdainful of her guessing games, he ripped the central