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same pain when she’d put these marks on me, andwhen she created each of the ribbons she carried. I didn’t want to think about that.
    Her abilities went beyond the marks though. Her strength was incredible, and she could heal herself by eating meat, the more raw the better. She also wore that vest full of spells, which was probably back in her room with the fireman’s jacket.
    I wondered what effect all those spells had on her. Was she still human? Would she still be human even if her body changed into something monstrous, as long as she thought like a human? I wondered how much her quest to hunt down and destroy dangerous magic had changed her. I wondered how it would change me, before she put an end to me.
    Of course, the only reason my mind was wandering this way was because I had no one to talk to. Annalise sawed at her food and shoveled it into her mouth, one bite after the other.
    The silence became annoying. I asked Annalise why Harlan was the only one who remembered his kids. She didn’t answer. She didn’t even look up from her plate. I asked her if she thought we’d find someone else like Harlan in town. No answer. I asked her where she grew up.
    She stopped eating and looked up at me. It was not a friendly look. Fine. I dropped the subject. I got a Seattle newspaper off the rack and began to read it.
    Hammer Bay was too far away from the city for Harlan’s shooting to make the paper, but surprise surprise, I found a small mention of me in the local news section.
    It was strange to read about myself in the newspaper. It was like being in a crowded room where everyone else suddenly sat down but I didn’t have a chair. I felt exposed. Maybe that was absurd, but that’s how it felt.
    The article was on the fourth page, and it was barely one and a half column inches. It said, simply and quickly, that Raymond Lilly, convicted felon, had been releasedfrom police custody in the matter of the several slayings, followed by a list of the dead. It was quite a laundry list of names. The official reason given for my release was insufficient evidence to charge me with murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, drug trafficking, assault and battery, and breaking and entering. They left out grand theft auto and discharging a weapon within city limits. Maybe they’d been short on space.
    What the article didn’t mention was that certain prominent local citizens claimed that I had saved their lives while those crimes were being committed. It also glossed over the forensics reports that stated the people I had supposedly killed seemed to have been dead for days or weeks before they met me.
    I looked over the list of names again. Some were strangers to me, but there were several I had known all too well. It still made me heartsick to think about them, even after all these months.
    Irena’s name wasn’t on the list. I wondered if her body had been tidied away by the society, and I wondered if they would do that for me when my time came. Would people think I’d left the country or changed my identity? I didn’t have much in the way of family or friends anymore, but I had an aunt who’d opened her home to me when no one else would. I’d hate for her to think I wasn’t grateful or wanted nothing to do with her.
    Annalise finished her meal. I showed her the article, but she didn’t care. I finished my breakfast while she paid the bill. I didn’t feel like eating anymore, but I’d need the fuel later.
    We got back into the van, and Annalise handed me a slip of paper with an address on it. I consulted the ridiculous tourist map and saw that it was near the toy factory.
    We drove there through the mist and drizzle, and I realized that it
was
the toy factory.
    The factory was actually two buildings. The first wasa glass office building, four stories high, with curves instead of corners. If it had been in a corporate campus or an urban downtown, and if it had been ten stories taller, it might have seemed sleek and prosperous.