9: Anna’s Interview

2 Vento 708, 2:57 p.m. (III)

Jon stepped down from the taxi. Like most vehicles in Argintarbo’s eastern slums, it was horse-drawn. Automobiles and trolleys had generally replaced horses in the city, but they were still used by the very rich and the very poor

Modernity seemed most evident in the places where it brought the least benefit. Technology had transformed the Imperial City and the northern Merchant District the way ivy transforms a tree: it changed their character, adding speed, variety, and noise, but their forms were preserved. A man from the past would easily have recognized them and known where he was. But the slums had been remade completely.

About the same time that Jon had bought the house on the Park, the Industrial District’s growth had reached a point where further expansion was discouraged by the increasing distance between facilities. In response to this, the companies had started to build more densely on existing land, but that had required demolishing worker housing to make room. Factories displaced current workers even as they demanded new workers. This dual effect caused the population of the slums to triple between 703 and 708.

A new type of building had suddenly appeared to house these masses: the beehive. No one had ever heard of a beehive prior to 701, but by 708 thousands of them had been built in the southeastern part of the city. Whenever more worker housing was needed, the Royal Engineer would condemn a section of the old slums, and the wood and brick buildings — some of which had stood for hundreds of years — would be demolished with magic and explosives. Rail would then be laid linking the field of rubble to the nearby ocean. The rubble would be loaded onto hopper cars, taken to the water, and dumped. Beehives would then be built on the cleared ground. Turning a sprawling old slum into a towering new slum took only five months.

Beehives were simple concrete cylinders with spiral staircases in the center and wedge-shaped apartments in the periphery. They were quick and cheap to construct, could be packed densely, could be built tall, and more floors could be added to the top post-construction. Each level was divided into four rings, like the rings of a tree. The center was the utility core, a sheathed bundle of pipes and cables that carried electricity, water, and sewage. At each level, a tap for fresh water protruded from one side of the sheath, and a trough for dumping waste was set into the side opposite. Around this core wrapped the spiral stairway. It was surrounded by steel pillars, but had no proper wall or railing. Outside the stairway was a narrow landing area onto which the doors of the apartments opened. The outermost ring was the apartments themselves. Each level was identical, except for the first, which had one apartment fewer than the others to make room for an exterior door.

Beehives were prone to deadly fires, but their shape and materials prevented fire from spreading to adjacent buildings, so the authorities took little interest.

“How long will you be?” the taxi driver asked Jon. Winter was setting in quickly this year: it was afternoon and Vento had just begun, but there was already a sheen of ice on the cobblestone street. “If you’ll be more than a few minutes,” he said, glancing up at the concrete cylinders blocking the sky, “I’ll find a sunny place to wait and then come back.”

“I won’t be back,” Jon replied.

“But you paid for…”

Jon had already walked away. He would want the taxi again in the real world, but he was not planning to make this iteration real, so where the taxi went was irrelevant.

He walked to the nearest beehive. Like most of them, it had been crudely painted by its residents: a badly-proportioned image of a topless woman with blue skin and a flowing green skirt towered over the words “trees here.” This image was technically illegal, since it could be construed as honoring the Forest Mother, but the slums were filled with theologically dubious graffiti, and the Inquisition rarely took action beyond painting over the most unambiguous violations.

Jon knew that the beehive’s exterior door was locked. He fingered the toroid dam in his pocket. He had acquired a dozen dams in the four real years since he had moved out of the house on the Park. He favored toroids for their concealability. As he approached the door, he formed his intention — any of the residents could have forgotten to lock the door when they entered or left that day — and channeled kao through it. The door was unlocked. He entered.

He made his way up the spiral stairs to the fifth level. He saw no one, but he did not expect to: these public areas were dirty, dark, and stank. No one loitered in them, and they were usually empty unless a shift at the factories had recently begun or ended.

He walked quietly to the door numbered “6.” It was made of thin rolled steel, and he could hear voices through it: a woman and a young boy. He knocked, not hard, but the door rattled in its frame, and the knock was as loud as a drum in the hard-walled space. A moment later the woman’s voice called from the other side.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“Johannes de Alder,” Jon said, speaking loudly. “I’m here to offer you a job.”

“I have a job,” she replied, after a moment’s hesitation.

“Are you talking your official job washing Mr. Caill’s laundry, or your secret job fixing his ledger?”

Another hesitation, then a lock squeaked and clicked, and the door cracked open. Anna’s jet black eye appeared in the crack, under a thin chain that kept the door from opening fully.

Before she could speak, Jon rammed the door with his shoulder. A weld that might have been weak failed, the chain snapped, and the door popped open. Anna gasped. She threw her weight against the door, but Jon pushed harder. He forced his way into the apartment and shut the door behind him.

Anna walked backward, not stumbling, deliberate, keeping her eyes on his. A small stamped metal cabinet stood near the door. She backed to this, pulled one of its drawers open, and reached in, trying to hold Jon’s eyes so that he would not see what her hands were doing. She withdrew a tiny one-shot pistol and pointed it at him.

Jon stepped forward, unconcerned. “The bullet is defective,” he said, touching his dam. He took another step. Anna pulled the trigger. The hammer clicked dully. Jon snatched the gun from her hand and put it in his pocket.

“Sit down,” he said, quietly. He gestured to one of two chairs that stood beside a small table on the wall opposite the entrance.

Because the apartment was wedge-shaped, the room was narrow at the entrance, and grew wider further from the door. There were no windows. An electric light was set into the middle of the ceiling, and there was an electrical outlet in the middle of the floor directly beneath it. A small heater was plugged into the outlet, with a flat metal plate on top that allowed it to double as a stove. There was no furniture but the table, chairs, cabinet, and a bookshelf holding a few bowls, utensils, and cans. Even so, the room was crowded. Sheets and shreds of printed paper had been pasted to the walls, mostly from newspapers. There was no theme or organization to these, except that all of them were either colorful or had large pictures. A door in the far wall led to the apparement’s second room, where there would be a small, deep-set window, the dwelling’s only source of fresh air or sunlight. The floor was clean.

Anna sat down.

“Tell Simon to come sit in the other chair,” Jon said.

“Please don’t hurt Simon.”

“Tell him.”

Anna hesitated, weighing options. But there were no options. “Simon,” she called, “come in here, baby.”

There was movement in the second room. The door cracked open, and a small, pale face peered out. Simon had his mother’s eyes, but his hair was dark. Like her, he was dressed in a drab, shapeless tunic. His hair was bound back in a simple braid.

“Who is he?” Simon asked, pointing at Jon. He was only three years old, but his articulation was crisp.

“This is Mr. Alder,” Anna said. “We need to do what he says, okay? I know you’re scared, but I need you to come sit in this chair right now.”

Simon looked at his mother for a moment, then obeyed and came into the room. He scooted the chair up against the wall, as far away from Jon as possible, then climbed up onto it.

Jon moved to stand behind Simon. “Anna en Koldom,” he said, “I am going to tell you a story. The story is about you. You are going to listen carefully and tell me if I make any mistakes, or if I Ieave out any important details. Do you understand what I want from you?”

‘How do you–”

“Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“If you fail to do this, if I make a mistake or an omission and you do not correct it…” Jon placed a finger on Simon’s shoulder. “I will notice.”

“I understand,” Anna said.

Jon stepped back and leaned against the wall. Simon turned to look at him over the chair back.

“You were born in the year 682 to Anton and Licilla Denj,” Jon said. “You are the middle child of five, with two older and two younger brothers. You spent your childhood in Norbus, where your father managed Denj Maritime, the biggest shipping company in the Empire.”

“That’s not accurate,” Anna said. “682 is the year Denj was surpassed by Straightway. Straightway was biggest.”

“So it was,” Jon said, nodding as if he had already known this detail. He continued: “Prior to the Technological Revolution, Denj Maritime was the largest shipper in the Empire. Its primary competitor was Koldom Cargo, which operated out of Argintarbo. It was not a fierce rivalry, because Koldom shipped almost exclusively between Argintarbo and Sunland, which left the rest of the globe for Denj. Still, either family would have been happy to see the other go bankrupt.”

Jon paused, waiting for Anna’s confirmation.

“The rivalry was fierce in Father’s mind,” she said. “Koldom and Denj were rivals since before the False Empire. Father never let go of it. Even when Straightway was bigger than all of the other shippers combined, he was still worried about beating Koldom.”

“How old were you when you realized that Denj Maritime was doomed?”

“I don’t know. Seven? Eight? I feel like I always knew. Everyone knew. They just didn’t want to say it. Why are you asking me this? Who are you?”

“I told you!” Jon said. He smiled sardonically. “Both Denj and Koldom lost market share rapidly throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s,” he continued. “By 700 it was clear to even your father that the situation was hopeless. He’d been selling off the fleet to get money to retrofit his ships with steam engines, but he was out of ships to sell, and even with retrofits, his wooden ships were still smaller than Straightway’s steel hulls. Koldom was in the same situation. Both companies were just months from bankruptcy, and there was no economic solution that could save them.”

“That’s right.”

“Whose idea was it for you to marry Eamon Koldom?”

“It was Mother’s idea. Father objected, but no one was listening to him anymore.”

“Did you object?”

“No.”

“Why not? Did you love Eamon?”

“Does Simon need to hear this?” Anna asked. She sat tall in her chair as if trying to direct her words over the boy’s head. “Can he go back in the bedroom? Please?”

Jon considered. “Fine,” he said. “I can find him there if I need him.”

“Go back in the bedroom, baby,” Anna said. “Look at the animal book. I’ll come read it to you again in a few minutes.”

“Who’s Eamon, Mommy?” Simon asked as he slid off the chair.

“Someone mommy used to know. I’ll tell you later.”

Simon kept his back to the table and then the wall, keeping as far from Jon as possible as he slid to the bedroom door, and then through it. When Simon had closed the door behind him, Jon sat down in the chair he had vacated. Jon leaned forward so that Anna could speak quietly.

“I barely knew Eamon,” Anna whispered. “I’d met him once at some party, and I thought he was an idiot. I agreed to marry him because it would give me control of the company.”

“Control of the merged company, Koldom-Denj?”

“Yes.”

“But the merge could have happened without you marrying Eamon. That wasn’t legally necessary.”

“Not legally, no, but Koldom and Denj were both ancient families. Koldom would have been proper nobility if the False Empire had lasted. For either of them to sell their namesake company was unthinkable. But if the heirs married, then the companies could merge, and neither family would lose ownership. Nobody would be embarrassed.”

“You married Eamon on Zero Day, 703, at the Temple here in Argintarbo.”

“It was very traditional.”

“Neither of your fathers tried to keep any control of Koldom-Denj. Your parents handed it to you and Eamon, and then they all retired to Palmurba. The two of you had been made sole heirs, so your siblings had no control to keep. Your brothers went to Sunland. You don’t know where they are now.”

“They heard about an expedition to search for islands in the Senfina Sea. They seemed to think that if they circled the globe in steamships they’d find something that the old explorers had missed. But I think they just wanted to run away. A man can run without shame if he’s exploring.”

“So, one way or another, all of the Koldoms and all of the Denjes left the Continent. It was just you and Eamon representing both families.”

“Yeah.”

“But you couldn’t save Koldom-Denj.”

“No.”

“Why not? Is it because Eamon was an idiot?”

“No,” Anna said after a moment. She shook her head slowly. “I used to think it was his fault. But it was no one’s fault. It was just too late. Nobody could have saved Koldom-Denj. Eamon was irresponsible, but maybe that’s just because he knew it didn’t matter; he knew he would fail no matter what, so why try?”

“So why try…” Jon murmured.

“Why do you care about any of this?” Anna had been looking at her hands. Now she met his eye. She seemed to have accepted that Jon had not come to rape or murder her, and curiosity grew as fear diminished.

“I told you,” Jon said. This time he did not smile. He looked tired. He continued: “Eamon wasted a great deal of money in the year before his death. Some of that was bad investments, but he had developed a gambling habit. There is a casino on the west side, Gabbiani’s. Before he died, he was going there almost every day.”

“Yes.”

“How much did he lose gambling?”

“Almost half a million gil. He was ashamed of it, but he just kept going.”

“Did that make you angry?”

“I hated him for it. But I understand why he did it. It gave him something to hope in. He knew he had no chance to save the company. He never admitted it — just like Father never admitted it — but he knew. But there’s always a chance to win at cards. Still trying to beat the Prohibition…”

“What do you mean ‘beat the Prohibition?’”

Anna was surprised at this question. “Games of chance were impossible before Prohibition,” she answered. “You can’t have a casino without prohibition wards. And it was Prohibition that killed the old shippers: steam would have replaced sail eventually, but sail couldn’t compete at all without wind-workers. Of course we still used magic illegally but… Gabbiani’s draining our last few gil was like Prohibition finishing what it started.”

“Do you think the old old shippers ever had a chance?”

“No. Straightway already had thirty steamers before anyone understood what was happening, and then there was nothing to do but manage the decline.”

“But if you didn’t blame Eamon for destroying Koldom-Denj, then why did you murder him?”

Anna froze. The color drained from her face until her lips were pale gray. “How do you know about that?” she whispered.

Jon shrugged, not secretive, just uninterested in answering. “I know what you did. I’m not clear on why. Explain it to me.”

Anna shook her head feebly, eyes unfocussed. Jon waited to see if she would faint. When she did not, he continued: “Was it you who actually stabbed Eamon, or was it Liam?”

“Liam,” Anna murmured, looking at nothing. “But it was my idea. It was my fault.”

“When did you and Liam become lovers?”

“About six months after I married Eamon.”

“Liam had been employed by Denj Maritime for several years. How long had you known him?”

“He was a buyer, so he was in the home office all the time. I saw him, but we weren’t friendly then. He was just… one of the buyers…”

“But after the marriage… ?”

“I felt trapped. I thought that after I married — after I had control of the company — then I would feel powerful. But I didn’t. I’d felt trapped my whole life, because I was a Denj, and that name was dying. But a woman can change her name. I never thought about how important that is until after I changed mine. But I changed it to Koldom, and that name was dying too. I had a chance to escape, and I wasted it.”

“And Liam de Haugen, he seemed like another chance?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t think of it like that. I didn’t explain it to myself. When I was with him, I just… didn’t feel trapped.”

“Did you love him?”

“I don’t know. I thought I did. It seems like such a long time ago…”

“Why not divorce Eamon? You could have claimed his gambling as cause.”

Anna shook her head. “That would have been just like Denj selling to Koldom. The whole point of the marriage was to keep Denj Maritime in the family.”

“So you carried on an affair because it felt like escaping from your marriage, but you wouldn’t actually escape from your marriage because… pride?”

“Pride. Pride is just fear. You can’t face a world that knows you failed.”

“But there was a way you could escape without the world knowing,” Jon said. “I see it now.” He nodded to himself. “If you and Eamon both died, then the final collapse of Koldom-Denj would be seen as a tragedy, not a failure. No member of the family could be blamed, so the family would not be embarrassed. But you knew Eamon would never go along with faking your deaths. He was an idiot. You could fake your death, but Eamon would have to actually die. How did you convince Liam?”

“I don’t know.” Anna shrugged. “We just started talking about it. Not seriously. But then one day we were serious.”

“How did you convince Eamon?”

“I told him about a steamer for sale at a fantastic price. I told him to bring enough cash to buy it that day if it looked good. It was stupid to carry that much platinum around, but I just said I wanted to, and he didn’t argue.”

“Simple. You and him stop at the bank, withdraw a suitcase of platinum, then take a taxi to the dock where this steamer is supposed to be. You lead Eamon to where Liam is waiting. Liam stabs him, takes the money, and you both go to a waiting carriage. This is clever: you know that it will be suspicious if you just disappear, so Liam intentionally drives past the taxi that you and Eamon had arrived in. You scream and wave so the driver notices you, and now you have a witness to testify that you were kidnapped. You are presumed dead. Eamon really is dead. The family honor is preserved, and you’re free to start a new life.”

“That was the plan.”

“How long before you realized you were pregnant?”

“A few days. Less than a week.”

“When did Liam realize the baby wasn’t his?”

“Immediately.”

“And then he abandoned you?”

“Not then. Liam tried to convince me to get rid of Simon, abort him, or send him to an orphanage. He tried for a month. When he saw that I wasn’t going to do it, then he left.” 

“And took all the money?”

“Liam said that if I wasn’t going to be loyal to him, then he didn’t owe me anything. He told me to chose: Eamon’s child, or him. I chose Simon.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s my baby.”

“Do you hate Liam?”

“I don’t think about Liam.”

“Do you think about Eamon?”

“I think about Simon.”

“I see,” Jon said. He nodded smuggly. “You cope with your guilt for killing Eamon by raising his son.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“No, of course not. You meant that you have pure mother love for your sweet innocent baby.” Jon pushed his chair back from the table. “Well, I think that’s all I need.”

“Need? What did I give you? I still don’t understand why you’re here.”

“I’m starting a business, and I need a secretary who is intelligent and organized and proactive. And who can’t refuse the job. And who can’t quit. You are very precisely qualified.”

“You… are… blackmailing… me? Why… would…”

“It isn’t going to make much sense to you,” Jon said. He stood up. “But I think you’d prefer a little mystery to this?” He twirled a finger to indicate the room, the building, the slums.

Jon reached into his pocket and withdrew the gun he had taken from Anna. She gaped in astonishment and then in horror as he put it to his temple and pulled the trigger. The hammer clicked dully.

“Oh, that’s right,” Jon chuckled. “Defective bullet!” He reached into another pocket and withdrew the toroid dam. He held it up so Anna could see it, a smirk playing around his lips.

“Principle of reversibility,” Jon said. “The easiest way to undo the effect of any magic is to make the spell to have failed. I broke this bullet with magic, so I can just…” His eyes hardened in concentration. “That spell didn’t work, so the bullet isn’t broken.”

Jon pressed the gun to his head again. Anna’s lips formed the word “why,” but no sound emerged. It looked like she was trying to whistle. Jon smiled.

“I want to make a certain impression at our first meeting,” he said, “and this has been awkward. It’ll go much smoother next time. See you soon!”

* * *

3 Pluvo 712, 7:13 a.m. (XI)

Jon stared up at the bed’s embroidered tester. He did not know how many times he had fallen back. The last iteration he had simply stayed in the bed until he had died of dehydration.

I have to get up.

Why?

Because nothing could be worse than lying here forever.

You’re going to lie somewhere forever.

I have to get up so I don’t think about that.

Jon got up. He went to the speaking tube, but he could not make himself use it. He stood there silently, his need for activity warring with the fierce apathy of despair.

“I have to do something,” he whispered. “I have to do something.”

You started this detective farce so you’d always have something to do. But here you are!

Eventually he wandered downstairs, drawn by a vague notion that he should talk to Anna — that he could not avoid talking to Anna. He knocked on her office door and waited for ther answer, went in, sat in the chair. Her eyebrows shot up when she saw that he was dressed in his sleep robe. Surprise evolved into perplexity as a full minute of silence drew out.

“How is your son?” Jon asked, finally.

“Simon is fine.”

“Is he really? Do you have… what you need… ?”

Warriness tinged Anna’s expression, suspicion of a trap, fear of showing suspicion. “Yes, sir,” she said. 

“Are you–” Jon cut off his question, because he knew the answer. There was no reason to ask her if she was happy except to give her a chance to lie, and he knew that she would lie, and what the lie would be. He sat in silence for long minutes, imagining things he might say to her. But none of them would provoke an honest response, and so all of them were performative. He could only pretend to ask her questions.

They sat absolutely still, Anna staring at her desktop, Jon staring at the space above her head. The ticking of the parlor clock became loud. Finally Jon spoke.

“If you could go back to any time in your life,” he said, “and make a different choice, what would you do differently?”

The clock ticked twelve times before Anna answered: “I would be faithful to Eamon.”

“Why? He was a fool. He was doomed. He was useless to you.”

“That’s true. He was all of those things. Why are you asking me this, sir?”

“Because…” Why am I asking her this? “Because you don’t know what answer I expect, so you can’t lie to please me.”

Another silence. Jon waited.

“I was unfaithful to Eamon,” Anna said, “because I wanted control. I’d never been in control of my own life. I thought I could… make myself.”

“You did make yourself! You were poor, but no one was controlling you. You’d escaped your name, like you’d always wanted. But then I came. Now I control you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“No!” Jon shouted, suddenly angry. “That’s not what you were going to say! Don’t say what you think I want to hear, say what you were going to say!”

“Yes, sir.”

“No!”

Jon leapt up. He grabbed his chair and hurled it against the wall. It bounced off anticlimactically, leaving only a small dent on the wood paneling. Jon looked at the dent, and he began laughing. He laughed until his breath ran out, then he scowled. He stepped to where the chair was lying on its side, and he began methodically breaking the legs off. He pressed it into the wall and leveraged his weight against each leg in turn, bending, cracking, snapping. When they were all broken, he slumped against the wall and slid to the floor.

“You’ve never seen me do anything like that,” Jon said to Anna, who had not moved. “But you aren’t surprised, because you don’t understand why I do anything. I hold your life in my hands, and you don’t understand how. I demand you serve me, and you don’t understand why. You just have to do whatever this unknowable freak says, because he’ll kill your son if you don’t. How could I have thought you were happy living like that? How could I have expected you to be grateful? You’re just a slave. I can only have slaves. I can’t have lovers, or friends, just puppets who obey me because they don’t have a choice.”

“You could let me go, sir.”

“No. I can’t let you go, because I need you. I need you for this detective thing to work, because I can’t maintain an identity without someone here, here to keep track of… what time it is, to remember what time it is, and to remember who I talked to, because I can’t remember who I talked to! Have I ever beaten you, Anna?”

“No, sir.”

“See? I need you to remember that for me! Because I remember beating you, and I need you here to tell me if it was real.”

Anna said nothing. Her gaze drifted from Jon, slumped on the floor, back down to her desktop.

“Weird morning for you, huh?” Jon laughed, and he was surprised to feel tears spilling down his cheeks. He wiped them on his sleeve. There was another silence.

“What were you gonna say?” Jon asked.

“Sir?”

“Before I interrupted you. You said you were unfaithful because you wanted control. What were you gonna say next?”

“I was going to say–”

“I already know what you were gonna say! If you lie, I’ll know.”

Rather than intimidate her, this threat seemed to embolden Anna. “Do you know?” she asked. She met his eye, and it was he who looked away.

“No,” Jon said. “I don’t know anything. I’m a fraud.”

Anna’s face clouded as she pondered this, intelligence threshing facts but finding no order in them. Abruptly her expression cleared. She blinked, pushing unfruitful thoughts aside. Jon envied her.

“I was going to say that I’ve never seen control make anyone happy,” Anna said. “My Father struggled for twenty years to save a company that was doomed. He was only fifty last time I saw him, but he was old. We all would have been so much happier if he’d just given up. Koldom-Denj was both families refusing to give up control. I was a terrible match for Eamon, but I married him because I thought it would give me control. It didn’t, so I went to Liam for the illusion of it.”

“None of those people actually had control,” Jon said. “You were all unhappy because you couldn’t get it.”

“You have control,” Anna retorted, “and you’re not happy. Somehow you always get what you want, but you’re miserable. You’re getting what you want right now, and you’re miserable right now.”

“I don’t get what I want.”

“What do you want?”

Jon picked up one of the broken chair legs and toyed with it idly, tapping it alternately against his thigh and the floor rug.

“Do you know I’m married?” Jon said. “Have I told you about my wife? Once I asked her what she wanted, and she said she wanted a house. So I got her a house. But it didn’t make her happy. Because she didn’t really want a house. She wanted a life that had a house in it. So I got her that life. But then in that life she didn’t need me.

“So I tried to create a life for me, one that had everything I wanted. I was going to make myself important, be a magnate, or a member of the Court. I was going to give myself a heroic backstory, where I was brave and clever, and my cleverness made me rich. And my wife was going to admire me for it.”

“Could you actually do those things?”

“I could. I can. If I have the patience to figure out how, I can do whatever I want. I could be the Emperor if I wanted to.”

“How?”

Jon shook his head, rejecting the question.

“But there’s a problem with control that no one thinks about,” he said. “What you control, you limit. I figured out how to control my wife, what evidence would convince her, what threats would scare her, what rewards would entice her. I could make her do whatever I wanted, believe whatever I wanted… Or act like she did… But when I controlled her, then it really wasn’t her anymore. It was me, using her mouth to talk to myself. And that’s not what I wanted. She couldn’t be what I wanted while I was controlling her.

“What do I want, Anna? I want you to be happy to see me. But if I control you, then you aren’t happy, and if I don’t control you, then you don’t see me.”

Jon had been staring at the floor. Now he looked up and met Anna’s eyes. “If I let you go, will you ever speak to me again?”

“No.”

“There, see? I can’t get what I want, because getting things destroys them. I can only have the ashes of things.” He stood up. “I’m sorry that my control of you has been clumsy, Anna. I’ll try to be a more subtle puppeteer.”

“But why do you need me? I’ve been here for four years, and I still don’t understand what it is I’m doing for you!”

“I wish there were a world where you could understand me and still respect me, Anna. But there isn’t. If you understood me, you’d see through me. I have to choose.”