“From the position of the sun, I’d say it’s noon now. Maybe it’s the next day.”
“The next day?”
“Yes. If we’re lucky. You surprised me. I didn’t have time to be … specific.”
Impossible. Like a story told about the gray caps to frighten children. Fought the urge to bring the gun smashing down on Bliss’s face again.
Focus on what makes sense. Ignore the rest.
He was in a courtyard, the tiles warm and rough beneath the shitty shoes Wyte had lent him. There was a breeze. The sun was out. These things were real.
“What were you doing in my apartment?”
Bliss put more energy behind his words suddenly. “Finch, listen to me: you don’t want to know. It isn’t what you find out that’s going to keep you alive. It’s where you’re standing. You’re in the middle of things you can’t control. It’s too big for you. You shouldn’t be worried about me, or what I was doing. You should be worried about yourself.”
“Answer the question.”
Bliss must have caught the returning menace in Finch’s voice. He tried to smile sheepishly, as if embarrassed. Said in his polished but shopworn voice, “I was looking for information on you.”
“What did you find?”
“Nothing. I didn’t have time to find anything.”
“Who do you work for?”
“I work for Morrow,” Bliss said.
“I don’t believe you.” He didn’t. Not really.
“My answer won’t change no matter how you rough me up.”
Finch doubted that. Bliss’s face was covered in blood. But more damage could be done.
“Let’s go back to what I asked you after we took you down off that wall. Why were you in the dead man’s memories?” Bliss looked genuinely surprised. By the question? Or being asked it? “I ate the dead man’s memory bulb. I saw you. I saw you near a desert fortress.”
A kind of mirror. An eye. Pulling back to see a figure that seemed oddly familiar, and then a name: Ethan Bliss. Then a circle of stone, a door, covered with gray cap symbols. And, finally, jumping out into the desert air, toward a door hovering in the middle of the sky, pursued by the gray cap, before the world went dark.
“Memory bulbs are unreliable. You know that. You can see almost anything in them.”
Finch would never be able to tell when Bliss was lying.
“What do the two towers have to do with all of this?”
“Who says they do?”
“Stark.”
Bliss made a dismissive spitting sound. “Stark’s a thug. He’s nothing. Knows nothing.”
“Yet he killed all of your men and nailed you to a wall.”
Bliss grimaced, like he’d swallowed a mouthful of dirt. “That was beginner’s luck. His days are numbered. In this city you adapt or you die.”
Finch still didn’t believe him.
“Like you’ve adapted? Gone from Frankwrithe spymaster to politician to something else?” Then, on an impulse: “What were you doing during the war with the Kalif? Working for F&L and Morrow? For Hoegbotton?”
Bliss smiled, though his eyes were cold. “I was doing my duty for my city.”
“Which city?”
“Like I said, you adapt or you die.”
“What did you promise to Stark to save your life?”
“Nothing. Stark’s a smooth-talking thug. Anything he got I gave him because I wanted him to have it. Because nothing I have would’ve stopped him from killing me if he got it into his head to kill me.”
“Then what did you want him to have?”
Bliss just shook his head.
“How do you travel between doors?”
“Maybe there are some things I’m never going to tell you.”
The sunlight, the fact it shouldn’t be sunlight, kept getting into Finch’s head. Disrupting his thoughts.
“Let’s talk about the towers again, then.”
Bliss’s expression had gone neutral. No one, looking at the spy’s face, could’ve known what he was thinking. “The towers are close to completion. And the gray caps are putting all of their resources into those towers. Ignoring everything else. Even their Partials. But, still, they have an intense interest in this case. Curious, isn’t it?”
“Any theories?”
“You already know more than you should. Enough to get you killed.”
A weariness came over Finch. His skin still felt wrong. What would happen if he faded away with Bliss still there? Where would he wake up? The nausea was getting worse.
“Here’s a theory. It just came to me. I might as well try it out on you. I think my murder victim saw you, Bliss. I think he saw you because you were somehow involved with his murder. Maybe you took him through a door like the one you took me through. Maybe the door closed on the gray cap. But you led the victim to his death. The only thing is: I don’t know why you would do it.”
But Bliss was done. He lowered the handkerchief from his cheek. “Are you going to try to take me to the station now? Or just start hitting me again?” Defiant. Almost smug.
For one terrible moment Finch had the sense he hadn’t been hurting Bliss at all. That it was all an act. A light shone in Bliss’s eyes that seemed shielded from the moment.
Finch let out a deep breath. Lowered the gun. Shoved Bliss away from him. “Go. Get the fuck out of here.”
Bliss looked surprised. “Just like that?”
Finch gave a tired smile. “Just like that. I’ve run out of questions. And you’d just jump through a door before I got you back across the bay.” He was going to be sick in a second. Didn’t know how much control he’d have then.
“Letting me go doesn’t make me forget what you’ve done to my face, Finch.”
“I could’ve done worse. Don’t come near my apartment again, Bliss, or I’ll kill you.” Don’t come near Sintra. Don’t come near Rathven. No one.
The spy’s voice went cold, condemning. “When you see me again, it will be because I want you to see me. And not before.”
Finch turned around. He really didn’t want to see Bliss leave.
Bliss said, “You could escape, you know. You could just disappear.”
“I tried that once,” Finch said. “It didn’t work. I’m still here.”
A pause. Then a sound like darkness imploding on itself, a brief flash of green-gold light.
Bliss was gone. The scent of limes hung in the air.
Cursed and shuddered as he realized something: Bliss’s hands hadn’t been bandaged. They’d looked good as new. Who healed that fast, even with fungal help?
Bent over. Threw up his guts onto the courtyard tiles.
When he’d recovered, he sat down heavily on the edge of the fountain. Bone-tired.
Wondering what day it was.
* * *
Ten doors knocked on. Three doors that actually opened for him. Only the last one had a working telephone inside. An apartment a few blocks from the courtyard. He flashed his badge. An emaciated woman in a flower pattern dress let him in, checking first to make sure none of her neighbors on the ground floor saw her do it. Eyes large and bloodshot. Anywhere from forty to sixty. A purple growth on her left shoulder like a huge birthmark.