"…Crossworld group of uniquely powerful allies?” Teazle was saying to Zal with incredulity. “What is this, a comedy?”

Zal shrugged and made a so-sue-me face. “The woman was so annoying. I couldn't help myself.”

They turned around as Lila came back and everyone looked at her with a variety of concern, expectation, and curiosity.

“Are you all right?” Zal murmured.

“No,” she said. “I wonder if you all would mind moving to another room so that Dr. Williams and I can talk alone.” She glanced quickly at Zal and Max to see if this request had upset them, but if it had neither of them were showing it. Malachi spoke in warm tones, ushering everyone competently away, diverting them with suggestions of drinks and untangling the dogs' leads from the chair legs. At last Lila and the doctor were left together in the cool, clinical light.

“That was quite a coup,” Lila said.

“A necessary one,” Williams replied. “Cara has become too nervous to be effective. And who is this?” she indicated Thingamajig and looked at him with interest.

“This is what you get in Demonia when you go to Hell,” Lila informed her, knowing that Thingamajig was in one of her reports and she didn't need to go into excessive details. Williams was simply making pleasantries of a kind to pave the way to other things.

“I'm a Lord of the Infernal temporarily inconvenienced by a curse: overcome by your plight and beauty I have become your companion in adventure and adversity and analysis,” Thingamajig corrected her haughtily. “I'm as good as that elf or that faery any day of the week.”

Inside Lila's chest Tath was laughing but his amusement didn't touch Lila's personal core of sadness. She shared a frank meeting of eyes with the doctor.

“I don't like the world I'm in,” she said. “I don't like what happens in it. I don't like the agency for lying. I don't like myself for believing in the best all the time when I should have been paying attention to what was really true.”

“You like Zal,” the doctor countered with her trademark mild tone. “And Malachi. You have your sister. You seem to have collected a couple of demon admirers. That's more than most people can say.”

“Yeah but this girl here used to believe in things,” the imp said with great feeling. “Like truth and justice, and adventure being a nice thing, and heroism and salvation and a whole bunch o' other candy-sweet nonsense that you people like to fill your heads with morning, noon, and night. So what you're offering her is a couple of sensational lovers, some friends, and a relative in exchange for the universe. I hear a lot about elves in the bedroom department and we all know demons are worth the cover charge but still you haveta consider what that weighs up to when it's matched with your great and powerful motivating abstractions like goodness and purity and rightness and the work ethic and the notion of the world being a good place to live in which is continually moving towards a state of bland but acceptable pleasantness. The faeries sure did a number on this place and no mistake.”

Williams regarded the imp for a moment. “I see that my services in the psychological department are under threat here. Are all imps this way?”

“Few of them with my intellect or hidden arcane powers of insight, ma'am,” Thingamajig said modestly.

“I don't like being reduced to a two-minute magazine piece either,” Lila added. “Although you're right.” She twisted her head around to look at the imp. “Get lost again. I have something to talk about you're not allowed to hear.”

“Just because you ask so nicely,” the imp said and bounced off her shoulder, immensely pleased with itself. Somehow it flattened like a shadow and was able to slide between the door and the frame in order to get out.

Williams watched it go and then looked up at Lila. “Change your mind about Alfheim?”

“Everything about everything in these cases is wrong,” Lila said. “Including me. What I did was wrong, but I had to do it. I never thought I'd be the kind of person to be in this position. I feel cheated, like someone should have told me how it is and I should've had some box to tick Yes or No. You should have told me about the real reasons I was made. You should have told me about the Artifact. Delaware should have admitted she wanted to use my parents as a good excuse to find out about the necromancers. I should have paid more attention to the real differences between my world and the demons' so I didn't end up starting more wars than I can handle. I should have objected right from the start. But none of those things happened. And I hate that. I resent it. I want everything to be otherwise. I want to be right. I want to be good. I want to be blameless. I want to be able to fix things. I want to be free. I want to be normal. I'm not any of that. And there's something wrong with me. My arms and legs hurt at the joins. Zal's wife—I didn't even know he had one—is dead because of me. I don't know if he knows yet. And Mom and Dad are dead and now I have to tell Max it was my fault. And the only thing I feel able to do is stand here and whine to you about it like I'm four years old. And I hate that.”

“So, what are we going to do?”

“We're going to figure out what's going on is what,” Lila said. “And if you've got that Artifact hidden somewhere then you'd better hope it never gets into the wrong hands. I'll be looking into it, and if I find it I'll take it for myself. You can be sure of that.” She left her statement there, to allow the other woman time to offer an explanation or to object, but the doctor just nodded.

“There's a lot of work to do, and not much time. And you have some grieving to do, and other people who need attention. You'd better get to it. When you're ready, check in with the medical staff but it's up to you when. We're here to help you.”

“Sure,” Lila said, letting the word be as ambiguous as it possibly could. She left the door open on her way out and went to find the others. They were in a small staff lounge. As she approached she heard them talking and the sound of a dog crunching a biscuit. Without knowing exactly why she found herself stopping outside before they saw her.

“For the last time, who doesn't like disco?” Zal was saying. “Disco was one of the great unifying and emancipating forces of modern musical history which broke boundaries of race, class, and gender identification. Plus, it sounds fantastic. I'll tell you whose soul doesn't dance when it hears disco, wankersouls, that's who. Disco is a celebration of everything that binds us together. And it's fun. And it feels good. And I'm sick of the rest.” He sighed on an inward breath and then outwardly too. Then he said much more quietly, “Plus I always wanted to be like James Brown, or, in a pinch, Olivia Newton-John.”

“You're older than you look,” Malachi murmured. “At least you have the hair for the second one.”

“I like disco,” Teazle said, in his human voice. “But I don't like this coffee. What's it made out of? Cat piss? It'll never catch on.”

“He's right,” Max sounded weary. “When Lila comes we can get something better…I mean…can we go now? I want to go home.”

Lila walked around the corner and stood in the doorway. She tried to smile and she thought she almost succeeded. “Come on,” she said. “It's time. Let's go home.”