I peek my head around the corner again, but Valmont looks kind of busy. He's talking to a man - not the Big Man, it's daytime now - which means I shouldn't interrupt. Even if I know where the burning is coming from. He's not catching, I don't think, it's not that sort of burning, just his clothes and hands and feet and skin all marked from fire.

I wonder if that's what I was like, when I came here, but I push that thought aside. Because it's not my thought at all, that whispered voice.

The cookies and the milk I set on the desk, I don't want to hold them anymore and Jarmyn is looking at them more than he should, and then I stand off to one side to wait for Valmont. Nice and patient and waiting, just like a good wife should.