“You know how you pay me back, right?”
His shoulders tensed a little. “How?”
“One day,” I said, “when you’re standing where I was, when some kid is standing in front ofyou, needingyourhelp, I want you to give it to him.”
He frowned more. “What?”
“I don’t want to be paid back,” I said. “I want you to carry it forward. And you teach that kid the same thing.”
Fitz frowned harder. He stared out at the mist, which had made the cars into blurs now, and had swallowed the one-stories across the street. “Why?”
“It’s what a good man would do,” I said. “It’s one way to be one.”
Fitz thought about that for a moment. Then he said, “The people from the neighborhood. It’s not like you ignore them or anything. But mostly you’re just talking at dinner and game night. You don’t get real personal.”
“Don’t have a lot of personal resources,” I said.
“With me, you get personal,” he said.
I grunted.
“And you had less of them when I first showed up.”
I bobbed my head to one side, a noncommittal gesture.
“Why?” he asked.
I thought about the answer for a while. “Because when I was in a similar spot, someone showed up for me. If they hadn’t, I’d have had a bad end in not long, I suspect. Didn’t want that for you. Didn’t want to spend time thinking how I’d let it happen.”
“You didn’t want to feel guilty?”
“More guilty,” I corrected him. “But it’s about more than that, too. People ought to get something in the vague neighborhood of a fair shot at life. I had a chance to try to help make that happen for you. And don’t forget, you helped me when I was in a bad way, too.”
“Bad way?” he said, grinning. “That’s what you call being all but dead, huh?”
I grinned. “ ’Bout the worst I’ve ever felt, yeah. I was lucky I ran across you.”
His mouth twisted in wry amusement. “Haven’t ever heard those words said in a good way,” he noted.
“Little brother,” I said, “I was lucky to have the chance to help you out. Getting back to basics has been helping me, too. Get back on my own feet.”
He nodded. The mist crept up the walls and had begun to ooze through the crenels, the spaces between the merlons of the castle wall.
“Can I ask you something?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“I hear people talking sometimes,” he said. “That foreman for the construction guys. Will. Some of the other folks who come through. They talk about ‘she’ and ‘her’ and you and they all know who they’re talking about. They get quiet when they do, too, like maybe they don’t want someone overhearing them.”
“Probably talking about Lara Raith,” I said.
“No, they say ‘Lara’ when they talk about her,” he replied.
“Oh,” I said.
“Who are they talking about?” he asked.
I was quiet for a moment.
