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I stand.

Trixie pauses. “Change your mind?”

Every warning Nevermore gave me lines up in my skull. Every word Hyde said.

Razor is going to use whatever crack he can find.

Don’t hand him one.

A smarter man would go upstairs.

A better man would apologize.

A braver man would walk across the lot to the School of the Dead and tell Sweet the truth. Tell her I broke my word because Lena’s ghost still sits at the club table with me. Tell her I chose the patch because I knew how to survive losing a woman and did not know how to survive failing my brothers again.

Tell her that none of that excuses what I did.

Tell her I knew better and chose wrong anyway.

Instead, I look at Trixie.

“Still want company?”

Her eyes narrow slightly. “You sure?”

“No.”

That makes her laugh. “Great sales pitch.”

“I ain’t selling anything.”

“Good. I ain’t buying.”

She knows what she thinks this is. Casual. No promises between us. No expectation that tomorrow means anything.

Exactly the kind of arrangement we had before.

What she does not know is the uglier part.

She does not know I looked Sweet in the eye last night and promised there would be no other women.

She does not know I am cheating.

She does not know I am standing here thinking about another woman, or that I am about to use uncomplicated sex like a weapon against something Sweet still believes might exist inside me.

That part belongs to me.

I head for the coffin workshop.

Trixie follows.

The work bay is mostly empty with festival traffic pulling everybody outside. Raven’s coffin is locked in the secured room until his postponed procession. Pieces for customer orders line the opposite wall.

One finished display coffin sits open beneath the lights.

Black exterior.

Dark red satin.