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I sigh. “I know it, of course. But I can’t say it. He took it from me.”

“Why?”

“My guess? He likes to keep up the mystery that surrounds him, and a wizard with a past, with brothers and a mother and a birth name, is more human than a mystery.”

“That makes sense. Maybe someday you can tell it to me. When we beat him.”

I laugh. “Yes, maybe. I’ll let you know the day his name is no longer trapped behind my teeth.”

“Deal.” She smiles up at me.

She may claim to not be tired, but I can see the exhaustion in her eyes.

“Why don’t you go lie down for a while? I doubt he’ll do anything now. He’ll need time to prepare whatever spectacle he has planned.”

“Really?” She sounds relieved.

“Yes. I’ll keep watch.”

“Don’t you need sleep?”

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

She chuckles to herself and gets up, sauntering past me.

“For a heartless man,” she says over her shoulder, “you have far more compassion than you give yourself credit for.”

“Don’t forget I wanted to kill you before we met.”

Her laughter echoes down the hall. “How could I ever forget that?”

THIRTYGabriel

Gabriel dozes on the stone floor.

He knows he should feel guilty, giving in to Oil, but he can’t face reality yet and Oil helps blur the sharp edges of it.

In his floating drug haze, the small furry beast tells him he is a dog and Gabriel asks him, “What is a dog?” and the beast says, A friend.

Gabriel has been short on friends over the years and he’s grateful to have this one, even if he is a captive one.

Somehow, the tables have turned, and Gabriel is the one who is free, visiting the one who is not.

But he doesn’t feel free.

No matter how hard he tries to please his brother and find the gods, he can’t seem to tap into whatever this power is that his brother claims he has.

It doesn’t matter what direction he wanders from the palace, he always finds his way back here to the dungeon.

In the hovering darkness, he feels comforted. Maybe that’s why.

“What is your name?” Gabriel asks as he floats on a cloud of euphoria. But he’s not sure if when they speak to one another, they speak with words or thoughts. Or maybe Gabriel is imagining all of it in his drug haze.

Most call me Toto.

“And the few?” Gabriel asks. “What do they call you?”

The dog does not answer.