"I don't expect we'll need you tonight, Hallow," he said. "Have a pleasant evening."
Doc hesitated.
Patrise said, "Was there something else?"
"I was thinking," Doc said, "you know, with all the stuff I carry in my bag, it's a wonder I haven't been jumped before this."
"Do you think so?" Patrise said, sounding interested.
"It makes sense. I mean, I drive a car everybody can recognize, and they probably know I don't carry a gun."
"You haven't wanted to carry a gun."
"I still don't. I just… guess I ought to be more careful, from now on."
Patrise's voice cut right across the nonsense. "Who do you think it was that set us up, Hallow? Are you afraid it was Ginevra?"
"No, it couldn't have-she didn't know anything about what was happening, any more than I did."
"You don't know that," Patrise said, calm. "You don't have any way of knowing that."
"No," Doc said, and stopped while he still had his voice.
Patrise put his book on the desk, sat up in his chair facing Doc. "But / know, Hallow. And she did not."
"Then… do you know-who?"
"Let me tell you something about people, Hallow. If you give people work that makes them feel strong and useful, then they will become strong and useful. Their strength, through you, is power, and astounding things can be done with that power. Impossible things.
"Keep the same people in fear, and you may still get use from them, but never strength. If they find strength despite you, the first thing they will do with it is bring you down. No matter what it costs. Understand that very well, Hallow: any being with a real soul will prize it above anything-certainly above life."
"A soul."
"I am not excluding the Truebloods. If Cloudhunter has no soul, then souls are surely overrated." He leaned back. "Have you thought about where to take Ginevra tonight?"
"Oh… the movies, probably."
"Why don't you take her off the Levee?"
"Is something wrong?"
"Not that I know. You should visit the World now and then. The Art Institute is open late tonight. It's not far. Barely past the Shade. Made dinner plans?"
"No."
"The Berghoff should do. Here." He scribbled a note, signed it, folded it. "Please, take it. Let me have my fun."
"Thank you, sir."
Patrise waved. "And think about the Art Institute."
"I'll ask Ginny."
"Yes. Tell me, Hallow, if you don't mind… do you make her laugh?"
"Uh…" Doc had to turn his thoughts sharply around. "She-laughs at the movies. And other times too."
"Good," Mr. Patrise said. "It is an extraordinary thing, that half the human species should need laughter so much from the other half. It is no small gift, you know. Hallow. Magic and Klrland have no substitute for it. Now, the best of nights to both of you. Hallow."
It was beginning to snow when they left the Shadow. Suddenly the air was on fire, turning the snowflakes blood-red; Ginny gasped, and Doc stopped the Triumph for several minutes while they watched the silent, heatless firestorm.
Ginny took his hand. Under her winter coat she was wearing a ruffled white blouse with a small string of pearls, a long black skirt. "I'd forgotten the fire," she said, sounding astonished.
The plaque NEW ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO was on a gray stone building that must have been a department store before the world shifted. The entrance was flanked by huge bronze lions, one old and green, one looking nearly new. A guard tipped his hat as they came through the door; Ginny scanned a brochure on what to see first, and dragged Doc up a flight of stairs, directly to a huge painting of strolling people: Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Doc had seen pictures of it in books, but…
"Look at it close," Ginny said.
He did. It was made up of thousands upon thousands of dots of color. Close up, they exploded into an atomic-structure diagram; a step back, and they coalesced again into the calm people in the sunny park.
In one of the modern halls, there was a painting of a theater usher, a girl in cap and vest standing in a golden slant of light. She looked weary; she looked terrifyingly alone. When he could look away from the girl, he saw that the pattern of the walls was a precise reproduction of a corner of the Biograph's lobby. Or was it the other way around?
He turned, a little dizzy, and there was another image he had seen any number of times before, but never like this: a long horizontal frame, a night scene somewhere in a big city, a streetcorner diner lit against the gloom. A sign on the brick wall sold nickel cigars to a disbelieving world. Inside, small at the big L-shaped counter, were a handful of people huddled over their coffee and pie, a counterman in white. No reproduction Doc had ever seen captured the electric green of the fluorescent light-it was like spellbox neon, though the artist had died long before things changed.
He looked at that picture for a long time, too, until its loneliness was too much to stand.
Near the museum exit was a room bannered The Third Fire.
Third? Doc thought. Just inside the door were two enormous engraved illustrations: the Great Fire of 1871, facing the "White City," the Columbian Exposition of 1892, burning at the turn of the century.
Beyond was an architectural model of the original Art Institute building, and an array of photographs. They showed the old building in flames, and a small army of people moving paintings and sculpture and art objects across littered, flame-lit streets. A glass case held a chunk of verdigris bronze: the distorted face of a lion, like those at the doorway looked out.
"The building burned when Elfland came back, you see?" Ginny said wonderingly, pointing at a map. "They moved it all- in one night, this says."
"Under cover of firehose and spell," a voice said. A uniformed museum guard was standing a little behind them, a plump woman with a small, secret smile. "We lost a few paintings, and a fair amount of sculpture, sad to tell. And one of the lions, of course. But look here." She led them to a side alcove: it was filled with a painting, a surreal, darkly vivid nightscape laced with flame and streaking energy. Across the center, figures-some human, some Ellyll-formed a chain, carrying paintings that, in contrast with the rest of the picture, were rendered with photographic realism.
"Picasso Crossing Adams" the woman said. "The elves knew something, even that first awful night. We hardly ever see one here now, but that night-" She shrugged, and smiled again. "Pleasant evening to you."
The woman left. Ginny said suddenly, directly into Doc's ear, "Shall I ask you now? I want to ask now."
"Ask what?"
"If you're coming home with me tonight. You don't have to. you know that. But there's enough suspense in mv life. And if we're going to have a really special dinner, I don't want to be knotted up all through it. So just tell me now, and it'll be OVCI with."
He stared at the painting, the tire and art and sorccrv and said. "Yes."
She let out a breath and hugged his shoulders.
Berghoff's restaurant was a crowded, bustling, jolly place, with fancy wood and stained glass. The maitre d' looked coldly at the young couple with no reservation until he saw Mr. Patrise's note, and at once they were given a table, and brought soup and steak and amazing platters of sausage, with dark beer to wash them down, until Doc wasn't sure the TR3 would carry their weight. There did not seem to be any question of presenting a bill.
Doc parked the car in front of Ginny's building. As they went up the front steps, Ginny slipped in the fresh snow, and Doc caught her. He had a brief, wild thought of carrying her inside, but he didn't; just kept his arm around her shoulders all the way in. Ginny locked the door behind them. "You remember when I said there was too much suspense in my life?"