But Liam didn’t miss much. His gaze narrowed, evaluated. “Did you see something?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I watched the tape, and I didn’t see anything. So maybe I just imagined it.”

“Just tell me.”

I felt ridiculous saying it, but made myself put it out there. “Before I went into the alley, they looked like they were communicating—verbalizing, I mean—about strategy. Making a decision of some kind, and then acting on it. One going one way, one going the other.”

Liam frowned, crossed his arms. “I didn’t see that on the video, either.”

I nodded. “Maybe I imagined it. I don’t know. It happened really fast.”

“Do you think you imagined it?”

I sighed. “No.” I paused. “I think they were communicating. But doesn’t that sound crazy?”

“Unfortunately, no. It doesn’t. Something is changing. I just don’t know what.”

I nodded, feeling a little bit less ridiculous, and looked back at the board and the picture of the girl who’d lost her life before it really began.

“You were a bounty hunter before you started looking for her killer.” I looked back at him. “But now you have a different reason to understand them.”

His eyes were the color of a dark and deadly sea. “She shouldn’t have died.” His voice carried a hard edge of guilt. “I want it to matter that she did. That’s what I can do for her. I can find out what’s happening, and I can stop it.”

And here he was, consorting with a Sensitive. The root of the evil that had taken his sister.

We’d both known love and loss, had fought through it. I worked in the store every day to remind me of what had been, to keep that reality alive. He worked every day to give some meaning to her loss.

“I really miss my dad, too.”

I didn’t mean to say the words. Certainly hadn’t meant to say them to him, to this man I’d only known for a few hours, on a night that was meant for living, not grieving. But there they were.

I felt Liam’s gaze on me, but I kept my eyes on the lines and squares that made up the French Quarter on the map in front of me.

“He died?”

“Right before the war ended. He was hurt the night of the Battle of Port Allen. There was a second, smaller attack in the Quarter.”

“I remember. It was near the Old Mint.”

I nodded. “He wasn’t a fighter, but the troops were spread thin because of Port Allen, so he and some others went down to help. The battle was chaotic. He was shot.”

“With an arrow?”

I looked up at him. “With a bullet.”

Liam’s eyebrows lifted. He understood quickly. Paras didn’t use guns; why bother, when you had magic? Which meant he’d been shot by a human.

“Friendly fire,” I said. “There’d been no power, no moon, no lights, and the troops were surrounded. Things got confused. Anyway, they treated him for the gunshot wound, and he seemed to be healing just fine.”

“And then?” he asked when I paused.

“Blood clot, they thought from the shot. There weren’t many doctors left in the clinic then.”

“I’m sorry.”

I nodded. “He’s the reason why I stay in the store.” I glanced back at the wall. “And she’s the reason why you’re making sure I get help.”

“That’s part of it.” He reached out, adjusted a photograph so it hung levelly. “Sensitives, on their own, aren’t inherently dangerous, any more than Paras are. They’re only potentially dangerous. Containment doesn’t care for that distinction.” He glanced at me. “I do. That’s why I don’t take them in.” He paused. “The first time I met a Sensitive, I was expecting a monster.” There was amusement in his voice.