Chey lifted the pistol in her hand and studied it as if there were some hidden message engraved on it. Some explanation of why it had been placed in the bag with the sandwiches and magazines.

When she actually thought about it, though, there really was only one conclusion to be made. A pistol with a single bullet in its is useful for a small variety of things, and only one of them made sense given where she was. And how alone she was.

She lifted the pistol to shoulder height. She wondered if it mattered if she shot herself in the heart or the head. Blowing her brains out might hurt fractionally less—before she even knew what was happening she would just be gone, a puff of smoke blown away on a stiff breeze. If she shot herself in the heart it might take a couple of seconds for her to die. Excruciating, burning seconds.

Yet wasn’t the heart more traditional? That was how the stories usually went. Or was she thinking of vampires? Yes, of course. It made no difference where she shot herself. It was just silver bullet plus lycanthrope equals no more lycanthrope. Just that simple.

Then again—what if she were wrong about that? She had never actually seen a wolf killed by a silver bullet. What if she shot herself in the head and it didn’t work? What if she had to lie there in her blood and scattered brains until she changed again?

She lifted the weapon as nonchalantly as she could and tapped the muzzle against the side of her head. Then she started laughing and put the gun carefully back down on the floor. She hadn’t been serious, of course, she wasn’t actually going to follow through. Why, that would just be dumb.

She kept laughing until she realized she couldn’t stop. Then she clutched her hands over her mouth and rolled up into a ball and tried to squeeze herself shut before her mind leaked out all over the floor.

Eventually she recovered enough of herself to reach for another sandwich. She was still hungry—ravenous, after five days with nothing to eat. The food might help her think more clearly, and… and she reached down and found nothing but a piece of wet ham lying on the floorboards. The stale bread and wilted lettuce leaf were gone.

“You can have that part,” Dzo said. “I’m a vegetarian, remember?”

It was so natural, so perfectly ordinary for him to be sitting in the corner nibbling at a piece of bread that she didn’t scream. She just turned to look at him with half a smile on her face. He was sprawled across the floor with his mask tilted up, his furs spread out around him making him look as flabby as a bear about to go into hibernation.

“Hi,” she said.

“Yo.” He shoved the rest of the bread in his mouth and chewed noisily, breathing through his nose. “You’re probably asking yourself how I got in here without you noticing.”

“I am?” she asked. Now that he mentioned it, though… “I am,” she said.

“Yeah, that’s the obvious question. You might also want to know what I’m doing here. That’s pretty good, too.”

“Did Powell send you to find me?” she asked, because suddenly that was what interested her.

“Ah ha!” he crowed. “Good, good question, but, no, no he didn’t. Haven’t seen him in a while now. Where he’s got to I can’t follow, you see. So I was pretty bored and I figured, heck, I’ll go check up on the lady shape-shifter. See how you’re doing.”

“Not so good,” she said. “I’ve got a bad case of cabin fever. They’ve got me locked in here pretty tight.”

“That’s no good. Liable to make you crazy,” he said.

“Yeah.” She glanced at the gun lying on the floor. “I think that was the point. Can we get out of here? Go someplace else and talk there? Pretty much anyplace—anyplace at all—will do.” She scrabbled over to the trap door and yanked on the latch—and nearly pulled her arm out of joint. It was locked up as tight as ever. She pulled again just for form’s sake but nothing had changed.

She turned to look at Dzo. He just shrugged.

How had he gotten in?

What was he? He had told her once that he was in no danger from the wolves. Unlike everybody else. She remembered when she’d met him and told him she was lost and freezing and about to die. He’d patted her on the back and said “there, there.” As if he didn’t even understand what death meant.

She realized she was naked and she grabbed for her sweater. Dzo didn’t turn away or blush or anything. “This—this means nothing to you, does it?” she asked. She pulled it on anyway. “You don’t, I mean you’re not—”

“Gosh, do you mean if I care what kind of clothes you wear or if you’re in your altogether?”

She nodded.

“Well, to be honest, not as such.” He scratched his belly. The question seemed to make him much more uncomfortable than her nudity. “I mean, I barely have time to notice what color your skins are. You kind of all run together in my head. You’re like mayflies, eh? You’re here for a second and then you’re gone. I like you shape-shifters better ‘cause you last a little longer, but, well, still and all.”

She nodded again, understanding very little but maybe more than she had before. Dzo wasn’t human. She had that much. He wasn’t mortal, either. Beyond that she didn’t even want to get started.

Maybe she could worry about that later. “Dzo, you got in here somehow. I’m sure that if I asked you how I wouldn’t understand the answer.”

“Dove through the water. I’m a pretty strong swimmer.”

“See what I mean?” she said. “Can—I—dive through the water?” she asked. “To get out of here?” Whatever it meant, whatever weird new fucked up thing it might entail she knew she would do it. Anything to get out of the tower.

His face opened up as he considered her question. “Well,” he said, finally, “no.”

“Okay.”

“No, you see, because this isn’t water like you’re used to. It’s everywhere all at once, kinda, and I don’t think you know how to swim like that.”

“Right,” she agreed.

“Now, as for teaching you, that’s been done before, but that’s a long time since. Like that was back when all the stories were still true.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, defeated. She slumped back against the wall of the fire tower and closed her eyes.

“But that’s not to say there’s no way out for you. Why, I can see a pretty good way right now,” he told her.

“You can.” It wasn’t a question. Because she didn’t expect an answer, at least not one that made sense.

“Yeah, sure,” he told her. “You just open up one of these windows and jump out.”