"I can't believe Eloise didn't tell you about any of this!" You were hoping it'd be the talk of the town. "She didn't mention me or anything?"

"We're not in touch often. I run in my own circles." Arledge twiddles a toothpick between two fingers. "Still, if this is true..."

"I-It's true," Gil says. Arledge nods but looks past him, up to Earl. "Huh?" Earl says. "Oh! Yeah! Shit, I saw her bail outta Headspace myself! Blew the thing to smithereens! I dunno what your thing is, but she's— she's a good kid, honestly."

"Mmm."

"She is! What? My word's not good enough?"

"You're a generous judge of character, Earl. It's what makes you so popular. Charlotte, if our encounter was unrepresentative—" Arledge cracks his neck. "—why do you still have it in you?"

"What?" you say. But you know what, and from Arledge's steady blue-ringed gaze he knows you know what. You dig your fingers into your thighs. You don't have to tell him you're God. He won't want to know that. It's none of his business. You're not evil, and you're not going to end the world, and you haven't even— okay, so the red stuff overtook you a handful of times between Us and now, but nothing recent, and—

"Earl, what is she doing here?" He's broken eye contact.

Earl— was he attempting to sidle away?— freezes. "Look, Graves, I— I dunno if that's really—"

"She has a warrant out for her arrest!" Claudia announces.

That little bitch! You just know she was waiting for an opportune moment. Arledge bites his toothpick, looking at you, thinking. "Thought it was something like that. Warrant from who?"

"Wind Court," you mumble.

"Naturally. Dib was drooling in there, you know. Served him a warrant up on a platter. You should've made the worm chew. How long have you been hiding out?"

"...Week and a half."

"Only? He took his time. I guess he always was thorough. What's the charges? Three counts attempted murder, one count mass destruction, five or ten or fifteen counts undeclared mutations, fiendishness, whatever... never knew how they counted that one. Dib rounds up. That sound right?"

"No," you say, and ball one hand in another. "It wasn't even an arrest for that. It was for something else."

"Oh?"

Why did you say that? Now you can't avoid the rest of it. Arledge doesn't even like Lucky, or the Court, so he won't care that much. And if he does care, Gil's right there, and Earl will want to mediate, and it's not like you're in danger. You're fine. He's outnumbered. "It was for five murders."

"Of civilians?" Arledge says. "Or Court?"

"I don't know." You wring your hands. "I can't remember."

"Because you weren't yourself."

"No! I mean, I don't— I don't know. I don't know. It was years ago. I was part of the Court, then there were murders, and then I— I left. I deserted. That's part of the charges, too, desertion, and— and mutation, but those were the charges before Us and the worm and everything. So I don't know what it was all about."

Arledge lifts his head. "Years. How many?"

(2/5)