“Sometimes I wonder

When truly I’m asleep

Is it when I’m wide awake

Or when I’m dreaming deep?

“Sometimes I wonder

If another’s out there

Have they yet learned which is which?

Can they find the fresh air?

I opened a bleary eye, Robin’s voice dragging me out of my well-deserved sleep. She was sitting on a chair near the window, swinging her legs beneath it, singing softly under her breath. “I wonder, I wonder, I wonder, I wonder…”

The clock on the wall—perennially too slow, but never mind that—barely read eight o’clock. The total effect of my sleep seemed to have been to allow new and exciting joints within my body to express their displeasure with me, and several of them cracked as I swung my legs onto the ground. The bedside lamp didn’t turn on when I flicked the switch, and I kicked the stand in frustration. It fizzled, spat, and turned on. “What are you doing?” I said. “Why’re you singing? Shouldn’t you still be sleeping off the past few days?”

“I couldn’t. And I—remembered the song,” she said. “It seemed right.”

“It’s a stupid song. There’s no sense getting dragged down into those questions and it’s usually worse off for the people who do.” Yesterday’s jacket was coated with ten layers of dirt, so I dug out a shorter, grayer one from the pile on the chair and swung it around my shoulders. “There was a guy, before my time. A human with the misfortune to end up here—but he never realized that the Outscape was a real place. He still thought he was dreaming, he walked around for years believing one day it’d all end like it’d never happened. And then one day he got tired of waiting to wake up, so he climbed to the top of the highest building he could find and hopped the railing. I don’t know how that ended for him,” I said, “but I know how it looked. Bloody and smeary.”

Robin looked faintly horrified. “I didn’t mean—I’m pretty sure that’s not what the song is about.”

I sighed. “So you remember a song. You remember anything important?”

“No. I don’t think so.” She shook her head. “It’s like walking, or eating. I don’t know who taught it to me or why I know it. I just couldn’t get it out of my head until I sang it out loud.”

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“Great.”

“Are you mad at me?”

I yanked open the bottom drawer of the dresser. There was that spare box of cigarettes. I spun one between my fingers as I flicked the lighter. “I don’t know,” I said. “You’re witness to a murder—the only witness we know. Someone’s already tried to kill you to stop you saying anything. Others will kill you unless you tell them everything. And you’re trapped in limbo between them cause you don’t remember jack. That makes you a problem, and if you’re staying with me it makes you my problem.” I jabbed the fiery end in her direction. “What I’m saying is, start remembering.”

She nodded. Then she inhaled some of the cigarette smoke and started to cough. She tried to brush it away, but it moved in that sinuous way only smoke does, her actions seeming to make it coil tighter around her. “Stop it.”

“Open the window.” I unlatched the rusty hook and levered the window open, wincing a little at the rush of cold air. A flash of gold-edged purple caught my eye, and I squinted out into the early-morning mist. A tall man with a thin beard was approaching the door to my office, his neat buttoned-up uniform seemingly doing little to protect him from the chill. He wore short practical brown boots and had a nasty-looking truncheon at his waist, and a golden badge pinned to his chest. “Aw, hell. Of course they’d get interested now.”

Robin stood on her tiptoes and even then she could barely see over the sill. “Who is it?"

I closed the window hurriedly, before the man could hear her. “The police.”

“Is that bad?” At least she was learning quickly—a good sign for surviving the Outscape. It sure as hell wasn’t like the world outside, and if you labored too long under the old rules they’d crush you. “Shouldn’t they be able to help? Shouldn’t they know things that will help me?”

“That’s a nice thought. The problem is the cops here barely own their own souls, and there are too many nightmares in the city who make it their business to own other people’s souls. They’re just the shiny dressed-up official-looking arm of all the people who’ll try and kill us.” A knock at the door. “Stay in this backroom and don’t come out to the office, no matter what you do. I’ll do my usual talking that makes everyone love me and then he’ll go away.”

I closed the door between the office and the bedroom. Then I thought for a moment and nudged one of the chairs in front of it. Better not to take any chances, better that Robin be a little angrier with me than she risk everything by making her presence known to a cop. I smoothed down my slept-in shirt, poured myself a glass of water, made sure my desk was clear of casework, and kept him waiting just ten seconds longer to make sure he knew this was my office and I could do whatever the hell I wanted with him here.

He’d knocked thrice the first time. When he started again I pulled the door open before he got two in. “Hi,” I said as he stumbled. “What do you want?”

With a huff, he straightened. He adjusted his badge and brushed dust from his coat. “I’m here from the department,” he said. No need to specify which one—there was only one that mattered, only one through which all cases fell eventually. “I have some questions for you and I think your answers will be very useful.” He held out his hand. “Carrion Conjager.”

“What makes you think I’ll let you in?”

“I have the city behind me. This door will not keep it out,” he said. He dropped his hand so that his fingers drummed along the slick painted wood of his weapon, and I wondered just how willing he was to use the force of the city. “I understand you deal in questions. You ask them of everyone else. A little man at the morgue, a blindfolded woman by the Delta, just to name a few.”

So he’d been doing his research. I didn’t move out of the doorframe. “What’s this about?”

“Better to discuss it inside.”

“I’ve the right to know,” I said.

He sighed. “I’m with the somnicide department. We’re investigating the murder of Kit Chesnes. And I’m afraid you’re our best suspect.”