Giles blinked at the fanatic who had ripped open the sky and tried to think of what he should say.

Ed the janitor had been pulled back to the secret place where he’d started and Giles/Robby had been pulled back with him. Tiffany had arranged for Giles to fall into his own story just so he could be dragged along to this place.

He could also glimpse Ed’s life, that might help. But Ed was gone and his memories were like fading newsprint.

He was also Robby the journalist. Robby Baker was good at getting information. But he wasn’t completely Robby. Sometimes in dreams you’re a character in a spy thriller but you’re still your stumbling self.

He steeled his nerves to answer somehow the question, “What did you see, Begley?”

The fanatic let out a wet, ripping fart, the gagging smell of which mingled with his sulfurous breath. Three people in lab coats on the other side of the room did not appear to notice. Maybe they had trained themselves not to notice. Giles knew his face showed something that “Ed” would probably not have dared to show.

The face of the man peering at him with fierce demanding curiosity showed growing menace. “Come on, what did you see? What’s the matter with you?” His voice was bristly and crackling, with a hint of the letter “r” rounding the edges of every word.

Ed wore glasses. To buy a little time, Giles took them off to clean them, thinking he could use that time to peer stealthily around. But Ed’s eyes couldn’t see anything but a blur without them. The sickening stench finally receded.

With nothing gained but a vague sense of other people bustling around, two of whom were chatting about cats, he put his glasses back on. Furiously he ransacked his brains for the name of the man in front of him, or at least what Ed would be expected to call him. Doctor something. Sanders?

He couldn’t stall any longer. The face in front of him wasn’t suspicious yet but it was crinkling in that direction. He had to answer. Ed was a total kiss ass, he realized, and would be fawningly eager to give a good report.

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“Yes, um, sir,” he began, arguing that you could never go wrong by calling your boss “sir.” And it seemed to go over well: the face in front of him settled into listening like a man relaxing into a comfortable chair.

The other two voices in the lab were talking about cats. They were discussing a museum of cats in Saint Petersburg.

Whoever this man in front of him was, he couldn’t be that important. He worked with a test subject and other lackeys stood around chatting.

But sending a man through time, that wasn’t important? Giles realized that this man would rip open the sky but had not done it yet.

Robby was a reporter: he would pretend to know more than he did. “Sir, I can tell you that I arrived exactly where I was supposed to.” The man sucked in his breath and grabbed Ed’s shoulder eagerly.

And suddenly Giles knew exactly what to say next. “Sir. You were right.”

That did the trick. A narcissistic madman can never resist being told that he’s right.

“You found where the demons could enter? You saw the Gilt Edge?!”

His fingers squeezed Giles’s arm painfully and his breath was like a living corpse.

Giles tried to think of anything on Cloud Rock which could be considered a “gilt edge,” while saying perkily, “Yes sir! Just like you said it would be.”

Frustratingly, the man was not goaded into more details. He just rubbed his hands and smiled through stained teeth.

“Where,” he said, putting a map in front of Giles, “where exactly did you wind up?”

Giles tried to stick to the truth without giving away anything important. “Well, Arizona,” he started. But the greedy man pounced; he hadn’t known “Arizona.” The map was a world map. And, Giles realized, kicking himself, Ed wouldn’t have known the rock in the sky was anywhere on Earth.

The others in the room stopped their conversation. Giles’s heart leaped: one them, a woman in a white lab coat, had long black hair.

“Where exactly?!” Killington (Giles couldn’t help thinking of him as Killington) puffed nauseating breath.

“Well, in the desert –”

“Of course in the desert, are you attempting a joke?!”

Why had the man known desert but not where in the world?

The others edged out of the room, trying not to walk conspicuously fast. The woman with the black hair stayed.

“It was a mineral springs, a retreat center.” What was safe to say? Giles tried to disappear into Robby the journalist. “Sir, could you give me any idea what…”

What I should have looked for, he’d been going to say but the narrowing eyes warned him. “What details would be most useful?”

Killington went calm. “A retreat center? And you would have known this because, perhaps, a retreat was in progress?” The wildcat thrummed.

“Yes, I suppose—”

“Got it!”

Killington slammed him on his aching back. “You’ve earned that bonus, Begley,” he roared, and rushed from the room.