"There," I said. "You're clean. Free as a bird. So you can leave, or you can stay; it's all up to you. And don't say I never did anything for you."

I left him there and headed for the elf.

He was sitting alone at a small table, smoking opium through a hollowed-out human thigh-bone. Just because he could. There was a circle of open space around him, despite the crowded conditions of the Dragon's Mouth, because even the kind of people who habituated a place like this didn't want anything to do with an elf.

Long and long ago, humans and elves lived together on the Earth, sharing its wonders and resources. But we never got on. There were battles and wars and horrible slaughters, and in the end we won by cheating; we outbred the pointy eared bastards. They gave up and left our world, walking sideways from the sun, moving their whole race to another world, another reality. The Sundered Lands. The few elves you see walking the world today are rogues, outlaws, remittance men. They live to screw us over because that's all they've got.

This particular elf watched me approach and lazily blew a perfect smoke ring at me. Followed by half a dozen increasingly complex smoke shapes, culminating in a great ship perched on a rising wave, complete with billowing sails and shaking rigging. But he was only showing off, so I ignored it. I pulled up a chair and sat down opposite him, careful to keep the whole of the table between us.

"So," said the elf, in a voice like a cat drowning in cream and loving every minute of it, "here you are. Lilith's son."

"Actually," I said, "I take more after my father. I'm John Taylor."

"Of course. And you can address me as Lord Screech, Pale Prince of Owls."