He bent over and kissed her cracked crusty lips. “You died in a church,” he whispered to her silent face. “You’ll be all right. And here...” His knife was lying atop the rubble a short distance away. He retrieved it and folded the girl’s limp hands around it, laying it across her chest. “This will keep you safe.” He was tempted to add, You need the knife more than I do; but he recognized the words were empty. Just said to prove something to someone. Rogasz had no need for such words — not in this quiet twilight.

Instead, he said, “I don’t know.” He kissed her again. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.”

He smiled and patted her hands, making sure they held the knife firmly.

When he lifted his head from Juliet’s corpse, the Adversary was leaning against the ruined piano. “So,” the Lost One said, “how are you feeling tonight?”

“I don’t know.”

“Redeemed?”

Rogasz let himself take a deep breath. “Unlikely — I haven’t done anything to deserve it.”

“What did you want to do? Slay a dragon? Heal a leper?” The Adversary waved his hand dismissively. “Melodramatic crap. A childish need for flashy resolutions. Same as if you dropped to your knees and wailed that you were finally embracing God. That’s not salvation; that’s just trying to be the star in some grandiose show. Trust me, I know what salvation isn’t.” He laughed. “Still, you survived the whole day.”

Rogasz shrugged. “I’ve survived a lot of things.”

“True.” The Adversary pushed himself away from the piano and sidled forward over the debris. “Who’s the girl?” he asked, nodding toward the ground.

Rogasz opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Just a street kid,” he said at last. “I’ve been calling her Juliet.”

The Adversary raised his eyebrows. “And you’re Romeo?”