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I said nothing.

“He is well,” said Roake. “I give you my word. His hands are intact, and his face, and I have no plans to change either. That will depend on you.” Another pause. “You have read my card.”

“Yes.”

“You will come alone.”

“If I do not?”

“Then I will begin with his hands. Not out of cruelty. Out of arithmetic. You see, Mr. Volkov, I am a surgeon. I know precisely how much a person can lose and still live. I would rather not test it on a boy who loves hockey.” His voice did not change. “Half an hour. Harbor Road. I will leave the door unlocked.”

The line went dead.

I stood there with the phone against my ear, in the cold, and listened to the silence.

“No,” said Sabine.

“I have not said anything.”

“You have said everything. You’re going to go in there and let them take you.”

“Yes.”

“You cannot.”

“I must.”

“He’ll kill you!”

“He will not,” I said, “because that is not what he wants.” I turned to her. I felt very calm. It was the calm of a man on a frozen lake in the final second before the ice goes. “Listen to me. He has spent six years looking for a vampire who would come to him. Who would walk in of his own will. He has a wall of photographs and a map full of pins, and what he wants is a reason. Proof. A creature that will stand in front of him and be what he says it is, in front of a witness, so that he can put it in the ground. He wants to be right.”

“So don’t give him that.”

“I cannot avoid it. I have never avoided it.” I set my jaw. “The only question is what I do once I am inside.”

Her eyes were full. “Maksim, I can’t lose you.”

“You will not.”

“I lost everyone else.”

“I know.”

“I lost my whole family in a single night. I was twenty-two. I lay in a hospital bed in Petersburg with a fever and a dead mother, and you walked in, and I thought, oh, God, another monster. “ She wiped her cheek. “And you sat with me. For three days. And then you turned me, and I have never once been sorry. Do you understand? Not once. You’re all I’ve got. “

I put my arms around her. She was shaking. I felt her fist knot in the back of my coat.

“I have a plan,” I said, into her hair.

“You do not have a plan.”

“I have half of one.”

“That is not a plan, it’s a gesture. “

“It is what I have.” I held her at arm’s length. “You will follow me. Not in. You will circle round to the back. Find whatever door he has forgotten. Get to Lex first. Not me. Him. Whatever happens to me, whatever you see, whatever I say, you get him out.”

“You’ll be bleeding.”