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Blake landed on the library roof, folding his wings and crouching down so I could slide off him more easily.

The big red gryphon rolled over on his back, and after various stretches of various limbs he had changed himself back into a big red kangaroo.

I sat next to him, resting a paw on his belly, and looked down into his eyes.

He looked back, and then through me, up at the stars behind the dome.  I rolled over on my back next to him, looking up likewise.

“I’m sure we don’t belong up here,” I said.

“Just because you’re not supposed to do something doesn’t mean you don’t do it,” Blake said.  “It means you think about whether doing it is worth the consequences.”

I laughed.  “You’re trying to corrupt me.”

“Not at all,” Blake said.  “Just reminding you that you have the power of choice.  Even if the consequences are dire, you can choose to risk them—a ‘Keep Out’ sign is not an impenetrable force field.  So what are the consequences of being caught up here that are so dire anyway?  What’s the scenario you imagine?”

“Well, for trespassing we might go to court…” I said. “Might be a fine, or even jailtime.  A blemish on my public record.”

“That’s a worst case,” Blake said.  “Isn’t it more likely that, say, someone might find us and say, ‘Hey kids, you don’t belong out here, come back inside,’ and we do?  Or that we don’t get found at all?”

“You are trying to corrupt me,” I said.

“Only a little.”  He turned to face me, resting one heavy arm on my chest.

And he moved his arm lower, his paw passing my stomach. “Maybe about… this much?”

He squeezed playfully.

“In a public place?” I said.

“Ah, but it isn’t public,” Blake said. “There’s a Keep Out sign.  This place is private for the many who allow a piece of cardboard to be stronger than their willpower, when it should take a good deal more.”

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“But yeah,” he went on.  “We don’t have absolute power over anything in this world.  And because our power is not absolute, there will be times things outside our power happen.  And of course they’ll be things we wouldn’t have wanted to happen, if we had the power to stop them.  But it’s a rejection of reality to expect things to always go the way we want—the correct thing to do is be ready for when our control fails.”

“So when you lose a memento of your sister…”

“Then I launch into monologues, thank you.”  The waiter had appeared again with Blake’s order, which the menu had defined as wheaten moon-cakes, flaky after the Viennese fashion, and not, by any stretch of the imagination, biscuits of any sort.

I placed my order—dovo amandine, which was apparently the day’s special; Blake ordered “likewise.”

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He said it with a finality that debarred any further conversation.

L & L stuff is protected, so it wouldn’t have been online, and he probably didn’t make a backup either, for the same reason.

There probably wouldn’t be any more memory of Darker Island, except in Blake’s head and maybe some obscure corner of Blantyre, wherever that is.

“Are you going to be all right?” I said.

He leaned back in his seat and shut his eyes again.

“Emmett,” he said, “What do we have power over in this world?”

“What, absolute power?”

“Absolute power.”

“Well… nothing, I guess.”

“Nothing,” he affirmed. “Actually… some of those biscuits.” This last bit to the waiter, who’d found us and was hovering.

“‘Biscuits’?” the waiter repeated incredulously.

“Them fancy biscuits like what he has.” Blake pointed to the man who’d wanted to download his sister, who had a plate of faving viennois.

I tried to hide behind my menu.

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I’ll admit I only have a vague direction on this so far.

I took a taxi to Rico’s where I figured Blake’d already be waiting for me. But when I gave my name to the maître d’—Green, reservations for two—I found he’d been held up as well; he came to my table about five minutes after I sat down, and he was soaked even wetter than I had been.

He didn’t apologize. “Quite a day out, isn’t it?” he said, and grinned.

Blake is one of those people who tend to look a little different every time you see them. Today, I was sure he was quite a bit fatter than the last time I saw him… but he wore it well, so I wasn’t going to complain.

He sat down across from me, picking up a menu. “So, did you order yet?”

“Nah,” I said, “I just got here. Missed my bus, had to call a taxi.”

“I missed the bus, too. I think they’re running ahead of schedule today. But I figured I’d walk, since it’s only a couple of blocks.”