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t no one painted over any longer.
She tried the knob. It was locked. She knocked. Silence. She knocked again, harder. Still silence. Crying now, she thundered on the door with her fists and kicked it with her feet. He was gone, gone, gone, and she would be dead in a week.
Then the door opened. It wasn't the wizard, but a well-fed blonde woman in a housecoat with slippers. She was beautiful, a movie-star, though maybe that was just because she wasn't starved nearly to death.
"Girl, you'd better have a good reason for waking up the whole fucking street at three in the morning." Her voice wasn't unkind, though she was clearly annoyed.
"I need to see --" She dropped her voice at the last moment. "I need to see the wizard."
"Oh," the woman said, comprehension dawning on her face. "Oh, well then, come on in. Any friend of the wizard."
The flat was just as she remembered it from that long ago night. The woman gestured at the kitchen and coffee-smells began to emanate from it. Valentine'd forgotten the smell of coffee, but now she remembered it.
"I'll go wake up his majesty, then," the woman said. "Just sit yourself down."
Valentine sat perched on the edge of the grand divan that twisted and curved along one wall of the sitting room. She knew that the seat of her trousers -- filthy even before her tussle with the zombie -- would leave black marks on its brave red upholstery.
The conversation from down the corridor was muffled but the tone was angry. Valentine felt her cheeks go hot, even through the fever. This place was still civilized and she'd brought the war to it.
Then the wizard came into the sitting room and waved the lights up to full bright, wincing away from the sudden illumination. He squinted at her.
"Do I know you?" he said.
Her tongue caught in her mouth. In his pajamas with his hair mussed, he still looked every inch the wizard.
"I..." She couldn't finish. "I --" She tried again. "You gave me clothes. My mother is a