"Well, your choices have continued to work out very well." (He is trying not to look ridiculously lovestruck and it's not working.)

"Do you ever meet someone," Evie asks, "and feel like you just know from the beginning that you belong together?"

"Not until recently."

"Everything just feels," she says, her underwear still on the floor of the alley, "so right."

And he's on the floor with it. He is staring up at her so wide-eyed. "It does, it does."

"I love you," she says.

"I love you too. More than anything."

"Anything?"

He is going to regret this, he knows it, but right now he can't think of anything more true that he has ever said. "Anything."

"I love you more than anything as well."

eeeeeeeeeeee. "You're too kind."

"What were you doing this afternoon?"

"My original plan was to go poke around in police files, but that can wait until tomorrow."

"Are those relevant to acting?"

Her voice is teasing.

"Dr. Aarons, alas, pays better than acting. But I can always use it as preparation for a role. As a detective, as a madman--"

"Ooh," she says. "Can I see your performance as a madman?"

"I'll let you know if I ever play one. But I think you have already seen me in that role."

"Mad with love?"

"Definitely."

"The lunatic, the lover and the poet are of imagination all compact," she quotes.

"More than cool reason ever comprehends."

She kisses him. "Go save your lunatic, and then you can be a lover and a poet as much as you like."

He kissed her cheek. "I wouldn't dare cause any delay that would keep me from you."

Meanwhile--

Sal wants to get his hands on Der Wanderer. Sal absolutely does not want to get his hands on Der Wanderer. Sal wants to talk to a relatively sane person with reason to believe in cursed books about Der Wanderer.

(He is also, though he wouldn't say this out loud, regretting the earlier urge to be respectful of William Way's boundaries and not probe him about the grisly murder scene he witnessed.)

In pursuit of this goal, Sal arranges another visit to William Way's house.

"Who the fuck are you? Are you another one of my brother's whores?"