"I believe you. There's been a lot that just... makes more sense if magic is real. Even if you hadn't shown me."

Like creatures in your dreams being real. Like people being ripped apart with no knives. Like the symbols that dance in the corner of his eyes, sometimes. Like--

"Your father is trying to make a dynasty?"

"Yes. He wants to marry me off to a powerful sorcerer so I can have powerfully sorcerous children.

But I want to make my own life. Where there's something I can be other than beautiful."

"Where you can be smart and make things and... catch pigeons and not kill people."

Magic is real and he is having to deal with it!

"Yes. And be with someone I love, who doesn't see me as a thing. And-- and that's why I want you to kill him."

"Not just another source of power."

"If you catch him unprepared, you have a chance of getting him. But he's magic, there's no prison in the world that can keep him."

"If I killed him, and stole the whistle and... used it, would that get rid of the body?"

Magic is real.

"Yes, it would."

"Well, I guess that's one way to solve that problem."

There was that nightmare, of the winged shape-- and the whistles came after it. That had to be magic, that... seeing things before the happened. He stares at the pigeon. It could just be a pigeon because they are everywhere. But it could be a sign. A bird of peace. Or maybe the feather patterns mean something, the oil slick iridescence on its neck a portent of something. And he's never going to know until it happens and he sees it.

"Do you know when he'd be unprepared?"

"The full moon. That's when he-- hunts."

The movement of the Moon and the planets meaning something makes sense. Is... comfortingly predictable, compared to looking at the patterns of clouds and seeing if there are any monsters he will see later hinting at their shapes.

"Hunting makes him weaker?"

"He'll be alone-- I can seduce away his guard. And he'll be outside his house and away from his magical protections."

"I just need to kill him with no witnesses and... use the whistle." (The whistle could be in a chain: from the nightmare, to Evie's whistle, to him using it. That can't be how it works but... it very much could be. Each step in the chain makes just as much sense as the last.)

"The whistle increases the strength of any spell you cast, but I don't think you know any spells. And I don't think you know the spell he knows-- to drain life from another and keep yourself forever young--"

Well, that's charming.

"To my knowledge I don't, but life keeps throwing surprises at me. --I don't suppose he hunts near the Thames." He shouldn't be even considering murdering him-- but if he is, he is not dragging the body very far.

"Yes, he does. --If I return to him I can suggest it to him, maybe-- if I pretend to him that I've seen the error of my ways--"

"I don't want you to put yourself in harm's way." Maybe the way that pigeon is caught on her hand is the sign. "But if you think it's safe enough, I trust you."

Maybe he saw something, in that expression of hers, a few days ago. ...Or maybe he's still a paranoid cad.

"Two days from now. I want to spend a day with you, before I do. So I can remember what it's like, to be with you-- when I--"

"You don't have to. I can work something else out."

She shakes her head. "No. I want to do my part. I don't want you to go to jail."

"I appreciate it."

He is seriously considering murdering a man. Not that he's never done that before, and this time he has justification. But he's seen so many perfect crimes that do not survive first contact near the enemy.

"Get him near the Thames. I'll work out the rest."

She kisses him.

"I'll give you some time to work through... it all being real?"

He laugh hollowly. (Maybe the particular echo off the balcony wall means something.) "Is it that obvious."

"It's quite a shock."

"There's a lot of things that... mean something different now.

--I'm never going to be able to explain this to my superiors."