"Bold of you to think I wouldn't ask anyway," Moriarty says with a wink. But he's been thinking about this, and there are questions he'd normally ask.

But then there's the fact that none of this, other than standard mores of human behavior, is normal. And Scratch knows that, too, he's quite sure. So, the question is the same one he's attempting to answer minute by minute.

"How much is different for you, here: what did the Fog God nick from your bag of tricks? . .. And how are you planning on surviving as a fish out of water?"