Lillian had none. The balance of sounds around her shifted, so the hiss of a car through the rainy street roared in her ears, while Magnusson’s voice sounded leagues away. Her pulse slammed behind her eyes, hard enough to ache.

“Ma’am. Ms. DePaul.” Magnusson cupped her elbow, pressed a hand between her shoulder blades. “Are you all right?”

Unmindful of propriety or class divide, she clutched at his forearm. “A chair,” she said, and he led her to the telephone bench beneath the stairs.

“Bad news?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I don’t know.”

“A glass of water?”

“Where’s my whiskey?” she said, clutching the worn green velvet of the armrest. Her sweat stained the soft nap of the cloth. She lowered her palm and wiped it on her mackintosh, which she had not yet removed.

Magnusson retrieved her glass from the card table. Letting out a stale breath, Lillian forced herself to look again at the telegram. Cyril’s name in all capital letters, slightly smudged at the bottom of the y. Cyril was in Dadang. Cyril had been found.

She had given him up for dead years ago. There had been a brief flare of hope in Porachis, but then a long stretch of no news during which her own life had become too complicated to admit of a brother who was anything but dead. In the chaos of adjusting to Sunho, securing a marriage license and work permits, scouting for employment, and finding tutors and a school for Stephen, she had not had time nor energy for anything but her old pedestrian grief. Now, guilt seized her, counting the years she could have been looking for her brother, years she should at least have hoped.

“Your whiskey, ma’am.”

She nearly jumped, but habit stayed her. “Thank you, Magnusson.”

“I don’t mean to pry,” he said, and let it hang.

What was she supposed to rotten tell him? The telegram gave her nothing. So Cyril was alive. Was he coming home? Was he sane? Healthy? In one piece?

“It seems,” she began, then shook her head. “I’ve had some news. I…”

Mother and sons, she was supposed to be on the train to Carmody in twenty minutes. What if Daoud sent her another message here?

“Can you stay here tonight?” she asked Magnusson. “Take the train up in the morning?”

“Of course,” he said, and though he ought to have been glad of the time to read, he looked more concerned than anything.

“Thank you. I need to send a telegram. Right now. I’m sorry, I know this is leagues below your purview. If Bern were here…”

“It’s quite all right,” said Magnusson, picking up the pen from the telephone bench and tearing a piece of stationery from the pad. “Go ahead.”