“I’m sorry,” he said. The words dragged through him like barbed wire, but he pulled them out all the same. If this was the last time they ever saw one another … life had taught him the utility of closure. “Daoud, you’ve been very … useful to me.”

He laughed, one harsh exclamation, and said, «A convenience.»

«No.» Aristide assayed it in Porashtu though he was bound to fail. «A … a firm place. A great help. And a friend.»

“I expect an excellent reference,” said Daoud, and walked out the door.

“Ma’am,” said Magnusson, from the door to the second-story office—she had begun to inhabit it, as though sitting at a desk might translate to work, and pay. How Daddy would have blanched at the thought.

But Daddy hadn’t been quite the good example she had made him out to be. Never had been.

“Yes?” She looked up from the household accounts, which she had spread across the badly scuffed blotter. The previous tenants had left the desk, but taken or sold the leather seat and filing cabinets, so she had brought a dining room chair up for the moment.

“That young man is here to see you. Mr. Qassan.”

Odd. He hadn’t rung, and she hadn’t spoken to Aristide in some time. What could he be after? “Bring him up, please.”

Daoud’s appearance did not inspire confidence: a coat thrown over his suit, but no scarf and no hat on his head. The weather was warming, slightly, but it had not grown so temperate. Bloodshot eyes at the center of a pinched face cemented her suspicion that he had not come bearing good news.

“Mr. Qassan,” she said, standing from her chair and realizing too late there was no other to offer him. “Perhaps we could repair to the library? It will be warmer there.”

He managed something between a nod and a shrug, then bit down hard on his lower lip and dissolved into tears.

Alarmed, Lillian froze for a brief moment before compassion got her across the room. Daoud was small in her arms, not much bigger than Stephen, and since she was in pumps, his head fit just beneath her chin if she stretched up a little way. Weeping took ten years off his age, and if she guessed right he had not yet reached thirty.

“Queen’s sake,” she said, rubbing circles on his back. “What’s happened?”

He tried to breathe, but lost it to a sob. She felt his fist close on the loose knit of her cardigan.

“Magnusson?” she called, over his head.

The discreet butler reentered her line of sight from his post to the side of the door. “Yes, ma’am?”

“Fetch some whiskey, will you? Mr. Qassan is, er … indisposed.”