The Ao Hinso was not what Cyril had expected. The passageways smelled of mold and fermented cabbage, and the cramped cabin would never have fit a cot. At least there was a porthole, which they kept open when the weather held. Brine and diesel blew in on the breeze. Cyril thought of the Alain de Nils perfume he’d streaked across Cordelia’s wrist so long ago, and the glittering party where they’d encountered Aristide, his eyes done up in kohl.

The memory contrasted sharply with their current circumstances.

They’d been on the Ao Hinso nearly a week now, and its shabbiness had grown familiar, almost comforting. Besides, Cyril had lived with much worse.

But Aristide had chosen this. So when Cyril was first confronted with their second-rate surroundings, he’d observed them in surprise and said, “It doesn’t seem very…” then waved a hand rather than find a word.

“Chic?” asked Ari. “No. But it’s what we can afford and still avoid fleas.”

“Afford? Aren’t you some kind of criminal tycoon?”

Ari opened a piece of his luggage, which occupied most of the room, and located his cigarette case and lighter. Purple enamel, golden braid. Cyril remembered wanting to lick the gleaming lighter in his stuffy Lisoan safe house, amazed something so beautiful could still exist.

The memory recalled a more recent one: the taste of the tender skin beneath Ari’s jaw. The metallic tang of his sweat.

Ari lit a straight and savored it, eyes closed. “Not anymore.”

Cyril took a straight from the case, too, and plucked the lighter from Aristide’s fingertips, startling him from his contemplation.

“I wasn’t being facetious when I said you’d bankrupt your sister. And me, too. A lot of it went to Frye’s campaign; I was trying to set her up as a sort of puppet, I suppose. Lillian will get a little bit of it, and the rest went to pay our way out of that wreck.” He gestured eloquently with his cigarette, indicating Gedda, though by Cyril’s reckoning he was actually pointing northeast. “There’s enough to get us where we’re going, and a house to live in once we’re there. And what I do have will go further than it might elsewhere.”

“Mother and sons, we aren’t going back to Liso, are we? I know they owe me a pension but I’d rather—”

“No, no.” Aristide waved smoke from his face. “After Daoud’s little sojourn into radio journalism, my manger there is well and truly shat-upon. Cross would probably hire a hit man the moment she heard I was back in the country. Perhaps you can collect that living from abroad?”

“Really,” said Cyril. “Where are we going?”

Ari took another drag and his eyes lost their cynical squint. A little of that old emcee’s lyricism came into his voice: Central City cream poured over stagefolk charm.