“There’s a bungalow,” he said. “On a red sand beach in Ishin Sao. I should have sold it years ago, but … It’s just outside a village, on a road that will take you to Oizhan if you’ve got bus fare or a motorbike.”

“You’ve been there?”

“No,” he admitted, smiling ruefully. “But the letting agent told me it was quiet, lovely, close enough to the city for comfort, but far enough there won’t be tourists wandering the streets. A few folk from around the world, but largely locals.”

“It could be a midden heap.”

“It’s not,” said Aristide, with the peaceful conviction of a martyr.

“Still, I wager we won’t be lighting up absinthe at any mirrored bars.” Not that he was particularly eager to reenter that world. Only that it was the one he knew; the one he could place Aristide within. Beyond the confines of the Foxhole and the Bee, he didn’t know who they were to one another.

Aristide snorted. “I only ever drank it on fire because it made a good show for the punters. And besides, Malcolm served cheap absinthe. You shouldn’t light up something good. Shouldn’t even add a sugar cube.” The sibilance of the Central City lingered on his palate, and his wrist beneath the cigarette grew languid.

Perhaps it wasn’t all gone, after all. “Will you do it now?” asked Cyril.

Aristide raised an eyebrow. They were thicker now, and had started to get ragged at the edges during the trek across Tatié. But the angle was familiar. Cyril, filled with sudden daring, kissed the apex of its arch.

“The stutter,” he said, his lips close to Ari’s skin.

“D-D-Darling.” Aristide pulled back and stared him in the eyes. “I’m sure I d-d-don’t know what you mean.”

Also by Lara Elena Donnelly

ALSO BY LARA ELENA DONNELLY

Amberlough

Armistice

Praise for the Amberlough Dossier Trilogy

PRAISE FOR THE AMBERLOUGH DOSSIER TRILOGY