Mother and sons, she’d meant to handle this more neatly. But she tried to treat Stephen like her child, rather than a press conference, and as a result found him more intimidating than a pack of rabid pen-fencers.

“Well. We had some good news. He was only … missing for a while. And now—” she glanced at Jinadh. “He’s coming to visit.”

Stephen dropped his fork with a clatter. “Here?”

“Yes,” said Lillian. “For Solstice.”

“No fooling?”

“No fooling,” she said, and to her horror felt her throat closing. Stephen didn’t notice, but she saw Jinadh catch the change in her timbre.

«Partridge,» he said, «I think this calls for a celebration. Get Magnusson to take you down to the cellar and pick out something sparkly.»

«Can I have some of it?»

«Today, yes.» Stephen was nearly out of the room by the time Jinadh called out, «Ask Magnusson for the good crystal, too.»

The dining room door slammed on the end of his sentence. «So,» he said, when they were alone. «You waited, and you saw. What happened?»

«Apparently he told Makricosta he wants to attend the dedication. They’re both going to come.»

«Have you told Honora?»

“Oh, stones.” Lillian pushed back from the table, chair legs screeching on the scuffed parquet.

Jinadh put a hand out, patting the air. «It can wait for a glass of champagne, surely.»

“It really can’t. I should ring her. I’ll be back down in a moment. She has a score of people waiting on the list of speakers—the printers and radio folk and half a dozen papers.”

She saw Jinadh crumple slightly at the shift in her priorities, but she couldn’t help it: The tide of work had caught her. Kissing the top of his head, she told him, “Duty calls,” and left him alone at the table.

CHAPTER

FIVE

“Well,” said Aristide, shutting the door behind him, “That’s set. She wants you to—”

He stopped short, the rest of his sentence dying in his throat. Cyril was sprawled on his back on the sofa of Aristide’s hotel suite, one hand dragging the carpet. His mouth hung open, jaw loose. On the low table in front of him: an empty crystal tumbler and Aristide’s bottle of sleeping pills.

A beam of evening sunshine crossed his supine form, turned his lashes gold where they lay across his cheek. He was utterly unmoving. He wasn’t even—

Aristide got across the room before he realized he had moved, and found his hands tight around Cyril’s upper arms. He gave the other man a hard shake, and heard his own voice saying Cyril’s name.

And then the light moved on Cyril’s lashes and his eyes were open, the striations in their shades of blue picked out in exquisite detail, whites crazed with broken veins.