“Frye was at the speeches,” said Daoud, as they drew up to the curb outside the Matrons’ Benevolent Society. “I saw her arrive, while you were waiting to go on. I believe she will be here as well.”

“A bold move,” said Aristide, who had spent the last few days catching up on current events.

Daoud shrugged. “Beside the point. You should speak with her.”

“Test the jess she has on Custler, you mean. I don’t think I’ll exactly be cutting a deal in the MBS ballroom, not when her company’s held in trust.”

“Just talk to her,” said Daoud, sounding tired.

Aristide made a theatrical moue. “Of course I’ll talk to her. It’s a party. But I do worry if I buttonhole her for a little jaw, we might get a few sideways glances.”

Daoud cased Aristide with a crook to his lips. “You? Everyone will think you are only socializing.”

“You have a poor understanding of my position in Gedda.”

“I have a very good understanding of your position tonight,” said Daoud, and for half a moment Aristide thought it was an innuendo. But Daoud continued, unaware of Aristide’s discomfort and—hang it—faint arousal.

“These people,” said Daoud, “are thinking of you as a symbol. To them, who you were is dead. Now you are … a memory. A moving picture.”

“Apropos,” said Aristide. “I suppose they must have lost track of me after I stopped making films with Pulan. If any of this crowd ever watched them to begin with.” He rubbed a hand down the back of his neck, which failed to soothe the tension gathered there.

“Time to go in,” said Daoud. “And do not start drinking before you have found some food.”

His brief spike of lust had been fading, but Daoud’s flippancy blew sudden air into the heart of the embers. “Don’t presume,” said Aristide, voice low and devoid of mirth. Alarm passed through Daoud’s black eyes, like the orange glow of heat moving through a bed of coals. Aristide was going to do something shameful later this evening. But for now, he had business to attend to.

The Matrons’ Benevolent Society was a relic of old Amberlough the Ospies hadn’t quashed—or at any rate, they’d left the gilding on the walls and no one had put plain plaster over the moulding. How the benevolent matrons had fared, Aristide wasn’t so sure.

He parted with his mink at the coat check, loading it into the arms of a girl who didn’t look large enough to bear its weight, and ascended the curve of a recently scrubbed marble staircase. The whole place had the air of being hastily cleaned—under the wax and lemon oil, he could still smell dust and damp, a little mildew.