The sound of chatter tumbled down the bannister toward him and he rose to meet it, emerging on a landing outside two double doors thrown open onto the reception.

The room was littered with those impractically small tables caterers always set up at things like this; the tall ones at a good height for nobody, that filled with clutter every fifteen minutes and had to be cleared. If you put your drink down on one of those, it would disappear as soon as you turned your back. He planned to keep firm hold of his, and drain each glass before it left his fingers.

Very few people were in white tie, and Aristide’s tuxedo felt less daring than he had hoped. Ten years ago it would have been all tails and winged collars. Some guests wore international dress—tunics and dhoti, sashes and fustanellas. There were women in jackets and trousers, too, some with other women on their arms. More than one man wore lipstick and rouge. The razors and blushboys were making their presence felt: loud laughter, languid hands.

Aristide wondered how many of the more … colorful guests had been invited specifically to put on this show. He couldn’t have been the only adornment to these proceedings. Why did the provisional government feel a need to hammer the point home? Or perhaps Honora had only wanted a theme for her party: The Ospies are most certainly gone.

He wasn’t sure how many people were convinced. Colors were thin on the floor, and where they appeared they were muted with gray or brown: earth tones, sepia, subdued shades. Few jewels, and nothing ostentatious. Nobody here wanted to disrespect the memory of the dead they’d gathered to honor, but it seemed to go deeper than that; people still carried the weight of fear.

Before he could begin to feel morose, Aristide turned to Daoud and said, “Find Frye for me, will you? While I find the bar.” As he turned toward his mission, Daoud caught his elbow.

“There,” he said, and gestured. It was not the sort of party where one pointed fingers.

She stood at a distance of about twenty yards, caught in what looked like three separate conversations. A woman of medium height made imposing by tall pumps, she was older than Aristide by perhaps ten years. Silver hair was piled on her head, held with simple pins. Sun had turned her skin to supple leather, warm with a tan even in the winter, tightly creased at the corners of her eyes. She wore a mauve dress that showed a softly wrinkled décolletage, spotted with freckles, framing a single sapphire ringed in seed-sized diamonds. An antique, by the setting, but a fine one. Purchased at auction, perhaps. Camouflage for new money.

And, at Frye’s elbow: Lillian DePaul.