Aristide had not seen her since setting foot on Geddan soil. In fact, he had not seen her in five years, not since the lobby of the Grand Ldotho, her face buried in the filthy hair of her son. Stephen, that was his name. Snatched out from under the Ospies’ noses by the oddest pair of rescuers ever yoked together.

Aristide briefly felt the chill of the steppe wind, felt the curve of Cordelia’s small shoulders underneath his hands.

Horribly, his eyes began to burn. He blinked to clear them and looked at Lillian again. Though she was unquestionably alive, and apparently unscathed, the past clung to her like cobwebs.

She would always be burnt into his memory in the bias-cut gown she had worn at their first meeting. It had suited her: traced her tall, svelte figure in a sweep of storm-gray satin. But fashion had moved on, even in cash-strapped Gedda. The piece she wore this evening was cut militarily straight across the shoulders. Padded slightly, unless he missed his guess. The sleeves fell loose to her elbows, then narrowed at her forearms, tightly ruched. The plunging neckline was the only feature of the gown that revealed skin. Not to say that it was modest—aside from the shoulders, the cut was snug. The skirt twined around the curves of her legs in a tight twist of black silk crepe, gathered at one hip with a diamond buckle. The hem hugged her ankles, showing a pair of simple velvet pumps. She looked gorgeous, frightening, and austere.

And she was deep in conversation with Emmeline Frye, smiling faintly, nodding along, looking very much as if things were going right for her.

Cyril was nowhere to be seen.

“Excuse me.” Aristide put an apologetic hand to Daoud’s elbow. “Find us some nibbles?”

“If you’ll eat them,” he said sourly. But by then Aristide was already sinking into the elegant press of people that churned between him and Lillian.

She didn’t see Aristide coming. Unpardonable. But he approached from behind and she was putting all her energy into appearing attentive without also appearing in print.

Cyril was off her elbow, at least, so they’d be deprived of that story. He’d showed no inclination to attend the gala, and she hadn’t tried to change his mind. He’d stayed behind at Coral Street with Stephen.

The flashbulb throng got most of what they wanted at the ceremony, or on the curb outside the MBS, but there were still a few pen-fencers, and a couple of photographers on Honora’s payroll Lillian didn’t hold above shilling for the glossies on the side.