WCRC had been nationalized by the Ospies, then brutalized by the Catwalk. Frye had gone to ground—Lillian didn’t think she’d been out of the country, but she certainly hadn’t lifted her head. When the dust settled, she showed up to take the reins of her company again. While the rest of the rail companies floundered in a mess of missing money and twisted steel, Frye sank staggering borrowed and personal funds into rebuilding—and privatizing—key lines across the country. She made the balance back within months.

Opponents called her a gouger if they were feeling polite. Lillian had also heard her called a cold-hearted, calculating, dry-bite bobtail. But she looked and sounded folksy, if she leaned into it. People liked that kind of thing. They bought it, brought it home, and ate it up for dinner.

Except for Aristide, who had a sly look on his face that said he wasn’t falling for the affectation. Of course not: He was constructed of the stuff. Frye couldn’t hope to fool him with his own tricks.

“I was just on my way to the bar,” said Aristide, watching Frye through narrow eyes. “Is there anything I can fetch for either of you?”

Damnation. Lillian could feel the thing that passed between them: a frisson that held some hidden invitation, and its acceptance.

“I’ll come along,” said Frye. “I don’t trust you to order for me. You seem like the kind of man who likes a girl better when she’s drunk.”

“I’m the kind of man who likes everyone better drunk. Especially myself.” He offered his arm, and Frye took it.

Lillian killed the impulse to stamp her foot. But then Frye tilted her head over her shoulder as she departed and said, “DePaul, my house. Not tomorrow, but … the next day? Half past noon.”

She smiled and said, “I’ll put it in my diary.”

Saeger was harder than Frye had been.

For one, she was the center of attention. Though she hadn’t spoken at the ceremony, everyone knew she had been close to Lehane. The brains behind the Catwalk’s strategy. A little older, a little better-organized, with experience wrangling disparate folk to a singular cause. Cordelia had been the Spotlight, but Opal—Gaffer, clandestine code name now worn like a badge of honor—had shone it on her. And now it was Saeger’s turn onstage.

It was Jinadh who gave Lillian an avenue of approach. With the flypaper memory and smooth manners of a courtier and gossip columnist, he glad-handed with professional skill. Nobody would guess how deeply he despised the entire enterprise—provisional government, dedication, gala, upcoming election—for its hold on Lillian. Tonight, at least, he had drunk enough to put him in a jovial mood. His white teeth gleamed in the frame of his newly trimmed beard, a beacon Lillian could easily keep in sight.