If Cyril was any indication, the boy was on a road to nowhere good; the same road that had gotten Cyril beaten to death’s left hand, lying on the docks with a pistol to his head. “But they’re really worried because they don’t know what to do with you. Nobody wants the responsibility. Nobody wants it to be their fault you exploded a pencil sharpener, or can’t pass your exams. It makes them uncomfortable that you can’t be fixed, so they’ll keep trying to pass you off to somebody who can. Your parents to the school, the school to your parents.”

Stephen’s fork hung suspended over his cabbage, food forgotten. “What happens if nobody can fix me?”

There hadn’t been anyone around when Cyril was that age, to tell him what would happen. To teach him what survival took, in the world that already had its hooks in him. Just his spotless sister and his distant parents, disgusted with their second child’s slow slide into failure. His father had pushed him off the cliff into tradecraft, just to be rid of him and his ragged reputation.

Cyril wondered if Lillian could see as far into Stephen’s future as he could, and whether she was preparing him accordingly.

“You don’t need to be fixed,” said Cyril. “You just have to be ready for the moment they stop trying.”

Aristide woke in his accustomed state of parched misery, head pounding, and rolled over to find he was alone in bed. If fate was kind, they could pretend—as they often did—this had not happened.

Then he heard the washroom tap and his hopes were dashed.

“You look as though you need some breakfast,” said Daoud, emerging with a toothbrush tucked into his cheek. “Or a coffee, at the very least.” He was wrapped in a white cotton dressing gown embroidered with the hotel’s monogram. Water still shone on his hair, neatly striped by the teeth of a comb.

“You’re still here,” said Aristide, redundantly. Speaking dislodged a wet chunk in his chest and the words gave way to his habitual morning coughing fit, familiar as his hangover.

«To turn you like kebab and make sure you didn’t die in your sleep.» At least, that was what Aristide thought he had said; his words came out indistinct around the toothbrush, and Aristide’s Porashtu had gotten rusty at Cross-Costa, where most of his end of the business was conducted in Geddan.

“Also,” said Daoud, from the washroom this time, where he had gone to spit. “To talk about Frye.” The tap ran again, briefly, and he emerged with a glass of water. “Here, drink that.”

Aristide reached blindly for the tin of Aceto powder on the bedside table. It would be easier to have this conversation if his headache banged a little less forcefully against the inside of his skull.

“What did she say?” asked Daoud.