“Nothing of consequence. You could hardly expect that.” Aristide swirled Aceto into the glass of water. “Still, even though she walked on cat paws all the way around it, I think we’re liable to hear from Custler soon, and positively.”

“So you think they are still in contact?”

Aristide smiled—almost leering—into his cloudy gray analgesic. “I have suspicions.”

Daoud cleared his throat and looked expectant. Aristide sighed, and made a vulgar gesture with his fingers.

“Ah,” said Daoud. “That is good. I am happy to have it done.”

“Not done yet,” said Aristide. He drank the noxious dose of Aceto in one long swallow, bringing on another coughing fit. “But nearly.”

“Nearly,” Daoud repeated. And though they had reached the end of the conversation, he did not leave to dress and begin his day.

Aristide set aside his empty glass. “Was there something else?”

Daoud sat gingerly on the foot of the bed. The pause before his next sentence put Aristide’s fine hairs on end. “Jinadh Addas invited us to their country home for Solstice.”

If he had been drinking the Aceto now, he would have choked. “I beg your pardon.”

“For the holiday.” Daoud waved vaguely. “It is only a few days. We don’t have plans. I told him yes.”

“You told him—on whose say-so?”

“My own.” Daoud scowled. “You do not need to come.” A piece of his hair fell forward across his forehead and he flicked it away with an impatient jerk of his chin. The gesture gave Aristide a pain in his chest before he realized why.

Surely Daoud had done exactly that before. But with Cyril’s ghost so freshly risen and veiled in flesh, Aristide made an association he had never made before. The gesture was not so much a practicality as a finely honed nostalgic knife.

There was a part of him that was … curious? To see Carmody, where he had never before had occasion to go. To spend a long holiday in the country, with a family, as though he had one.

Every moment would cut like shattered ceramic, of course. Would make him sick and sorry for himself and angry. It would be like a flaying. And yet he could not refuse.

He thought of every time he’d left a welt on Cyril’s skin. The tears and cries and pleas for more, harder, Yes, yes, I’m so sorry, yes, and suddenly, he understood the urge.

“I will,” he said. At which Daoud looked, incredibly, more miserable than he had before. “I don’t have to, though, if—”

“No.” Daoud shook his head, put a patronizing hand on Aristide’s knee. “Of course. It will be wonderful, I’m sure.”

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

Lillian hadn’t given Saeger a card. They’d talked for perhaps two minutes. And yet, when she struggled from bed the next morning, hoarse and mildly hungover, she found a telegram waiting by her breakfast plate.