Jinadh watched all this without expression, without breaking focus to stamp his feet or breathe into cupped palms. If he moved at all, it was only to grow stiff and start to frown. Now Cyril turned to him and cocked his head, indicating he should throw a pigeon.

His expression closed as swiftly and as surely as the shotgun’s barrel, but not fast enough to hide the irritation that flashed across his face. He tried to smile. Cyril tried it back at him. Neither quite managed, though Cyril’s attempt at least had the benefit of irony.

With time-consuming care, Jinadh selected two targets from the pile. Unperturbed, Cyril held the gun against the leather patch on his shoulder, motionless and patient. If he found the weight cumbersome, it didn’t show. His eyes were locked on the middle distance. The only thing that moved, finally, was his mouth, to speak one short word.

This time, when Jinadh threw the pigeon, he put his back into it. Cyril tracked the target and pulled the trigger. The pigeon disappeared, snuffed from the sky, leaving only a trailing cloud of smoke.

The second target followed so closely that Jinadh must have thrown it before Cyril shot the first. But slick as greasepaint in summer, Cyril traced its path over the trees and blasted it from the sky.

He handed the gun back to Stephen, who staggered under its weight, then took his burnt-down cigarette from the corner of his mouth. Licking his thumb, he pinched the ember out and put the butt into his pocket.

Dusk came quickly, silencing the gunshots. Lillian’s pulse jumped in the quiet; there was an awkward situation in the offing, and she would have to manage it. From what she’d seen of the afternoon’s sport, her brother had not endeared himself to her husband.

Stephen was another story, though. Since the dedication ceremony, and their subsequent days together mewed up in Coral Street, Stephen and Cyril had developed exactly the sort of bond Lillian had thought—and hoped—they might. And that would endear Cyril to Jinadh even less than his own surliness.

Typical Cyril. A charmer when he needed it, he could switch the power on like a man with a generator. But it must burn up fuel he didn’t have right now; the light behind his eyes was fitful at best.

A door slammed on the other side of the house, and what trivial conversation they had managed—“Is that sideboard a Marquette?” “Why yes. A wedding gift to Grandmama, I think. Pity to have lost the rest.”—died at the sound. The void was filled with the clatter of footsteps and voices, indistinct but growing louder. Mostly Stephen’s. Jinadh now and then.

“We’re in the drawing room,” she called, though the door was shut against the draft. Magnusson would tell them, if they couldn’t hear her.