Milija stirred, shuffling up from the mattress. They embraced one another, holding close. In the room down the hall, Naxi slept. Outside, the rain spattered against the window, as it would do all night, and for weeks.

‘How are you feeling?’ Milija asked.

‘Fine. Back to normal. How are you?’

‘All good.’

They lay there for a while, their limbs tangled together, listen­ing to one another breathe.

‘But I know what you mean,’ Zidarov said then.

‘About what?’

‘About the evil. Every day, one after another. That they just keep coming.’

Milija didn’t reply straight away. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘They want to live forever. It doesn’t matter how it happens. They don’t have to think about that. They don’t go into the warehouses.’

‘Who?’

‘The gilded. All of them. The heads of the houses, the rejuve addicts in the private clubs. I hate them. Without them, there’d be no market for any of it. But they couldn’t keep it out, the fear, and lost their joy because all they ever did was try. Even they can’t stay safe. They can’t protect what they love.’

‘Is this about Naxi?’

‘Maybe.’ He shifted in bed, half-rolled onto his back. ‘I just get sick of it. Seeing the cruelty. You forget, sometimes, when you deal with them, that there’s anything else.’

‘There is. You know there is.’

‘Maybe. You hear it from others. A woman in the seminary, I liked her. But maybe she was just fooling herself too. She couldn’t keep the sickness out. It got to her, too. You can’t keep anyone safe.’

‘I don’t like to hear you talk like this.’

‘No, I don’t like it either.’

She reached for him, placed her hot hand on his cheek, pulled his face towards hers. ‘It’s faith,’ she said. ‘That’s what we’ve been missing. Something to hold on to.’

He looked at her. She was still beautiful to him, after so many years of partnership. Time had dragged on both of them, adding layers, taking away the energy that had forged them together, turning into something softer, cooler, more enduring. He saw the lines of her face, the flaws on her skin, and saw their life together written in those marks.

‘I do have faith,’ he said.

‘In Him. In the Throne.’

He hesitated. ‘They say that everyone sees Him differently. He could be the sun, or the branch of the tree, or a snake in the water. He has always been there, folded into the things of the earth. Anything else is just propaganda.’

‘Where did you learn that?’

‘I heard it, a long time ago.’

‘They don’t teach that at the cathedral.’

‘No. I guess they don’t.’