What were Mary and I doing while Duncan decided to go slumming? I’m so glad you asked. Mary was establishing the beginnings of her brilliant career, which would eventually result in the creation of her stunning flesh necklace. Meanwhile, I climbed farther down the ladder of success. I said goodbye to my gallery one murky spring day.

I stood there alone on the street, and Sybel said, “It had a good run. You accomplished a lot. You shouldn’t be too sad. How much longer could it hold together anyway?”

“Once, you said this was just the beginning, Sybel.”

“Did you really believe me? I just told you what you needed to hear.”

“No, you’re right. You’re right.”

I turned to look at him and he was gone, of course. I had to collect my thoughts for a moment after that. Then I walked away without looking back, for fear of bursting into tears.

Escape, escaping, escaped. I’d done it. I was no longer in even the most remote danger of being considered a success. I would have to begin again, in a city I did not entirely trust to help me. I loitered in the same circles, lounged in the same antechambers of vice on occasion, but it was only pretense—a kind of fading afterglow that did not warm the face.

I threw myself on Sirin’s mercy once more. Sirin had taken up his long-ago position at Hoegbotton, with nary a whiff of rumor as to what skullduggery he had involved himself in while he was gone. (I don’t know what he knew about the Hoegbottons to provide him with such protection, but it must have gone beyond mere evidence of embezzlement, adultery, or vice.)

But while Mary received from Sirin first-class treatment in the form of her first book contract, I got a job as a tour guide to Ambergris, my “office” on the first floor of the newly rebuilt H&S headquarters building. Although we rarely saw each other, Sirin and his rosewood desk lay directly above me. Sometimes I would look up at the ceiling tiles and imagine I saw butterflies fluttering out from between the cracks. There were days, I admit, when I seethed, ground my teeth, floated silent curses toward that ceiling. (The worst admission of all, I suppose, is that I introduced Sirin to Mary a few weeks before the war. It was largely on my recommendation that Sirin, upon his return, inquired with Mary as to the possibility of a book. I didn’t tell you for the obvious reasons.)