With Finch’s mother dead in childbirth, his father had raised him after the war. A strange life, seesawing between wealth and poverty. Father’s many impor- tant yet strange friends. His connections with Hoegbotton & Sons. And yet sometimes things had been bad enough Finch’s father had supported them doing odd jobs and trading books for food. Or burning books for fuel.

Back at the old house, there had been many photographs of his father. The broad-chested muscular form of the man, tight in that characteristic Ambergrisian uniform of olive green. Wedge of a hat tilted to the side as was the fashion. On a hill or in a city or atop a tank. Surrounded by fellow soldiers or alone. Always smiling. Eyes dark dots looking into the camera. Seeming aware of future fame, but not of how it would come. Nor of how far he would fall.

Finch had chosen “John” for his new identity because it was his father’s name. “Finch” was just a common bird, a creature no one would ever notice. He’d burned all photographs except one the night he’d changed his name. Displayed on the mantel, it showed his grandparents just arrived from the Southern Isles. At the docks with their suitcases beside them. Looking faded, remote, and confused. Grandpa had been a carpenter. Grandma a homemaker. There were no relatives on his mother’s side. His father was four years old in the photo. This image was all Finch was willing to risk.

Once, Sintra had asked about the people in the photo. He’d said he didn’t know them. That he’d found the photo on the street and liked it. True, to a point. Hadn’t known the four-year-old. Never really knew his grandparents. Just another nonmemory from a lost life, and most days he didn’t regret that.

On the back of the photograph, his father had scrawled a few lines: “Sometimes a man will see in his own image a desert, and it is the need to make that desert bloom which drives him again and again to action, as hopelessness compels us to our end. Sometimes, too, a man will flee in the enemy’s direction, eager to weather any punishment—physical or mental—that proves he is still alive. Or, he does so from a pride that lies to him, tells him he can change what seems unchangeable.” From a book? His own thoughts? Finch would never know.

Feral jumped up on his lap. Began to purr as Finch petted him.

The rough-smooth taste of the whiskey scratched and soothed his throat. He sank farther into his chair. Maybe Sintra would come by tonight.

Never lost.

“Yes, I know, fat boy,” Finch murmured. Could sit there all night. Forget what he had to do and pull out a book that he’d read three or four times already. Pretend he lived in a better world.