There was a silence. She bent her head. She moved her knife one inch, then moved it back.

“And you think it can be rapid?” she said.

“Oh, I think it can be astonishingly fast. I think it can happen in the middle of a sentence, halfway through a meal, walking along a street. I think it can happen between falling asleep and waking the next morning.” His voice became dry. “No doubt it’s been approaching for some while, creeping up on you in a stealthy way—until finally you permit yourself to admit capture. Then it’s irremediable, of course.”

“You’re sure?”

Rowland could see that she was following a train of thought separate from his own. He had just spoken to her with a frankness he had not used in six years, and yet she had missed his meaning. He wondered if that was intentional, then saw it was not. He considered being more overt, then rejected that option as a form of trespass.

“Is it? Is it irremediable?” She was now leaning toward him, her eyes bright, her face tense with entreaty.

Rowland sighed: “I would say so,” he replied. “Gini—that particular clock can’t be wound back.”

He sensed her draw away; he saw her begin to reach for her scarf and her coat. He signaled for the bill. She had recovered her composure and was trying to appear businesslike. Rowland watched her tie the shamrock-green scarf around her throat. He reached across the table, touched her hand, then withdrew his.

“So what do you want to do now, Gini? Go on? Stop? Rest?”

“Go on.” She picked up her bag. “We’ll go to Mathilde’s next. Okay?”

“It’s what I would suggest. If you’d prefer to go back to the hotel—they did find a room for you… I could go to Mathilde’s. You look tired, Gini.”

“No. I’m not. I told you. I want to work. Rowland—we have to go on with this. We are making progress. And Star has that gun. I want to find Mina.” She frowned, her face becoming set. “I’m determined to do that.” She rose. “Let’s both go to Mathilde’s. Fight our way past Lazare’s guards if they’re there.”

She smiled as she said this. Rowland followed her out of the restaurant. In the street outside, she glanced up at the sky. Her hair was still damp from the rain, and so was his. The last light of the afternoon had faded. A student rode past on a bicycle; from a house opposite, a child called to his mother. In the distance, muted, they could hear the roar of the city’s rush-hour traffic.

“How dark it is,” she said.

It was after five when they reached the rue de Rennes. It was, Rowland thought, a dull if expensive street, high bourgeois, one of those citadels of the rich to be found in any large city, the Paris equivalent of Mayfair, or Park Avenue: a wide boulevard lined with trees and flanked on both sides by ornate ten-story turn-of-the-century apartment buildings. Their ranked windows glittered with lights. There were few passersby; Gini, walking beside him, came to an abrupt halt.