On the first balcony, steam rose from a pool the color of molten emerald. Ghostlights highlighted swimmers’ bodies within. Other guests lay in various stages of undress beside the pool; a three-armed skeleton angled a tanning mirror to catch the moon. No Nick here, either.

The second balcony was the ground floor: bar, reception, an empty stage, two open-air restaurants perched like Telomiri duelists across the courtyard from each other, Fabrice’s and Escalier, and she imagined the maître d’ of each concocting mad plots to ensnare or embarrass his rival, escalating until the hotel burned down in a cascade of envy and charred timber. More people here, three different kinds of waiters, a young woman in the hotel’s gray uniform hovering with a dustpan and broom, eyeing the world reflected in the polished marble floor for the smallest flaw. Quartet of suited Iskari, you could tell by their cuffs, drinking wine with a Glebland merchant. A family in swim trunks and T-shirts, over from the New World for vacation. A few Craft-types drowning in paperwork.

No Nick.

The third balcony was the smallest, a hundred feet across at most but positioned so those seated there could see no other balcony, only the ocean a long way off and the city a long way down. Two narrow staircases led up to that level from the ground floor, each in clear view. Only an idiot would try to sneak up those stairs, or someone who thought the safest play was the play nobody saw coming.

Which was just another way of saying, idiot.

Izza picked up a slick pamphlet of hotel activities—5:42 A.M. sunrise tantra, accompanied in the brochure by a reproduced watercolor of a white woman with honey-colored hair twisted into some sort of Dhisthran exercise posture and smiling as if she enjoyed it. 8:30 complementary diving lesson, 10:00 beach golf, which who knew what that was, 11:15 crossbow skeet. Izza paced in front of the girl with the dustpan, lips pursed as if she were trying to decide between Traditional Kavekanese Woodburning and Ocean Water Polo Tricks and Tips for tomorrow afternoon, then shrugged, crumpled the pamphlet, and let it fall. The girl with the dustbin slid in behind, swept up the pamphlet, turned without a word, and retreated toward the cream-colored rear wall, and through a door Izza hadn’t seen at first.

Izza followed the girl into a windowless hallway painted the off-white managers painted places where they wanted work done. The girl turned right, headed for a large trash can at the end of the hall; Izza turned left into a stairwell and sketched around a corner out of sight. She heard the door open and close again—the girl, presumably, returning to the courtyard and patrol.