Across the room, a towering, pale pink, batlike creature hulked near the windows. I could see its grossly long folded arms, pouchy with membranous wings, jutting up above the heads of those standing nearby. I was staring at it, so of course it looked my way. Incongruously, it had the face of a jowly old man, complete with rheumy eyes and a thin, gray comb-over. I quickly looked away.

“Big crowd,” Kara said softly at my shoulder.

I nodded. Zion moved away, into the press, but I stood there frozen.

Even the human-shaped Seconds were clearly other to my eyes. As with Cordus’s impossible beauty, there was something about each of them that was off. The more I looked at them, the more disturbing they became. They were the non-human stuffed into almost-human packaging. It was eerie, wrong. The idea of walking among them was frightening.

Kara moved forward and took my arm. Again, I could feel her shaking.

“Come on, let’s get a drink,” she said.

We threaded our way through the crowd to a small bar set up in one corner. Kara introduced me to the barkeep, a pleasant-looking middle-aged white guy dressed all in black. His name was Hank. He too gave me an admiring once-over. My feeling of being on display intensified.

Glasses of white wine in hand, we moved to the windows. The view was stunning. Directly ahead, we looked down on several smaller skyscrapers, then a mixture of tall buildings and smaller ones. Looking slightly left, far taller buildings marched away for blocks and blocks, including some that looked familiar, even to a girl from small-town Wisconsin.

“That’s the Empire State Building,” Kara said helpfully.

I could see the top of it clearly, bathed in white light. We stood for a few minutes in silence. Kara kept bringing her glass to her lips, then lowering it. I imagined she really wanted to down it, but kept reminding herself it wouldn’t be a good idea. That was certainly what I was thinking.

The reflection of movement behind us caught my eye. I looked back to see the snowman I’d noticed earlier looming over us.

“You are Elizabeth Ryder, are you not?” it rumbled.

“Yes,” I answered, bowing my head in a way I hoped looked respectful. I felt Kara draw closer behind me.

The snowman observed me quietly for several seconds. It made me uncomfortable, but at least there was nothing overtly sexual in its perusal.

“I have heard that you brought death to one of my people,” it said at last.

I looked up at its face. Its expression was not as neutral as its voice had been. Despite the inhumanity of its features, I could see sadness there.

I teared up. I couldn’t help it.

“I guess I did,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“Will you offer no reason?”