He pulled back the curtains, baring the remainder of the room. The right wall was a great window overlooking Romanova’s streets, eerie since an emergency curfew kept the shops and alleys dead. Martin and his Emperor sat in silence against the room’s far wall, performing a thousand tasks over their trackers as they awaited the return of the Patient Whose gurney should have nested in the space between their chairs. Two other beds stood parallel to mine against the near wall. The farther held a patient barely recognizable as human, mummified in bandages and gel slabs, as one might imagine Frankenstein’s creation in its unnatural gestation; the near bed held a body bag.

«Who’s that in the far bed?» I asked, craning my neck as I tried to make out a sense of height or build through the bandage cocoon.

Papa sniffed. «If they recover, the Chief Director of the Mitsubishi.»

«Director Andō! What happened to them? The mob?»

«No, not Andō.» He half laughed. «That’s Andō’s successor-designate, Dominic Seneschal.»

«Dominic? Director Andō didn’t choose Jehovah?» I did not see at first the significance of servant inheriting instead of Master; it seemed trivial, such was the power of confidence’s golden illusion.

Papa nodded. «I didn’t see that one coming. No telling yet if Dominic will live to take the post, though.»

I peered at the bandages, mounded thick like snow. «What did Sniper do to them?»

Papa almost smiled. «They did it to themself. Dominic grabbed on to the outside of the car when Sniper took off out of the river, and managed to stay on all the way to Antwerp. They should be dead.»

«They rode on the outside of the car?»

«Full speed, wedged themself on somehow. The engineers always said it was impossible, but now they have a dozen explanations, something about a wind pocket in the inner angle, or back drafts, or something.»

Oh, miraculous chameleon, Science, who can reverse your doctrine hourly and never shake our faith! What cult ever battered by this world of doubt can help but envy you? «Will they be okay?» I asked.

Papa frowned. «The doctors say there’s all kinds of damage: skin stripped off, windburns, freezing, oxygen deprivation, and they’re still assessing the internal consequences. Actually, I think they’re just curious to find out how Dominic did it without blacking out.»

My eyes widened. «They stayed conscious?»

«They were conscious at the end, at least, yes. Sniper stopped the car above a jail outside Antwerp, where Julia Doria-Pamphili was being held, and shot them through the window.»

«Julia?» I cried, straps straining as my startled shoulders twitched.

«Easy, there. Julia’s fine, the bullet went through their heart but there was a hospital right by the jail.» He frowned. «If you can shed any light on Sniper’s motives I’d be obliged, Mycroft. Had those two ever even met?»

I searched sincerely for an answer, but knew nothing then of the kidnapping and day of passion that had been in payment for giving Carlyle Foster–Kraye de la Trémoïlle to Dominic. «If Sniper wanted Julia dead they’d aim for the head,» I answered, «not the heart. That’s all I know.»