There are other ways in. It takes me a while to find one that is free of guards, my mind tracing the memory of neatly drawn lines. Down below, I find what he’s been building. Iron bars stop me, I give them the slip. Mother lied to me. An investment opportunity, she said, a vineyard of sorts, ripe for the harvest. A mine, an oil well. A pit of dirt. Another lie. Another betrayal.

How many have there been?

Rage takes hold of me, breeds madness. I step beyond words. Daniel and Stephen from Donegal are walking with me, Renfrew in their midst. Mr. Price holds a lamp. Green tiling, Caracalla. A room beyond the laws of physics. Light holds no flame here; past turns to present. I bathe, I feed. My stomach bulges but my limbs are weak.

Order!

He pulls me back. I catch his scent, it carries on a ventilation draught, recalls me to the world of thought. He is here. Not close, not in this chamber, but in some tunnel far away, where the sewer meets the city above. It lures me back; a long ascent. My cousin, my mirror, my bride. Blood wedding; together we’ll be twice myself.

I leave the sewers on all fours. Dark outside, the sun long set, beggars jeering at me, then covering their faces when I pass. The trail is fresh; is sweet with courage, with desire, with doubt. His destination: a house half burnt. Soot mixing with soot. I look up the stairs. He is inside.

But so is Mother.

Her Smoke has a scent all its own, sweet and treacly like a sick man’s piss. The baron’s doing. He cut her deep, Mother showed me the scar. My fingers down her bodice. Seduction: a way of reminding me that I came from her womb. She has betrayed me, used me, given me life. I hate her, I love her. Commonplaces: every mother’s son. I am reborn, remade, a thing of her dark dreams. I am my own becoming. I am the alpha and the omega. I am. . I am not ready for her yet.

I wait. The house draws me, repels me in turn. I squat in the gateway down below. They are all inside. He. Charlie. Livia. Half sister, empress for a day. He wants her. She wants—

Mother.

I’m afraid of her.

But I shot Mr. Price. Father figure; hole for a heart. I could kill her at a hundred yards. A twitch of the finger, no need to look her in the eye. One hundred yards. But the Irish kept the gun.