He had lit me up with old agonies: ghosts of all the wounds and traumas I had ever suffered, and not just the physical ones. I was almost overcome with a sense of loss, of several losses. Remembered grief. I saw faces, briefly, in my mind’s eye. Faces I had not thought of in years. Uber Aemos, my long dead savant. The irrepressible Midas Betancore. Fischig, stubborn to the end. Tobias Maxilla and his gleaming artificial life. Alizebeth Bequin.

He woke them up. Grael Ochre woke them all up, and sent them to torment me for a minute or two until the pain ebbed away.

‘Why are you here?’

I looked around sharply. He was right behind me. Perhaps he had taken shelter in the retiring room too, or perhaps he had been drawn to the flash of my mind. He was a dark shape, a shadow beside the seaward windows. It was as though he didn’t want to be involved in anything.

‘You recognise me?’ I asked.

‘Of course. Even with the falsehood, I had a suspicion. Is this anything to do with you? Today’s little round of murder and puppet-play?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I thought someone might have been taking advantage of me making a public appearance, but that was arrogant. It’s not me they’re after. Does the name Grael Ochre mean anything?’

‘No.’

‘The Yellow King?’

‘No.’

‘I see,’ I said. Was he ignorant, or was he just not playing? Throne knew, he had no reason to trust me. He hadn’t had for years.

I removed the falsehood so he could see my face. My scarred, expressionless face.

‘It is good to see you,’ I said.

His vox-speakers made a noise, perhaps the approximation of a sardonic laugh. I was not seeing him, and he was not seeing me. There was no expression, or even micro-expression, to read on my frozen face, and no nuance to prove that I genuinely was pleased.

And he was just the chair: the armoured, hard-machined, floating shape that stored and supported his helpless organic remains. He was seeing me through optical relays, and speaking via voxponder circuits. The armoured prow of his chair unit was no more readable than my features.

It looked as if he had not maintained the exterior of his chair in a long while. It was scarred and scratched, and the paint was flaking. He had not bothered to keep up its sinister appearance for field work.

Spots of fresh blood dappled one side of the chair’s armour.

‘Why are you here?’ he asked.

‘I came to see you.’

‘We have not seen each other for a very long time, Gregor. I had not expected ever to see you again.’

‘Times change,’ I replied.

‘So do people. Neither of us is what we used to be. Rogues, the pair of us.’

‘You were only rogue by circumstance,’ I said.