Oberon copied the gesture with his own long hand. It looked absurd, and Ángel bristled, wondering again if he were being mocked. But Oberon said only, “You are welcome.”

“Okay. Good night.”

“You may come to my room tonight, if you’d like.”

Ángel’s throat closed with fear. He managed to say, “Thanks. No. I’ll just, um—”

Clutching the tablet, he escaped.

In his peacock room, he closed the door and slid bonelessly down it to collapse on the floor, where he spent several minutes shaking.

He calmed down by looking around the room. Peacocks were painted on the murky green walls in shiny gold and purple paint. The hangings on the four-poster king-size bed were embroidered, in gold thread, with peacock feathers. In the corner slumped a soft purple leather armchair like a cluster of grapes. It was hideous, but soothingly dark and quiet.

After a while he managed to get up. He took off his shirt—he was going to need to do laundry soon, the way he kept fear-sweating through his clothes—and sat cross-legged in the center of the bed. He took up the tablet and found a Django Reinhardt collection in Oberon’s music library, and set it to play on low volume. He shot off quick status emails to his brothers, Ned and Michael, and then began to compose a longer one for Marissa.

Knowing that Chandler Evanston would be reading and censoring it—knowing that the envoy would have access to it, if he wanted—made it hard to write. He described his journey without telling her exactly where he was; described the house in terms too vague to convey how funny it was; barely mentioned Oberon at all. He let her know that all emails were going through security, since it seemed rude not to warn her, and ended with a plea to hear from her soon and a fervent Wish you were here. And then a postscript:

That reminds me: I introduced the cultural envoy from the Otherworld to Pink Floyd. Not sure how it went over. I think he might be more of a classical kind of guy.

Dissatisfied, he hit Send.

He tossed aside the tablet, turned off the music, and lay back on the bed, exhausted but too wired to sleep, his mind still whirling with questions. Eventually he got up, found his guitar in the closet, took it out of its case, and tuned it. It was an old Martin that he’d bought at a pawnshop in Ocala: not much to look at, a scuffed cutaway six-string with a cracked tortoiseshell guard and a loose pickup. But it played like a dream, warm-toned and vibrant, familiar as a lover under his fingers.

He noodled on the guitar for a while, trying to do Django Rheinhardt, stopping when fatigue made his fingers sloppy.

His eyes wandered over the details of the hideous peacock décor. Were the other bedrooms this bad? Or worse?