Oberon had arrived naked in the world. So he must have bought this since he arrived, or chosen it. Or it had been a gift. No one, as far as Ángel knew, had ever seen him wear it.

In the evening, he and Lily went into the room with the empty wet bar and the flat-screen TV, where John patched through Oberon’s speech at the Tiepolo Ballroom. It was a black-tie event; the other people were wearing tuxedoes and evening gowns. Oberon looked like an eccentric human, slim and pale in his crisp black shirt, his green-blond hair shining under the artificial lights, his essential weirdness flattened and disguised by the television. He was talking about the importance of the arts in education.

“He always wears the same thing.” Ángel generally had little use for fashion for himself, but he enjoyed it on others. His mind on the turquoise kimono, he asked, “Have you ever seen him wear anything else?”

“When he exercises,” she said. “Black sweats.”

“Huh.”

“I don’t think he understands clothes,” said Lily. “Lord, the questions he asked when he first came here. Why do people dye their hair? Why do people wear earrings? What is the significance of Chandler’s tattoo?”

“Chandler has a tattoo?”

“The Tasmanian Devil, on her ankle.”

“No.”

Lily smiled. “I think it suits her.”

The newscast abruptly cut away from Oberon’s speech to a gigantic protest happening outside the Tiepolo Ballroom. The narrow Manhattan street was full of shouting, chanting people. They waved hand-lettered signs:

GO BACK TO HELL DEMON

EARTH FOR HUMANS

GOD HATES THE ELF

“Why do you think he’s here?” he asked Lily. “Do you think he really just wants to study our music?”

“What else could he study, living all the way out here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe living out here wasn’t the plan.”

“It wasn’t,” she said. “But he wasn’t safe. They needed to hide him.”

It certainly didn’t look safe in Manhattan right now. A row of police in riot gear, with plexiglass shields, were struggling to keep the surging, screaming crowd away from the building. An amber glass bottle, shining in the lights of the streetlamps, arced over the crowd; it smashed onto the façade of the building and burst into a huge chrysanthemum of red flame.

“Jesus!” said Ángel.

On the screen before them, the angry crowd overwhelmed the line of police. Individual cops were thrust aside, struggling, as the crowd surged toward the elegant doorway of the Tiepolo like a single organism. More Molotov cocktails flew; more blossoms of flame.

“Jesus,” breathed Ángel again. “They’ll tear him to pieces.”

Lily picked up her phone and called the gatehouse. “John,” she said, her voice taut with fear.

After a moment she turned to Ángel. “They’re evacuating the building. They had a plan. It’s going to be all right.”