Zorya paused at the Zollamtsbrücke, the green metal bridge over the Wien that connected Vienna’s Innere Stadt from Landstrasse, and watched a train traverse the U-Bahn crossing beneath. The Wien trickled below, but all rivers were as one to her, and the name of this one barely registered in her consciousness. She wore the hood of her jacket raised, which concealed her unsettling appearance, and the steady rain encouraged the passing Wieners and tourists to keep their heads down.

Not surprisingly, the discovery of Nahid Hasanović’s body had made the news, and although his death had not been observed, police were eager to talk to a girl dressed in tan or brown who was glimpsed in the vicinity of the park at the time. Zorya had since changed her clothing, and it was not as though the police were suggesting that a child might have been responsible for the killing, not yet, but caution would be required for a while. She always dressed in layers, whatever the weather, because it disguised the curvature of her spine. Scoliosis: that was the medical name for her condition. There was no cure for it, but its severity could be reduced by surgery in more serious cases in order to prevent further deterioration and alleviate pain. But Zorya was not about to submit herself to a surgeon’s knife, and her condition was relatively mild. Also, since she no longer grew, her deformity did not worsen; the pain, she could live with.

If Radovan Vuksan attributed Spiridon’s encounter with Hasanović’s path to bad luck or some strange act of God, Zorya, by contrast, believed it to be part of a deeper pattern of tribulation that included the assassination of Nikola Musulin, with an inception that could be traced back to the murders of De Jaager and his kin. She felt a profound sense of enclosure, of darkness encroaching, but had not yet spoken of it to Spiridon. He was already acting incautiously, and she had begun to suspect that his natural belligerence and his tendency toward cruelty were degenerating still further into a form of dementia. Reasoning with him had always been difficult, but he had followed her counsel more often than not. Now, though, he heard her out but did not follow her guidance, even as his faith in her abilities to protect him appeared to grow. Yet this trust was likely to be shaken by recent setbacks. If they continued, it would surely be only a matter of time before he began to question her usefulness to him. When that happened, she would be faced with a difficult choice: to stay or to run; to remain or to begin again with another whom she could mold.