Colin raised a firm palm.

“It’s your birthday present, remember . . . from Zeno.”

“Yes, so it is.”

“My pleasure, and many happy returns.”

“Can I see you . . . I mean . . . ?”

“Zeno knows how to contact me.”

“Yes.”

She walked him to the front door. He stood a moment tracing the polished brass numerals set into the wall with his thumbnail. When he looked at her, the sunlight caught his eyes, and Fleur felt curiously unnerved by his examination. He held her glance as he spoke. “And don’t forget, Fleur—the folks that distress you are also on a mission. To help you bring change, to remind you to bring change inside yourself. True change is inward, and this will reflect outward—to feel like a Libra, a super Libra.”

Again his engaging grin. He waved to Vanella, who was hovering in the background, stepped down the steps onto the pavement, and strolled off. Fleur stood on the doorstep and watched the back of his head bob from side to side until the curve of the crescent took him out of sight.

Zeno also had an unaspected Venus. It differed from Fleur’s in that his fell in the eleventh house, the house ruled by Virgo. Had Fleur known this (her knowledge of astrology was limited to whichever monthly magazine she was reading), she might have assumed her meeting with the ex-pop star to be made in heaven. She believed, like most romantics, that Venus is the planet that rules the love nature. What she didn’t know is that an unaspected Venus is more akin to a box of Swan Vestas on the loose.

When Zeno discovered this, he burrowed like a gerbil until he unearthed the facts of this influence. Because Venus rules our sense of appreciation as well as the love and compassion we feel, to be cast with this planet unaspected meant he was not subjected to the same structures as others who had their Venuses well aspected. At first this made him sad, as he realised that the occasions on which he thought he had felt great love were little more than overblown desires triggered by a response to beauty he found aesthetically pleasing.

The other blow to his ego was the discovery that, from an astrological standpoint, he had been born without innate charm and, on reflection, saw that he had learned from the others the ways of charm. The ultimate statement of his affection he felt to be on hold, as though awaiting someone or something worthy of perfect love.

He often viewed himself as others must see him—a receptacle of charm, bits and pieces, odds and ends, the sum total of years of using his ability to attract the charm of others, to collect and use it as his own. His persona had become a quirky remnant of his interaction with people he found pleasing. Yet beating away beneath it all his heart pulsed with unexpressed passion.

The solution he eventually arrived at spoke well of the optimistic side of his nature, for he decided to make the best of his lot by becoming charm’s willing servant. He developed a manner of friendliness, using his affection in the form of attention, and tried to respect others without expectation of return. The odd friendships and relationships he struck opened him up like a house with wings continually being added, all the while feeling the underlying sensation of being one step away from a new reality. An impending . . . something that drove him on.