They sat silently. The music went on. Ich, dein betrubtes kind, werf alle mein sund … in deinetiefe wunden … Sophia sat as she had, erect, gazing at him, almost looking a challenge at him now that her story was finished. The gas fire bubbled. The windows bucked and rattled with the wind outside and the curtains stirred. To Storm, the room felt isolated, floating: they were in space, they were the last two people left anywhere.

He remained quiet. Instinct told him he couldn’t take her too much farther. Even if he could, he didn’t think he could stand that look she was giving him. Everything marbelized on the outside, everything immolated within.

But there was something wrong with her story, he knew. Something off, something missing.

“Have you ever heard of a man named Jacob Hope?” he asked after a while. “Or Iago? Or Saint Iago? Or anything like that?”

She thought, shook her head curtly. “No. What a strange name. No, never.”

“That brooch, your mother’s brooch. You know where she got it?”

A shrug. “I always assumed it was an heirloom. It’s supposed to be some Norse symbol, I think. As I say, the family history was very important to her, and the Abingdons like to believe they have Viking blood. I think the symbol is meant to represent the secret word of hope that Odin whispered in the dead Baldr’s ear.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that was my first guess.”

She smiled only faintly.

Storm slapped his hands down on his knees. “Well,” he said. “I guess now I know why you dropped that glass of wine, huh?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Sophia. And she began to cry. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, trying to brush it away.

But he was over her, had her by the shoulders. Lifted her to her feet, held her. She squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her face to his shirt. “I remember thinking, just before I jumped off the railing in the gallery, I remember thinking how shabby it all seemed. My life, me. Everything. Just so shabby and miserable.”

Und mir nach reu und leid nicht mehr die seligkeit noch auch sein herz verschliefst.

“Nothing about you is shabby and miserable,” said Richard Storm. “Not to me.”

She was right: she was no good at sex. Stiff as a board, dry as a bone. And frantic and apologetic and distrustful of him all at the same time, which tended to make things worse and worse.