Absorbed in his writing, he missed his stop and had to double back on foot. The sun was already setting, though it wasn’t much past four, casting pale, watery light over the city and the suited men heading home for their evening meal. The gas lamps lining the street turned on, reminding Sam of his own lamp, and he spent most of the walk wondering how he could lengthen the lit time of the third prototype.

He was staying in a small boardinghouse a few blocks away from the burgeoning financial district, tucked into a quiet eddy of small streets and alleys that hadn’t yet been absorbed into Wall Street’s moneyed frenzy. Deciding he would post the letter and then go to dinner at the tiny Italian restaurant he visited five nights out of seven, he started up the stairs to his room two at a time.

When he opened the door, though, all his plans went out of his head. A tall, dark-haired man lounged in the desk chair, glasses perched at the end of his nose, perusing the thin pages of a scientific journal.

“Benedict!” Sam cried, tossing his bag onto the bed. “What the hell are you doing here?”

His brother held up a finger, finished his sentence, looked up, and grinned. “Escorting you by royal decree,” he said. “You’ve been summoned to dinner.”

“To dinner! Then that means—”

“Yes, we’re all here, descended upon you like locusts.”

“Damned welcome locusts,” Sam said, pulling Benedict to his feet and into a hug.

“This excess of emotion,” Benedict drawled, even as he returned the embrace. “Really, Sam. I had hoped the sophistication of the city might rub off on you—”

“Oh shut it,” Sam advised, squeezing a little tighter before releasing him. “You said everybody? Even Maggie?”

“Yes, the pest is here, too.” At the mention of their younger sister, Benedict dropped his affectations in favor of a scowl. “I’m never traveling en famille again, Brother, I swear it. They met me in Philadelphia—you remember, that conference?—which means I’ve spent the last day listening to nothing but ‘This is the latest style out of Paris’ and ‘Don’t you think this hairstyle is simply elegant?’” His voice lifted in the universal tone of an older brother exasperated by a younger sister. “My knowledge of the latest fashions now rivals my knowledge of medicine.”

“Well, it’s always good to have a fallback career,” Sam said, vaguely looking around for his coat before remembering he was already wearing it.

“It’s better than ghost hunting,” Benedict said as they walked out of the room.

“I don’t hunt ghosts,” Sam protested. “I bear them no ill will at all. I just want to make their acquaintance.”

“Ghost social climber, then.”

“Much closer.”