“Excuse me, Miss.”

A young blond man was leaning patiently against the iron gate a few paces away, waiting for Celeste to notice him. He was handsome and well groomed and carried himself with the air of a moderately successful man assured of his future wealth. Nothing about the man before her shouted Virtue, and perhaps at another time she would not have been attuned to such a thing. But she needed only to glance at the small scales pinned to his lapel to know he was a member of the Order of Chamuel. And she was sure he was the man she had seen turn the corner outside the Howler.

“Are you the one who’s been following me?” she asked, but she already knew. She was keenly aware of the dagger against her wrist.

“You received a letter at the Elysium House for Single Women?” He did not wait for her reply but continued, “Then you know why I am here.”

“I asked if you have been following me.”

His smile was thin. “We have eyes and ears everywhere, Miss.”

Of course they did, and of course a pair of them would be sent to bring her to Mr. Ibrahim, whether she liked it or not.

“Are you the one who threatened Grace?”

He stared blankly at her. “Who is Grace?”

“From the Howler.”

He still feigned ignorance, and she could feel her temper rising.

“And if I refuse to go with you?”

His thin smile stretched to nothing. “I’m afraid I cannot allow that.”

“Of course you can’t.” There was no avoiding Ibrahim, and now she was not sure she wanted to. This lackey might act ignorant, but Ibrahim wouldn’t dare. “Lead the way.”

She expected to return to the territorial court and the office at the end of the elevator with the hearth and the bookshelves, but instead they walked down Main. She caught a glimpse of herself and the Virtue in the pharmacy window. How normal they looked. An attractive if slightly harried young woman and a handsome man as her companion. Hypatia had urged her to pursue this life. Acceptance, respectability, the comfort of conformity, and the security that came with it. She could almost hear the bar owner’s voice: All this striving, all this rebelling, and for what? When she could pass into Elect society and pretend that Abraxas and Hypatia and all the rest—Zeke, the Eden, the boardinghouse—had never happened.

But she could not forget Mariel, and for a moment, she hated her sister for it.

She shoved the thought away, wretched and ashamed.

And then the reflection in the window was changing, the blond man’s long locks becoming short and black, his day suit midnight brocade, his pale skin rich ink. She quickly turned away, unwilling to face Abraxas’s mocking smile, which she was sure would be looking back at her from the reflected glass.