“Carelessly,” was Danil’s brief reply. “I was sleeping. I woke up to pain and death.”

“Grey used a narcotic on you. Probably didn’t want to risk a fight,” Chance said, recalling the contents of the file.

“Grey,” Danil snarled. “Everyone knew Grey. He seemed harmless. Pathetic, but harmless.”

“Pathetic?” The woman raised an eyebrow.

“Shy, stammering. You know.”

“He always sounded perfectly eloquent to me,” she insisted.

“He sounds very changeable, very accommodating,” Chance said quietly, hoping they would keep talking.

“He certainly knew how to make people feel superior to him. That’s why he stammered around you, Danil— not because he was shy, but because he knew you wouldn’t see him as a threat.”

“Oh, I see. Very well, then—what did he do to make you feel safe around him?”

She dropped her head to avoid his scornful look. “Not safe, never safe . . . but he did manipulate my feelings. He told me about his life during the war. He was just a child then. I couldn’t blame him if he was a little strange given such a nightmarish childhood. I couldn’t be unkind to him.”

Chance listened with growing depression. Was that all it was, the sum and total of the murderer’s plan? To kill those who were careless or caring enough to allow him to get close? Some little sin of theirs to justify the deed would be easy to find or imagine, or perhaps the one who directed him had also fed him a reason for righteous execution of punishment. It was foolish for someone of his ilk to be irritated by a set of random acts, and yet Chance was irritated and disquieted. He wanted a solved mystery, the end to this evil.

The ground beneath him changed from the soundless drag of sand to the cheerful bounce and ring of a sprung wooden floor. The stars assembled themselves in a precise pattern that became a network of lights in the high, spangled ceiling of a ballroom. That dim sparkle grew to a bright blaze, revealing the players in the room. Members of an orchestra sat onstage at the end of the room, silently poised with their instruments, waiting for a signal. Dancers filled the floor, standing still, looking around expectantly. Diners sat at the tables positioned in two broad corridors bracketing the dance floor, also quietly anticipating some event.

“Galina’s place,” Danil confirmed, leading the way to an unoccupied table. He gently settled the Mermaid into one chair and sat beside her, crossing his legs self-consciously.

Chance remained standing so he could turn and look all around him, but he still missed the moment when she appeared.

“And . . . begin.”