“Fun while it lasted,” says Otto, knelt behind that couch, arms folded along the back of it, chin on his crossed wrists.

“Lasted?” says John Wharfinger, perched on an arm of it, slim black guitar case at his feet. “I just got here.”

“They, they got my name right,” says Blue, sat on the couch by the little pile. “I mean, y’know, I could only ever use it when nobody was paying any attention. Or, or self-checkout. That worked.” Flicking a card with a fingertip. “But they got it right.”

“Have to pack it all up again,” mutters John Wharfinger.

“Cheat Death,” says Carol, stood at the edge of the stage, looking out over the cavernous warehouse, and only a few of the overhead doors rolled up even halfway for the dour morning light. Here and there this subdued knot or that contemplative clump of lares and hobs, urisks, losells and phenodderee, cleaning, some of them, tinkering, others, fidgeting, quietly talking, one to another, looking up and off to nothing much at all. “Come on,” she says, turning back to them all, quietly quizzical, “Dirty on Purpose? I played it for you. We were never as lucky as we’d like,” she sing-songs, “the miracles are through,” letting that last note linger as she theatrically lifts up her face, her hands, wryly smiling, her calico sundress, her tight white T-shirt, her skinny jeans.

“Lady Waters,” says John Wharfinger. “And the Hooded One.” His red hair tangled, a darkly iridescent vest crimping his voluminously white blouse. “Bit on the nose,” says Carol, and then up pipes the Blue Streak, “Goodbye, Mr. Ed,” he says, looking to John Wharfinger, “some tasty Gabrels noise you could munch on.” His long-sleeved T-shirt says The Telegenic Dead in white letters on black.

And then ruddily bald Otto is crooning, “Anything, to feel weightless, again,” his eyes closed, his fingers lifted to help carry the words. “I liked that one. Who was that by?”

“But sir,” says the man at the door. “It was unlocked.”

“That would be because Mel went for coffee,” says the man behind the counter, “and Mel is a,” his fingers punch punch punch the keys of an adding machine, “thoughtless,” he says, at the rattling clack of calculation, “individual. Close it on up on your way out,” punch punch punch, “come back tomorrow,” clattering rap.

“But tomorrow is too late, and what I have in mind,” stepping in from the door, his bulky oaten sweater, his dull green cargo shorts, his boots anonymous beneath dried mud and dust, “it will only take a moment of your time, or mine,” his great big beard, his unbrushed head of hair quite yellow, even in this sparse light, “or anyone else’s. Look, let me show you,” and he lifts a hand, closing it in a fist before him about nothing at all, and it’s as if every bulb in the shop has suddenly been overwhelmed, the flare from between his fingers striking brilliance from glass cases to either side, the phones and cameras lining the mirrored shelves within, and electronic devices more occult, the knives there, some sharply silver, some resolutely matte, and other bladed shapes and tactical accoutrements, the glittering glass tumblers there and silver flasks and lurid copper cups, the sparks and sheens from watchbands silver and gold, and all their crystal dials. That brightness, embering, falls, and his fist’s now filled with the hilt of a short but serviceable sword, the pommel of it heavily golden.

“Neat trick, son,” says the man behind the counter, “but, place like this? I got nine-one-one on speed dial.”

“You’re early,” she murmurs.

Hesitantly precise, the butterfly picks its way to the very end of a frond that doesn’t seem at all to notice the negligible weight, and there, achingly slowly, it unfurls its great frail span, russet-spotted ruby sheets filigreed and edged with ghostly white, shivering as they dry in the light of the lamp close-set above.

“New addition to the harem?”

She closes her eyes, dips her head. Takes up unseen from the foot of the bed beside her a round of fabric beigely grey, lifts it up over her head to tug it down, a stretchy yoke about her neck. Gathering the softly mass of her long black hair into a practiced bun she holds with one hand as the other pulls that yoke back, a clinging scarf to hold back her hair, to smoothly, closely, frame her face. Only then does she turn on her stool, the flutter of a couple-few other butterflies about the room at her sudden movement, and she looks up to the blurry silhouette there, a mass of white locks draped about dark shoulders on the other side of the cloudy gauze, there in the open doorway of the room. “You are always to knock, first,” she says. “You did agree to that.”

Out in that lobby all chrome and cream and beige she’s vivid, her pink track suit, bright blue piping down the sleeves, her hair, close-cropped, a virulent chartreuse. Behind her a confusion of reflections and refractions interleaved, glass walls lightstruck by lamps discreetly tucked away delineating this hall, that conference room, until at last the high grey gloomy clouds without.

Reflections shift and swing, a suggestion of movement, and she stands herself alacritously up. He’s coming out alone, his navy suit, his shirt and tie of the same chalky blue, his white white hair in dreaded locks gathered loosely together, expression grimly set. She hastens to the elevator bank, pressing the button to summon one, checking within as the doors open, allowing him brusquely to step in first, taking up a position beside him as the doors slide shut.

“Send word,” he murmurs. “The Barons, the Soames, the Mason, all to the house in King’s Heights this very afternoon, ready to move in strength. And our knights to assemble, and Joaquin as well, under the Anvil’s hand.”

“My lord,” she says, outwardly unperturbed.

“And I need a meeting with Reginald Davies, as soon as it might be arranged. You can reach him through his firm, Maieutics, or possibly his development concern, Anaphenics.”

“Is this to be a drink, my lord? Dinner? A phone call?”

She’s sat at the foot of the mattress, jet-black hair a finely threaded shawl to drape the bulk of her shoulders, spill down her pale bare back.

“Sweetling,” he says. “Your friend will be fine. All is well.”

That hair unsettles as her shoulders lift, a sigh, a slump to still again. “You don’t know Olivia.”

He sits up, sheets slipping, “It happens,” he says, “the first time one,” a breath, “overindulges,” he reaches for her, but falters, falls short, his hand settling instead on his sheeted knee. “An embarrassment, yes, but hardly more than a wince and a blush, and it’s not as if she’s part and parcel of what goes on hereabouts, your friend from school. And when her father came to fetch her, he was none the wiser,” but he surges up sheets falling away to take hold of those heaving shoulders as she chokes out a sob, “oh,” he says, roughly gentle, “my deckled dove, my darling dear, what is it, what,” his arms about her now, rough cheek against hers shining wetly, holding her until she catches hold of herself, her sobs resolving in a deeply determined breath.

Chrissie swipes the photo away, shuts off the phone, “Ettie,” she says. “Posted that, to our feed. Without telling me.”

“From, ah, Los Angeles?” Ysabel presses a kiss to her shoulder. “Do you regret not going with her?”

Chrissie curls her fingers in artful tangles, inky black in the shadows, “No,” she says, quite firmly, and it’s her mouth that’s kissed next. “Though,” she murmurs, when it’s over, “it has only been sixty-seven hours and forty-five minutes. Or so. But she shouldn’t’ve done that.” Her hair’s been shorn to a fuzz of candlelit gold that clings to the curve of her skull.

“Very rude,” says the Starling, sat up on the other side, her yellow bob mussed to disarray, collarbone ruddied by a smudge of lipstick.

“Then you must post something of your own.” Ysabel sits up. “We should stage a tableau! Have Petra photograph it, I’m certain she’d be superior to,” a dismissive fillip of her fingers toward the phone, “whoever did that,” but Chrissie’s shaking her head, “I don’t want to bug her,” she says, nestled among the pillows. “And anyway, there’s the show, tomorrow.” Rugs and wraps now lopped up to her chin. “That’s enough.”