The sky blossoms with a giant plasm-image, the stern face of the actor Kherzaki hovering over the Caraqui, his expression commanding. An advertisement for the chromoplay Lords of the New City, based on Constantine’s early life and career. Fire-petals unfold beside the image, become words burning in air.

See it now…, the sky commands.

An advert, Aiah wonders, or a command from the ruling triumvirate? Should it be See it now… or else?

The door opens behind her, and she gives a start and spins, a brief giddy disorientation eddying through her inner ear… and as the whirling stops the false, burning mage in the sky is replaced with the real Constantine, a far more dangerous commodity. He looks almost respectable in modest white lace, black pipestem pants, and a black velvet jacket, and Aiah knows right away that her having come here is a mistake. Her heart sinks.

He doesn’t love her. They had been lovers, yes, but that was an accident, the chance result of a combination of unre-producible circumstances, a particular time, a particular place, a particular urgency… If he gives her anything it will be because of some horrid sense of obligation, not because he wants her here, or has any real use for her.

“Miss Aiah,” he says, and approaches. The voice is baritone, a rumble that vibrates to her toes. Aiah remembers—remembers in her nerves, remembers deep in her bones—the way he moves, the sense of power held barely but firmly, consciously, in check, strength mixed oddly with delicacy.

“We find ourselves in the Owl Wing,” Constantine says. Irony glints in his voice as he steps around the big table. “Those windows”—gesturing—“are supposed to be the eyes of an owl.”