If he’d been able to get out of the city, he might have been able to survive without having to kill anyone else. But they’d closed off the bridges and tunnels…they were now actively looking for him, scouring the city. And beyond the city…now…it wasn’t safe.

Not even for him, for Smith who had done it. So he had to find the girl. If he could stop her mouth, end her crusade to find him, he might be able to escape them, go to the Bronx, or even Staten Island (no, not Staten Island: it wasn’t safe there).

He knew he must find her quickly. He had had dreams, there in the cistern. He had gone to Nicephorus to glean their meanings, and even though he read Greek imperfectly, he found that his dream of burning coals meant a threat of some harm at the hands of his enemies, his dream of walking on broken shells meant he would escape from his enemies’ snares, his dream of burning incense foretold danger, and his dream of holding keys meant there was an obstacle in the path of his plans. The girl.

He prepared to go out to find her. He took a piece of virgin parchment from the sealed container on which had been inscribed the perfect square in Latin:

and with the dried beak of a black chicken he wrote in purple ink (he had made from grapes and shoe polish), the names of the three Kings, Gaspar, Melchior and Balthazar. He put the parchment in his left shoe, and as he left the cistern he made the first step with his left foot, pronouncing the names softly.

Thus he knew he would travel without encountering any difficulties. And he wore a black agate, veined with white. To protect him from all danger and to give him victory over his enemies.