“As long as you crack your toes in class, I can chew my finger,” Ben said. Sia came silently to stand beside him, and Ben put an arm around her shoulders. He said to her, “This is my friend Joe. He takes his shoes off under the desk and does terrible things with his feet.” Then he looked at Farrell and kissed her, and she moved against him.

Later she went to get dressed, and Farrell began to tell Ben about Pierce/Harlow and the green convertible; but it kept getting scrambled, because Farrell had not really slept for thirty-six hours, and they had all suddenly caught up with him at once. Halfway up the stairs to the spare bedroom he remembered that he had wanted Ben to hear the two Luys Milan pieces he had just learned, but Ben said it could wait. “I’ve got a nine o’clock class and office hours. Sleep till I get back, then you can play all night for us.”

“Which one is the nine o’clock?” Farrell had curled up in his clothes and a quilt, listening to Ben’s voice with his eyes closed.

“My all-purpose monster. It’s an introduction to the Eddas, but I get in a little Old Norse etymology, a little Scandinavian folklore, a little history, related literature, and a key to the Scriptures. The Classic Comics version of Snorri Sturlesson.” His voice was unchanged—slow for New York, and light, but broken as erratically as an adolescent’s by a deep, random jag of harshness, strangely like interference on a long-distance call. When you hear somebody talking to Wyoming or Minnesota, just for a moment.

Farrell fell asleep then—and woke promptly with Briseis washing his face. Ben turned quickly to call the dog away, and his words came out in a soft sidelong rush. “So what do you think of her?”