At the back of the room, Callum was placid and resolute; he knew what was best; but then–

Five years of unsaid words jostled for control of Marielena’s voice. Pragmatism jumped the queue.

Beyond the checkpoint, beyond the attempted distractions of the spirits and fragrances, around the blind corner into the main concourse, for the first time in the five years since their parting at Vivian Hithercombe’s house on Bronze Street, Callum set eyes on his sister Marielena.

“I can’t imagine a world where this goes to plan,” muttered Autumn Wray Benjamin, biting their nails in the back of the van.

This was one of Vivian Hithercombe’s inherited properties, not one she’d bought herself, and her tone made it clear that nice surprises were the last thing she welcomed here.

The sequence started with Callum, locked in a bare basement room with a corpse for company, ripping cabling out of the walls through a rusty junction box in the corner, and ended with Callum and Lisaveta warily circling an alliance in Lisaveta’s living room.

This was a room pressed into service as a cell, after being built for something else, with features to fit that purpose, not its current one. There was a glimmer of hope in that.

Callum wasn’t usually much of a glass half full person, but in this case he clung to the bright side for longer than was probably rational.

“I’m only asking questions. This is some X-Files stuff,” said Anton, dating himself. “The way you are makes no sense. And we’re supposed to work together. Do you blame me for wanting the facts straight?”

“Lisaveta’s got the winning hand here,” said Callum, looking under her arm at a full house, jacks full of fives.

Here, in the last place he would ever have looked, was the person who’d ordered him taken, or taken out. And they had no idea their target was with them in the room – or that he’d been there many, many times before.

Sometimes Dickory tried to quieten his steps, to make them cringe harder and farther. The fear was important.

Callum haunted a 24-hour cafe in stolen shoes and considered who might want him snared or dead.

The first grenade came through the open window. Callum hadn’t opened it.

In this small space where everyone was aware of him, and where Mari could talk to him without fear of looking like she was addressing a ghost, her gaze still glanced off him. She kept him in her periphery or reflected in the bathroom mirror. “You ready?”

Marielena was the crucial first node in the network of connections Callum’s life depended on. The first to introduce him to another person. The only person in his life he’d never needed to be introduced to. The all-important first and only exception to the rule.

He rifled efficiently through the new arrival’s purse. It would be best to get it back into their bag before they realised it had gone, to avoid problems later.

“I don’t think he’ll ever forgive me for it,” said Marielena, “but I want to introduce you to my brother.”