13: The Battle at the Albrook

No one tried to stop Jon as he left Vivdauro headquarters. Several hundred employees had exited the building and were loitering near the entrances, or in the street, chattering and glancing anxiously around. Jon intentionally walked through the crowd.

“Are you alright?” a man asked, noticing the blood on Jon’s clothes. “What happened?” asked another.

“Yes,” and “Don’t know,” Jon answered without stopping.

He walked quickly to the cafe on the square. Like the street, it was full of clusters of whispering Vivdauro employees. The cafe’s staff were loitering in the dining room, conspicuously eavesdropping. From the snatches of conversation Jon heard, the employees seemed more concerned about being punished for abandoning their workstations than about the violence that had compelled them to flee.

“Management can’t blame us for leaving if that maniac was killing people, can they?”

“Are you sure they were dead?”

“They must have been! They were shot full of holes!”

“You only saw dead guards, though? Maybe us engineers weren’t in danger?”

Jon approached a waitress. “I need to use your bathroom,” he said. She recoiled at the sight of his bloody hands. He smiled apologetically. “I cut myself,” he said. “I need to clean it. Could you get me some towels, and some alcohol? I’ll pay.”

The waitress glanced around the room as though looking for countermanding instructions. She found none. “Uh… over here…” she said. She led him through the kitchen door, to a washroom near the back of the building. Jon began scrubbing his hands and face, making use of a small mirror glued to the wall. There was a knock on the washroom door a minute later.

“Are you alright, sir?” a man asked from outside. Jon recognized the voice of the cafe’s manager. “Do you need any help?”

“No,” Jon replied. “It’s not as bad as it looked.” He cracked the door open and held out a wet hand. “Did you bring a towel?”

The waitress to whom Jon had spoken stood behind the manager, holding a towel and a bottle of vodka. The manager, looking as bemused as the waitress, gestured for her to pass the items to Jon. “Thanks!” Jon said, and closed the door again.

A minute later, Jon exited the washroom, his skin fairly clean, with the towel wrapped around one hand as a theatrical bandage. “This should pay for your trouble,” he said to the manager. He made a show of digging into a purse with his unbandaged hand, then said “Oops!” and spilled a dozen coins onto the floor. The waitress and the manager scrambled after them. Jon slipped out.

He walked south until he was able to hail a taxi, which he directed to a clothing shop. He bought an outfit off a rack and changed into it, leaving his bloody clothes on the floor of a dressing room. He took a trolley to a stop near the Albrook.

As he moved through the city, he heard no ringing alarms, no shouted news, no spreading rumors. He saw no movement of police. He had killed seven people — or was it eight? — nine? — inside the headquarters of one of the most powerful corporations in the Empire, and no one seemed to care.

* * *

Jon’s plan to defeat the magician and the swordsman was simple: he would surprise them, and he would shoot them. If this proved difficult, he would use the prohibition ward he had stolen from Pavel’s building to randomly discharge the magician’s dams, probably killing her, and certainly rendering her powerless.

Jon thought he knew how the magician would try to drug him. She would disguise the drug as some common spice or oil — something used in many recipes — and leave it in the restaurant’s kitchen, in an out-of-the-way place where it would likely go unnoticed, but where an unwitting cook might possibly find it and use it. Then if Jon ate any food prepared in that kitchen, she could paralyze him with the drug that he might have consumed whenever she wished. Jon wanted her to believe that her attempt would succeed, so he needed to be seen eating in the hotel restaurant.

Jon went to his suite and changed into a set of his own robes, then phoned the restaurant to make a supper reservation. He ordered soup and salad and mimed eating them, spreading the food around the dishes, and covering the dishes with napkins. This subterfuge accomplished, he left the hotel and walked to a nearby cabaret where he snacked on nuts and cheese while listening to a performance of Terra’s Lament on the hammered harp. The music was good, but his mind was on the case.

He reasoned that the magician and the swordsman must not work for Vivdauro, at least not directly. The contrast between their thorough competency and the naivety of Vivdauro’s guards was too great: an entity that deployed elite warriors to capture a sleeping detective would surely not use blundering amatures to protect its headquarters. They could be mercenaries hired by Vivdauro for this specific task, but this seemed unlikely for another reason:

Beatrace en Cynd had completely altered her appearance and personality to accomplish her mission. She had become a character, and she had maintained that character for months while she infiltrated Cynd’s social circle, his properties, and finally his bed. She had eliminated Anniisa de Monet with cleverness and brutality. Then she had abandoned that persona and returned to her handlers the moment she was recalled. Clearly Beatrace was an operative of great skill, discipline, ruthlessness, and dedication — too much dedication for a mercenary. To take her ruse so far as becoming Cynd’s wife, she must be motivated by something more than mere money. Whatever master she served possessed her deepest devotion.

It seemed likely that the magician, the swordsman, and Beatrace were compatriots — their skill and proclivity for secrecy seemed to match — and if they were, then they would all be loyal to the same master. If that master was not Vivdauro, then who was it?

The only obvious candidate was the Emperor. But why would the Emperor want to infiltrate Cynd Ceramics? He could simply demand whatever information he wanted from Cynd, revoking Cynd’s licenses or even sending soldiers if Cynd refused to comply. And if Beatrace worked for the Emperor, then why had the message from her handler been signed “Vivdauro?” Perhaps Hanns had never actually been in communication with Vivdauro? Perhaps some other entity had used the name to deceive him?

Jon was happy. His mind teemed with engaging questions. His body anticipated a fight he expected to win. The case was pulling him forward, giving him goals, giving him tasks, telling him what to do, who to be. Introspection did not trouble him.

His ruminations became subconscious as he tapped his foot to the music, and he was not aware of the hours passing. When he felt his watch, it was ten o’clock. He left a generous tip and returned to the Albrook to prepare his ambush.

* * *

There were four ways to access the sixth floor of the Albrook: the broad main stairs, two much narrower servants’ stairs, and the elevators. Unless the magician and the swordsman climbed the outside of the building, they would have to come up one of these.

The layout of the sixth floor was roughly square. A hallway made a circuit, with ornate doors to guest suites on the outer side, and utility spaces behind plain doors on the inner side. The servants’ stairs were near the northwest and southeast corners. Jon’s suite was on the southwest corner, with the door facing east.

The abductors might not care if they were seen entering, but if they planned to leave with a prisoner in a bodybag, then they would want their exit to be unobserved. That would obviously not be possible if they shared a carriage with an elevator operator. Therefore they would not leave by the elevators. The foot of the main stairs was in the lobby, where the desk clerk would notice anyone coming down them. Therefore they would not leave by the main stairs. The head of the northwest servants’ stairs was visible from both the elevators and the head of the main stairs. The southeast stairs were therefore preferable for stealth: that was where they would go down, and for simplicity in securing their route, they would surely come up the same way.

Jon did not know precisely when they would come — only that it would be between midnight and dawn — but the path from the southeast stairs to his suite was visible from his door, so he simply needed to watch through the peephole, and he would see them coming.

Just before midnight, Jon checked that the hall was empty. He wrapped a towel around the disabled prohibition ward that he had taken from Pavel’s building. There were steam radiators distributed up and down the hall. Jon picked one that was about one hundred feet from his door and placed the ward on the floor beside it, on its west side, so that it would not be seen by a person approaching from the east. He returned to his suite.

Jon donned a weapon harness over a simple tunic. Three automatic pistols were holstered around his waist, and two daggers were sheathed at his chest. Two spheroid dams were strapped to his shoulders, with slivers of their surfaces exposed so that he could touch them with his cheeks. A final weapon, a one-shot pistol, was holstered at his back. He checked each gun to be sure that it was loaded and cocked.

Jon felt sleepy and wanted tea, but missing the arrival of his enemies because he had to pee would be depressing. He resigned himself to the tedium of waiting and pressed his eye to the peephole.

At three o’clock, the magician and the swordsman appeared. They emerged from the servants’ stairs and walked directly toward Jon’s door, unhurried, as if going to their own room after a night of leisure. The magician had the hood of her garment down, and Jon got his first good look at her. She had reddish hair and gray eyes, typical of Sundander ancestry. Her pointed face bore lines of habitual concentration, which heavy makeup around her eyes accentuated rather than concealed. The two of them looked less strange together than they would have apart: singly, the swordsman’s conspicuous armament would have been menacing, and the magician’s strange costume would have been creepy. As a pair, they looked like an eccentric noblewoman and her bodyguard. Both of them appeared to be in their early thirties.

Jon watched them until they were even with the radiator behind which he had hidden the prohibition ward. He reached for his guns with a broad, careless motion, letting his hand fall on one rather than consciously choosing. He drew the leftmost gun, a nickel-plated pistol with a heavy slide, then flung the door open and strode out into the hall.

His enemies responded immediately. They showed no surprise and said nothing to each other, not even exchanging a glance. The swordsman whipped a long, straight blade from one of the sheaths on his back and leapt out in front of the magician, shielding her with his body. He advanced rapidly with the sword held high, the hilt just above his head, the blade pointed toward Jon’s feet. The magician stayed where she was.

Jon aimed his pistol, holding it before him in a two-handed grip. He tilted his head so that his cheek touched the dam on his right shoulder as his eye aligned with the gun’s sight. He pulled the trigger. Nothing happened: the gun was not cocked.

Behind the swordsman, the magician smirked. Jon smirked back. He channeled kao from his dam and suddenly the nickel-plated pistol was in its holster, and the black pistol that he might have drawn instead was in his hand, its chamber full and ready. He pulled the trigger. The gun boomed. The shot hit the swordsman in the middle of his chest. He staggered as his bulletproof tunic distributed the impact, but recovered almost instantly and resumed his advance.

Jon aimed at the swordsman’s head and fired again. The shot missed, whizzing over him and shattering a light on the ceiling. He fired again. Another miss. Again, and a radiator down the hall began hissing steam from a bullet hole.

Jon’s gun swap had surprised the magician, and she had not had time to uncock his second gun or interfere with its first shot. But she had caught up to him now, and she was obstructing his aim. There was a conical space into which his gun would not point. His aim was subtly deflected, up, down, or to the sides, as though slipping against an invisible object.

Any attempt at magic might fail; now that Jon knew precisely what the magician was doing, he could channel kao through an intention that her magic was failing. He did, and his aim steadied. He was surprised by how much kao it took to negate her influence: his dam would be drained in twenty seconds at this rate. But the fight would be won before then.

The swordsman was only thirty feet away now, an easy shot. Jon aimed at his head and fired. Jon expected to see a puff of pink mist, but instead he saw a burst of red sparks. He blinked, confused, then fired again. With a twitch of his wrists, the swordsman flicked his blade into the bullet’s path. It sparked down the sword’s length like a flint drawn over steel, then pinged against the guard and dropped, inert.

Jon was astonished. He had never heard of a man blocking a bullet, much less seen it done. How? Jon hesitated, then aimed at the swordsman’s legs, thinking to shoot below his guard. But it was too late.

The swordsman lunged, blade thrust out, horizontal, edge facing upward. The point drove into the fingers of Jon’s left hand and cut through them into the fingers of his right. The gun fell. The swordsman stepped forward and raised his blade for a downward strike.

Jon might have been ten feet further back, just inside the door of his suite. He teleported himself there, his body suddenly in a different posture, his perspective suddenly changed. The swordsman was unbothered: he aborted his strike and flicked his sword down to guard his face again.

Jon looked at his hands. His left index finger was cleanly severed at the last joint. His right middle finger was severed at the knuckle. His trigger finger was mangled, cut to the bone and pried out of alignment.

The swordsman advanced.

Jon grabbed his third pistol with his left hand. He fired wildly, pulling the trigger with his middle finger.

Jon’s unplanned teleportation had emptied the dam on his right shoulder. He switched dams, pressing his cheek to the one on his left. He formed an intention: the swordsman’s lunge might have missed: Jon fingers could be uninjured. He felt kao leave the dam, but nothing changed. He looked at the magician. The smirk had returned to her face: she knew that he would try to heal himself, and she was blocking him.

The swordsman slashed the back of Jon’s left hand, gouging bone and severing tendons. The hand went limp. The gun fell. The swordsman smiled.

“What do you want with me?” Jon asked. “Who sent you?”

“Do you think you are in a position to demand answers, Detective?” the swordsman scoffed. “Surrender, and I’ll let you keep what’s left of your hands.”

“You’re too nice, Livak,” the magician said. She laughed.

“Never! I just don’t want to worry about him bleeding out.”

Jon saw their smiles and felt an embarrassment that was worse than his pain. They were mocking him. He had thought that he would defeat them easily, but they had defeated him easily, and now they were laughing at his failure. Embarrassment turned to rage.

“You haven’t beaten me,” Jon hissed. “No one can beat me.” He pressed his cheek to the dam, and willed that his own magic earlier in the day had failed: he had not disabled the prohibition ward from Pavel’s building: it was intact, active, and five feet from where the magician was standing. She sensed what was about to happen a moment before it did. Her eyes went wide. Jon grinned.

The magician was underwater. Water filled the hallway from floor to ceiling for fifty feet in front of and behind her, terminating in smooth vertical surfaces, like window panes.

The water flowed. Hundreds of tons surged down the hall in both directions, tossing objects and breaking down doors. The lights went out. The flood struck the swordsman from behind and bore him toward Jon. It struck Jon and lifted him off his feet, and both of them were carried back into his suite. Water filled Jon’s mouth and nose as he was flipped upside down and smashed against furniture. The water was salty. Seawater.

Jon focussed. His second dam was still nearly full, and the magician’s interference was gone. He willed, and his hands were whole. He willed, and his right hand was holding a gun.

Jon bumped against a wall. With his left hand he drew one the daggers sheathed at his chest and plunged it into the vertical surface. Stabilized by this handhold, he found footing and stood up amidst the rushing water. He was in the suite’s lounge. Water swirled and foamed around his waist, pushing him hard, trying to carry him away. It had broken down the balcony door and was rushing out of the building, cascading onto the street far below.

Where were his enemies? Jon thought that the swordsman had been swept into the suite with him, but in the roaring darkness he could not be sure. He touched both of his dams at once and drew the last bit of chaotic potential out of them. An overhead lamp that might have had power flickered on.

The swordsman was standing near the balcony door, braced against the rushing water by a blade thrust into the floor. His other hand held his second sword, with which he guarded his face. Jon pointed his gun at the swordsman’s chest and fired three times. His tunic stopped the bullets from penetrating, but his chest buckled under the impacts. He slumped forward, grimacing with pain. His guard wavered. Jon shot him twice more in the chest, then aimed at his head.

The swordsman met Jon’s eye. He gave a pained, tight-lipped smile, then let go of his weapons and allowed the water to sweep him away. He flopped over the balcony railing and disappeared into the night.

Jon waited for what felt like minutes while the flood subsided. When it was slow enough that he could walk against it, he sloshed back to the suite’s door. Char and salmon flopped in the shallow water.

The magically illuminated lamp had gone out again. What light there was now came from the street, and so Jon was confused when he looked out into the hall and could see quite well. A number of lights were shining on his right, but he did not understand where they were shining from, and what they illuminated was not the sixth floor of the Albrook. He stared at the weird, chaotic scene in front of him until, suddenly, he understood what he was seeing: the entire south side of the building had collapsed.

The water had not appeared only in the hallway, but in a sphere around the magician, a sphere that must have extended down to the fourth or third floor, up into the attic, and above the roof. Thousands of tons of water inside and on top of the Albrook had burst it and crushed it and swept it away. Ten feet from where Jon stood, the floor ended, and a rubble-edged void began. The light came from street lamps, and from the windows of adjacent buildings, shining through the empty space where thirty suites filled with sleeping people had been.

Jon looked down at the destruction he has caused and thought, I’ll never find her body in this. He might still find the dead swordsman: he needed to get down to the street and search. If he did not at least examine a body, then he would learn nothing, and his victory would be pointless.

Lights shone out of the west hallway, from his left. Handlamps. It was people from other rooms, probably, coming out to see what had happened, or trying to escape via the main stairs. He turned to look.

A massive man towered over Jon. He was armored, not with a garment of carbon-silicon fabric or with a plate carrier, but in a carapace of steel that covered him from head to toe. The armor’s faceplate was tempered glass, reinforced by thick wires. The lamps that had attracted Jon’s attention were attached to its chestplate.

The armored man swept out an enormous hand to seize Jon. Jon dove sideways, back into his suite. He landed on his shoulder and rolled into a crouch. The juggernaut pursued, his huge shoulders smashing through both sides of the too-narrow door frame. The floor groaned and cracked under his weight.

Jon raised his gun and fired the remainder of its ammunition into the armor’s faceplate. The bullets chipped the glass but did not penetrate, and the man did not react to them. Jon scrambled backward. His gun was empty. His dams were empty. His only exit was blocked. He had more weapons in the bedroom: if he could get to them, if the flood had not swept them away…

The juggernaut moved aside to allow a second man, this one short and slim, to step through the doorway. This man held a pistol in each hand. He fired each of them twice, four shots so quick that they sounded like one. Bullets smashed through Jon’s knees, shattering bones and severing ligaments. He collapsed, legs crumpled uselessly beneath him.

The gunman holstered one of his pistols. From a pouch at his waist he withdrew a bag. It unfolded once, twice: a body bag, for Jon’s body.

Jon squirmed his hand behind his back and found his suicide gun. He put it to his temple and pulled the trigger.

7 Pluvo 712, 5:58 a.m. (III)

When falling back, thought and perception were continuous, but emotion was not. Emotion was a bodily state as much as a mental one, and the body that Jon fell back to was quiescent, just awoken from a night of rest. For the shortest moment, Jon felt completely calm. Then adrenaline surged as his mind startled his body to a now-pointless alert. He leapt out of bed and stomped around the room three times before collapsing back into it. He massaged his knees. A few minutes later he rose, dressed hastily, made his way down to the street, and walked toward the Park. He thought as he walked.

There had been four abductors, not two. The magician and the swordsman attacked first because they could attack quietly, and they were hoping to take Jon without comotion. When stealth failed, the gunman and the juggernaut attacked. They must have been lurking in the northwest stairway, waiting for sounds of battle to summon them.

The sophistication of this plan confused Jon as much as the resources that had been invested in it. The Great Detective was not famed as a warrior, and they expected him to be asleep: why send four elite operatives with a three-tiered strategy to abduct an egghead? But this was only a magnification of the same question he had had before, and the method of answering it was the same: he must defeat them, interrogate one if possible, examine their remains if not.

Jon had underestimated his enemies. He had assumed that surprise was the only advantage he would need to defeat them, and so his preparation for the battle had been minimal. He would not make that mistake again. When they came this night, he would be ready for anything.

* * *

Jon returned to his room to get money, then went out into the city to shop. Little of what he wanted was illegal, and cost was no obstacle. He acquired bulletproof clothing, and a ballistic shield. He acquired bombs with a variety of fuses. He acquired a large caliber rifle, and a belt-fed machine gun. He acquired a disabled prohibition ward.

Jon’s plan was not subtle. He would place the prohibition ward at the top of the southeast stairway. When the magician and the swordsman appeared, he would activate it immediately. Hopefully this would kill them both. If they survived, he would shoot them with the machine gun: the swordsman’s defenses would be ineffective against such firepower, and the magician’s dams would be empty. Those two disposed of, Jon would turn his attention to the west hall, down which the juggernaut and the gunman would approach. Bombs with timed fuses would be concealed along their path. Jon could trigger these whenever he chose by magically manipulating the timers. He would crouch behind his shield, forcing the gunman to advance, and blow him up when he was near a bomb. That would leave only the juggernaut, and Jon believed that his new rifle could pierce the man’s armor.

This plan would severely damage the hotel, and there was a risk that the corpses would be lost in rubble. If that happened, Jon would fall back and try again with refined tactics. For now, the important thing was simply to win.

Jon’s preparations took the entire day. At supper time, he pretended to eat in the hotel restaurant, but instead of going out for entertainment and a snack, he went up to his room to sleep, setting an alarm to wake him at one o’clock. Roused, he watched the hall until it was empty, then crept out of his room to place the ward and the bombs, wrapping them in towels and hiding them under radiators. At two thirty he made himself tea and settled by the door to wait.

Three o’clock came, but the magician and the swordsman did not appear. Jon stood with his eye pressed to the peephole as thirty minutes passed, then sixty. No one came into the hall except two guests and a porter. At four thirty he slumped to the floor, the ache in his neck echoing the disappointment in his chest. Where were they? Why had they not come?

It must be because he had not gone to Vivdauro: the four operatives must work for Vivdauro after all! In the first two iterations, they had been sent to abduct Jon because of the disruptions he had caused at their headquarters. But in this iteration he had caused no disruption, and so they had not come. It made sense.

Jon’s disappointment was eased: he had learned something: his efforts had not been wasted. In the next iteration, he would include a trip to Vivdauro as part of his preparations for the evening. Then the abductors would come, and then he would kill them.

He lay down on a couch with a bomb for a pillow.

7 Pluvo 712, 5:58 a.m. (IV)

Working a visit to Vivdauro headquarters into his schedule proved difficult. The weapons and equipment he wanted were sold by vendors scattered across the city — none of them near Vivdauro — and he needed to steal a prohibition ward without being seen. Additionally, the equipment was bulky, and he needed to return to the hotel at least once during the day to drop off his purchases.

He decided to skip buying the ballistic shield to make time for Vivdauro in the late afternoon. He jogged to the headquarters, barged into one of the entrances, screamed demands for entry, set off the alarm, then let the guards toss him out. He had just enough time to steal a prohibition ward and get back to the Albrook for a feigned late supper.

That night he followed the same routine as before, setting an alarm to wake himself, placing his traps, and waiting with his eye pressed to the peephole.

No one came.

7 Pluvo 712, 5:58 a.m. (V)

Jon had not caused any damage on his first visit to Vivdauro, so it could not be damage that triggered the abduction attempt. But he had spent several hours in and around the building, and he had been seen by dozens of people. It seemed a perfunctory visit would not suffice: for the abductors to come, his interest in the headquarters needed to be persistent and obnoxious.

He rose from bed, threw on a robe and went down to the front desk to ask for a map of the city. In his suite, he studied the map and debated various routes. The utility of each item, the availability of transportation, the distances to be covered — he considered the variables and devised a schedule that would allow him to get a majority of the equipment and also spend an hour annoying guards at Vivdauro.

No one came.

7 Pluvo 712, 5:58 a.m. (XIII)

Jon ground his teeth in frustration. He lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, occasionally slamming his fist into his palm.

After a dozen encounters and attempted encounters, a pattern had clearly emerged — more than a pattern, a rule. If he went anywhere in the city for the purpose of acquiring weapons, then the abductors would not come. But he could not defeat all four of them with only the weapons he had in his room, or that he could acquire on a straight route to and from Vivdauro.

If he did not prepare for the fight, he could not win. If he prepared, the fight would not happen.

Of course he would eventually win if he simply fought them over and over again. It might take a thousand attempts, but trial, error, and memorization would eventually yield victory. Or perhaps his opponents had some obscure weakness he might stumble upon, or the random discharge of the magician’s dams might somehow incapacitate all four of them and leave him unharmed. If they had merely been trying to kill him, then this strategy would have been sound. But they were not trying to kill him: they were trying to capture him, and each time he lost to them he ran the risk of falling irrevocably into their power. That was a risk he was not willing to take.

Jon was cornered. He could not keep fighting, because of the risk of capture. But he could not avoid the fight, because then he would not learn who was hunting him, and they would surely attack again later. He could not abandon the case and go back to Nordarosso, because he had promised Lowdous de Cynd that he would find Beatrace, and returning empty-handed would be an embarrassment that could destroy the Great Detective’s reputation.

If he could find out how they were watching his movements… But if their activities were not illegal, then almost anyone could be a spy for them…

There was only one viable option: he must win the fight. But there would be no fight if he were seen acquiring weapons. Therefore, he must acquire weapons without being seen.

He could order weapons by telegraph and have them delivered to the hotel, but those deliveries would be received by hotel staff. No good. What he needed was an accomplice, someone to discreetly acquire equipment for him. If a third party — someone the abductors would not recognize — brought the weapons to a different room on the sixth floor…

Jon wished for a moment that he had brought Anna with him. But that would be useless: Anna would be as recognizable as he himself, and he could not set a net with her in Argintarbo. He needed someone new.

The woman who had recognized him the previous day: she was not staying at the hotel, she had been at the restaurant too early for supper, and she had ordered only tea, which she had drunk alone. She had been at the restaurant to wait. Wait for what? Perhaps for a work shift to start, or for a child to finish school? If what she had been waiting for happened routinely, then having tea in the hotel restaurant might also be a routine…

Jon did not leave the Albrook that day. He loafed at the bar in the hotel restaurant, idly skimming Proverbs of Adolfos, occasionally buying drinks and snacks. Every few minutes he looked up and scanned the tables. When sitting became uncomfortable, he walked around the block and came back.

Just after four o’clock, he saw the woman through the front windows, coming up the street from the south. She entered and spoke to the hostess, who seemed to recognize her, and she was shown to a seat near the windows. She took a book from her handbag and began to read. A few minutes later a waiter brought her a pot of tea.

As the waiter left, Jon stood and approached. He slid into the seat across from her without invitation. “I must apologize for the way I spoke to you yesterday,” he said. “You were right: I am Johannes de Alder.”