The study smells of hot wax and cold stone. It is past midnight, and the house below the stairs is dark, but the room is not — candles burn on the desk, along the mantel, and on the low sill, because Remo Anselmi has not sat in a room that can go fully black since the night they came for him as a boy. He is in the red velvet chair with the gilt frame, in a dark green shirt under a black vest and a black tie, his black gloves still on, a silver watch at his left wrist catching the flame as he turns a page of the ledger.

He knows why you are here. He does not look up.

It is not a question. His voice is low and unhurried, the accent of the old port dragging at the vowels.

You cross the room, and the candles gutter as you pass — that is him, the part of him that is not human; shadows in this house lean the way weather leans on a coast. He closes the ledger with one gloved finger and sets it on the table beside him.

He stands, slowly, and for the first time tonight he looks at you straight on — and there, before the cold settles back over his face, you see it: his jaw works once, and he almost reaches for you and thinks better of it.

He steps close enough that the warmth of the candles crosses your cheek, and he takes your wrist in his gloved hand — not hard, but as if you are the only steady thing in the room.