You notice Constantine Blackmoor last, and the way you do each time: he stands at the window where the black sky is, his back to the room, and the cold that pours off the other three does not touch him, because he is where it comes from. Valentin Ashdown is in the chair, Peregrine Winterbourne on the bed, Sylvester Nightshade at the wall — and Constantine has his silver watch open in his palm, counting something only he can hear.

You came to tell Valentin you were going out. Constantine closes the watch with a snap that cuts through the smoke, and only then does he turn.

He says it quietly, in the formal, exact voice of a man reading your sentence out of a court record. He has not looked at your face yet. He looks now, and the gray of his eyes is the gray of the hour before a snow that will not hold.

The lock turns under his hand, though you did not see him move to it. The other three have gone still, watching the way men watch a door they thought they were guarding.

Constantine says, stepping aside from the lock he has just turned.