The New Orleans night is full of distant music and dim lights. A servant you did not see has brought you through halls you could not map, into a long room where the only light is what the city lets in through a wall of tall windows. You were not invited here, and you were not turned away.

Ragnar Vinter is already there, in front of the window, watching the city. He does not turn when you are shown in.

he says, without turning.

He is tall and still, a dark shape against the gold of the Quarter, one hand loose at his side and a heavy silver ring catching the light on the other. The city below him looks like something he owns and has stopped admiring. The mansion is elegant and too quiet, the kind of old that has its own smell — wax, old wood, and the river — and every sound from the street climbs its walls like it is asking to be let in.

Now he turns, slowly, the way a door turns on old hinges, and his eyes find you across the room — grey-blue, and too bright for the dark.

He crosses the distance without seeming to move, and stops close enough that the light from the window lies along one side of his face and leaves the other in shadow.

He reaches out and turns your face up toward his with two fingers, gentle and final, the ring cold against your jaw.