Bastien did not sleep immediately.
He stood at the window for a while after Adler and Rook had gone, which was not unusual. He often stood at windows. He found the city useful to look at when he was thinking, the specific pattern of it, the logic that became visible from above that was invisible from inside.
He was thinking about Octavia Maddox.
Not about the marriage. Not about the territory or the commission or the twelve months or the Maddox family's possible sabotage or any of the other pieces of the situation that had legitimate professional claim on his attention. He was thinking about her specifically, the particular texture of her, and he was doing it with the uncomfortable clarity of a man who had noticed something and could no longer unnotice it.
She was beautiful. He had reg
