Aidan is probably the only person in the city who is not following the killings. He spends his days crafting his necklaces and his nights searching for beautiful twilight strangers. He feels no desire to kill, only the need to be near their pale deadly loveliness. He is drawn to them and they to him as surely, but more fatally, than bee to orchid.
Working in the basement he is completely absorbed. The act of creation focuses his existence. He is, for a brief moment, wrapped in the cosmos, at one with the universe.
Upstairs, he leaves music on for his orchids. Chopin and Debussy play only largos and adagios, wrapping the plants in the music of melancholy and regret. The orchids thrive. They have grown large. They reach over the window like Balinese shadow demons. Winds, felt only by them
