Washington arrives with rain, not dramatic, just persistent and low, the kind that flattens the city into grey and makes everything look slightly worn. We drive from the airport through streets that reflect their own lights back into the sky. I watch the city assemble itself outside the window and think of the last time I was in a place like this. Three weeks before I ran. A dinner my father hosted for Anton Reves’s people twenty wolves in suits around a long table and me at the far end, positioned like furniture placed for completeness rather than participation.
That version of this city belongs to a different life. This version has Lucien beside me, Reth in the front seat handling logistics with calm efficiency, treating Washington as a manageable problem. The Vera estate meeting is set
