“Wendy, that you?” Junior pretended not to hear, but the voice came again and Dr. Holmes pressed through some soldiers to reach him.

“Hello, Father.”

“Why, Wendy, don’t you wish to come and say hello to Lowell and Governor Andrew? Let me show you off in your dapper uniform! Oh, hold.”

Junior noticed his father’s eyes wander.

“That must be the Scottish coterie Andrew was talking about—over there, Junior. I should like to meet the young mythologist, Mr. Lang, and discuss some ideas I have about Orpheus fiddling Eurydice out of the infernal regions. Have you read anything of his, Wendy?”

Dr. Holmes took Junior’s arm and pulled him toward the other side of the hall.

“No.” Junior yanked his arm away hard to stop his father. Dr. Holmes looked at him, hurt. “I’ve only come to make an appearance for my regiment, Father. I must meet Minny at the Jameses’ house. Please excuse me to your friends.”

“Did you see us? We are a happy band of brothers, Wendy. More and more still as the years roar by us. My boy, enjoy your passage on the ship of youth, for it too easily grows lost at sea!”

“And, Father,” Junior said, looking over his father’s shoulder at the grinning mythologist. “I heard that dastard Lang talking down about Boston.”

Holmes’s expression turned solemn. “Did you? Then he is not worth our time, my boy.”

“If you say so, Father. Tell me, are you still at work on that new novel?”

Holmes’s smile sprang back at the interest intimated by Junior’s question. “Indeed! Some other enterprises have taken up my time of late, but Fields promises it shall turn a penny when published. I shall have to leap into the Atlantic if it doesn’t—I mean the original damp spot, not Fields’s monthly.”

“You shall invite the critics to assault you again,” Junior said, hesitating to continue his thought. Suddenly, he wished to heaven he had been quick enough to run the wormy mythologist through with his dress sword. He promised himself he would read this Lang’s work, knowing he would take satisfaction if it was poor stuff. “Perhaps I shall have a chance to read this one, though, Father, if some time appears.”

“I’d like that very much, my boy,” Holmes said quietly as Junior started out.

Rey had found one of the soldiers mentioned by the deacon of the soldiers’-aid home, a one-armed veteran who had just finished dancing with his wife.

“There were some who says to me,” the soldier said proudly to Rey, “when they’d outfitted you boys, ‘I ain’t fighting a nigger war.’ Oh, and wouldn’t you know that made me red.”

“Please, Lieutenant,” said Rey. “This gentleman I’ve described to you—do you think you might have ever seen him at the soldiers’-aid home?”

“Certainly, certainly. Handlebar mustache, hay-colored. Always in uniform. Blight—that’s his name. I’m absolutely certain of it, though not positively. Captain Dexter Blight. Sharp, always reading. Good an officer as ever broke bread, seems to me.”

“Pray tell me, was he very interested in Mr. Greene’s sermons?”

“Oh, sure liked ‘em, the old rowdy! And wouldn’t you know those sermons were some fresh air. So much bolder than anything I’ve heard. Oh sure. Cap liked ‘em better’n anybody, seems to me!”

Rey could barely contain himself. “Do you know where I can find Captain Blight?”

The soldier plopped his stump into the palm of his only hand and paused. Then he threw his good arm around his wife. “Why, wouldn’t you know, Mr. Officer, my pretty filly here must be your luck charm.”

“Oh my stars, Lieutenant,” she protested.

“I think I do know where you can see him,” said the veteran. “Right ahead.”

Captain Dexter Blight, of the 19th Massachusetts, wore an upside-down U mustache, hay-colored, just as Greene had described.

Rey’s stare, lasting a long three seconds, was discreet but vigilant. He was surprised at the hunger, the curiosity he felt about every detail of the man’s appearance.

“Patrolman Nicholas Rey? Now, isn’t that you?” Governor Andrew looked up at Rey’s intent face and ceremoniously extended his hand. “I wasn’t told you were expected!”

“I hadn’t planned on attending, Governor. But I’m afraid you must pardon me.”

With that, Rey retreated into a throng of soldiers, and the governor who had appointed him to the Boston Police was left standing in a trance of disbelief.

His sudden presence, seemingly unnoticed by the others at the reception, eclipsed all other thoughts of the members of the Dante Club as they noticed him one by one. They consumed him with a collective stare. Could this man, seemingly mortal and ordinary, have overtaken Phineas Jennison and sliced him to pieces? His features were strong and brooding but otherwise unremarkable under his black felt hat and single-breasted dress tunic. Could this be him? The translator-savant who turned Dantean words into action, who had outdone them time and again?

Holmes excused himself from some admirers and rushed over to Lowell.

“That man…” Holmes whispered, filled with a sense of dread that something had gone wrong.

“I know.” Lowell whispered back. “Rey has seen him, too.”

“Should we have Greene approach him?” Holmes said. “There is something about that man. He does not seem…”

“Look!” said Lowell urgently.

At that moment, Captain Blight noticed George Washington Greene loitering alone. The soldier’s prominent nostrils flared with interest. Greene, having forgotten himself amidst paintings and sculptures, continued his browsing as if at a weekend exhibition. Blight contemplated Greene for a moment, then took slow, uneven steps toward him.

Rey moved ahead to position himself closer, but when he turned to check on Blight, he found that Greene was in conversation with a book collector. Blight had crossed through the door instead.

“Hang it,” Lowell cried. “He’s leaving!”

The air was too still for clouds or snowfall. The wide-open sky showed off a moon so precisely halved that it appeared to have been sliced by a freshly honed blade.

Rey caught sight of a uniformed soldier in the Common. He was wobbling away with the support of an ivory cane.

“Captain!” Rey called out.

Dexter Blight swerved around and regarded his solicitor through hard, squinting eyes.

“Captain Blight.”

“Who in the world are you?” His voice rang deep and bold.

“Nicholas Rey. I need to speak with you,” said Rey, displaying his police badge. “Just for a moment.”

Blight stabbed his cane into the ice, propelling himself faster than Rey would have thought possible. “I’ve nothing to say!”

Rey caught up and grabbed Blight by the arm.

“If you try to arrest me, I’ll rip your damned guts out and scatter them over the Frog Pond!” Blight yelled.

Rey feared there had been a terrible mistake. This careless burst of anger, the uncontrolled emotion, belonged to the fearful, not the undaunted—not to the one they sought. Looking back at the State House, where the members of the Dante Club were hurrying down the steps, their faces lined with hope, Rey also saw the faces of the persons throughout Boston who had brought him to this pursuit. Chief Kurtz—with each death, his time growing shorter as the guardian of a city that was expanding too voraciously to accommodate all who wished to call it home. Ednah Healey—her expression fading in the dying light of her bedchamber, clinging to handfuls of her own flesh, waiting to be whole again. Sexton Gregg and Grifone Lonza: They were two more victims, not of the murderer, exactly, but of the insurmountable fear that created the murders.

Rey intensified his hold on the struggling Blight and met the wide, careful stare of Dr. Holmes, who seemingly shared all his doubts. Rey prayed to God there was still time.