"We make attempt," he murmurs. Where there are scraps to kindle flame, hope will burn. They may yet stoke it. He feels briefly adrift, aghast with his petty, paltry paintings, his lack of recourse. As if he were a child, plaintive, begging the people of the market to locate his missing mother. Perhaps he is no better than this, and perhaps too they shall log no success for their toil and their trouble.

A bitter truth hangs blunt between them. "Our contingent has witnessed disappearances before. One day present, the next dispersed."

Ghosts, silhouettes, names wandered. Alina, he does not say, but mourns her with a heart heavy and its wounds poorly stitched. Alina Starkov, now Lily. Before them, Lee Chang. Enough faces that they could people a gallery.