The rooftops of the night city were her territory – all aerials and architraves and staggering gulfs of air. She could see him best from up there on high, always clothed in darkness and half-hidden from sight. She would flit from place to place, keeping the high ground. When it was so late as to be early, she would come to rest, gaze fixed on his window – her diamond eyes, her whole visage, obscured behind stray lock and shadow.

He would hear her at times, without knowing it, in the ruffle of feathers from a blind alley, or a muffled cry echoing from concrete to glass. When cold winds rushed down out of a patchy night sky they would bring shivers to his spine, not from the chill but from a smell that didn’t quite reach him. He would look up, then, across the gulf, to the borders of her country, but never laid eyes on her.