In a way, Slick is at a party. It crashes and surges around him, a wall of sound: he trips on rough laughter, tears, fucking, ranged around the spring he raised from red dirt. It fountains wine, and he plunges his face in, ecstatic.

In another way he’s in the dark, clutching a stone. He’s smeared his body with resin of orchids to hide his scent, and around him the life of the selva d’oro seethes and thunders.

Slick understands now. He’s Oenopion, wine-bringer: Oenopion, who understood revenge. Oenopion, who took for his price the eyes of the world’s greatest hunter.