He pauses, scrutinizes the lines of Kovacs' face, the way he tries to mask any reaction. He thinks of Francesco, of Enu, of Tessa. How young they'd seemed, even into their twenties, and how empty Tiber Island's courtyards had felt when they'd set out into the world. The men and women who had come back.

"I spend much of my time with apprentices," he remarks. "Young people who abhor injustice but have no means to do something about it. They are seldom the same people, years later."