A woman in a silver mask approached. Her dress was deep blue, like the hour between dusk and dark. "You came," she said.

"Password?"

He recognized no one. That was the point.

Outside, later, the rain had stopped. He stood under a working streetlamp, watching his breath cloud. He still wore his mask. He wasn't sure anymore which side was the inside.

Inside, the air was thick with incense and something older — beeswax, velvet, the ghost of perfume. A corridor led him past mirrors draped in black cloth. He caught his own reflection in a gap: still himself, but already less.