Melpomene's new apartment was small, smaller than anyplace she'd lived using this alias at least, though by far not the smallest she'd ever lived in her life. She'd done the hovel thing, she'd lived in shacks, in caves, on the street. This was... neither that nor the high rise Soho apartment she'd devastated her life in.
This was ordinary. It had one bedroom and one living area that merged into a small kitchen that opened onto a hall she shared with several other people. The windows of the living room looked down onto a street constantly lined with cars and even-more-constantly lined with trees, and if the windows were not painted shut she could have opened them and reached out to touch the tops of the trees. There were schools nearby where Telos could go – where his cousin Ella went – if Melpomene ever escaped the fear of losing sight of him. There was a coffee shop nearby that served its coffee strong and ordinary that was favoured by Will Stutely.
You could not see Manhattan from here, not even from the roof.
Melpomene smiled at Alan as she closed the door and locked it behind him. "And how is Rajaa?" she asked. She had so very few stories coming in from the outside world, she hung onto every one of the people Alan told her about. As she asked it, Telos came barreling over from where he has been trying with great concentration to pull apart a toy car, bold as brass toward Alan on his hands and knees. His energy levels were unparalleled. Far greater than Melpomene's, from day to day. The best she could ever do was to keep up.