The garden was Sean’s idea.

Not the garden itself—that belonged to the building, to whoever had decided that people living on the twenty-third floor deserved something green to look at. But coming here at this hour, after dinner, when the sky had gone that shade of dark blue that wasn’t quite night yet—that was Sean.

He knew things like that. Which hour a place belonged to, which corner of a room had the best light, which door in a building full of doors opened onto something worth seeing.

I had stopped questioning how he knew.

I had started following.

The garden was narrow and long, running along the south face of the building like an afterthought that had been given a very generous budget. Gravel paths. Low lighting. Plants I didn’t know the names of, chosen by someone who understood that beauty at night required different things than beauty in the day.

At this hour it was empty.

It was usually empty, Sean said. Most residents didn’t know it existed. They used the rooftop terrace on twenty-seven, which had a bar and a view and the social pressure of a place designed to be seen in.

This was not that kind of garden. This was the kind you had to know about.

I was the kind of person who didn’t know about places like this until someone showed them.

Sean was the kind of person who always did.

I wasn’t sure what that meant. I was fairly certain it did.

…

“We should go up,” he said.

“Elevator?” I said.

The corner of his mouth moved.

“Stairs,” he said.