“Almost done.”

The makeup artist spoke softly, flicking a little brush over her closed eyelids.

“Take your time.” Guin tried to speak without moving her face. She hadn’t been sleeping well, and this felt like a sister to sleep. Floating in the dark, surrendering to a voice, a brush, the painterly scents of the morning show’s green room. Coffee and perfume, dust toasting on the bulbs.

The makeup artist, Alison, was fresh in from Detroit. Moved to Williamsburg for a bad boyfriend and now she lived in Crown Heights with three roommates and a drum kit that blocked the front door. She’d spent the past ten minutes detailing the despicable personal habits of each roommate before going quiet.

It was a quiet Guin recognized. Sure enough, the girl leaned closer, voice dropping. Her breath smelled strongly of matcha.

“I lived in the Ninth City,” she said.

A little charge ran up Guin’s spine.

“When I was a kid,” Alison went on, “I basically lived there. I would read the books in order, then start right back at book one.”

Softly Guin said, “Wow.”

“Yeah. Look, I’m sure you hear this all the time, but—­can I tell you how much your mother’s books meant to me?”

“Of course you can.” Guin did hear this all the time. It was her job, as she saw it, to listen.

Alison breathed deep, a little catch in the throat. “When I was eight my parents got a divorce. We had to sell our house and move to a different town so they could carry two rents. I had to start at a new school midyear, and my older sister basically stopped talking, and…god, I was so alone.”

Her voice was edged with a familiar lace of nerves and regression. All the misfit kids who’d grown up on the Ninth City series fell straight back through time when confronted with her, the actual Guinevere Sharpe. Daughter of author Edith Sharpe, living avatar of their favorite literary character.