He hadn’t known that Alice had even talked to Mark since she came back to London, with her new identity and her stories of places John hadn’t been there to share with her, her descriptions of empty deserts rife with stars as if the firmament had blossomed cold from seeds of dust. He hadn’t known, in that moment when he realized how much he’d truly missed her, when he finally let himself reach for her, that she would want to share this.

A man who has something to lose is the most dangerous man of all.