Neith was querying the System for a strategy of intervention when she saw Keene catch herself in passing, shrimp on a stick in one hand and bourbon in the other, and go down on to one knee. In a single motion so fluid as to appear implausible, she set down her canapé and her drink, and palmed a deck of cards from a glass table in those long-fingered hands. Coming around to face the child, she made the cards fall like water from one hand to the next, and then crooked them so that they fountained upwards again as if she had simply reversed the flow of time. Neith waited for Keene to invite the boy to pick a card, and then realised that she would not. This was not a performance that required anything at all from its intended audience. It was not interactive. It was a gift.