Kristen suddenly felt very cold in the seaside warmth, an unusually balmy, twenty degrees Celsius on this winter day. She wasn’t acquainted with more than a handful of elves—dangerous, proud-crazy Zulus come to bad times in this city—people she knew well to avoid, with their doubled contempt for her mixed race. She had never seen anyone like this elf in her life, of that she was sure. But the image seized her, and wouldn’t let go. She flicked the tabloid’s pages, saw him seated smiling in the sunshine, then turned the magazine sideways to look at him another way. She knew she’d never seen the bugger. She was also certain she’d known him all her life.