Late evening, the sky a deep bruised purple beyond the grimy windows, the carriage half-empty. A few businessmen snored behind their newspapers. An old woman knitted by the door. The hum of the tracks was a lullaby.

You sat by the window, your reflection ghosting over the darkening landscape, when the air shifted.

A man dropped into the seat across from you.

He was handsome in the way a knife is handsome. Dark hair, sharp cheekbones, a mouth that looked like it had never smiled at anything honest. His coat was expensive. His eyes were not.