Michael Swanwick - The Iron Dragon's Daughter

"Well, initially it was 'I don't know how you can even consider working for pigs like Du Pont.' But now that I've decided to turn down their offer and go the academic route it's 'Jane, you can't! All that money.'" Jane shrugged. "Sylvia's okay. We've had our differences, but who hasn't? Where is this place, anyway?"

"Three blocks up." The sidewalk led them past a line of Victorian brownstones. Stained glass numbers over the doors and asparagus ferns in the windows.

Jane looked up and saw Dame Moon floating high in the sky. An abrupt and sourceless melancholy seized her then and she shivered. "I feel like a child in this world," she said quietly.

"Hush! That's a fast ticket back to the institute. Did I tell you what Roger tried to pull last Thursday?" Talking lightly, Diane swept her down the street. By the time they got to their destination, Jane's mood had passed. "Here we are!" Diane cried and, returning to an earlier theme, "It's discouraging. Why is it so hard to find a good man?"

"You think that's difficult? Try giving up smoking."

"Oh, stop!"

Laughing, they clattered up the stairs. Voices poured down on them. "If that's not the right party, it'll do until the real thing comes along," Diane said, and hammered on the door. A very drunk undergrad with a liberal arts haircut opened it and said, "Drinks are over there."

They went in.

The rooms were predictably charming, the usual clever arrangements of space appointed with a tasteful mix of the original hardwood fixtures and postmodern wall hangings. Students were crammed in everywhere. They found their host up in the loft with a braided, rather Nordic-looking piece of jailbait, waved, and got a couple of beers. Diane nudged Jane and pointed her bottle at an expensively framed print on one wall. A Piranesi. Out of the corner of her mouth she said, "Waddaya think—an original?"

Jane trembled.

"Oh, my God." She seized her friend's arm so tightly that Diane laughingly objected, and pointed to a man across the room. "Who is he? You've got to tell me." By chance, or possibly prompted by a comment from someone nearby, he looked up. Their gazes locked. Jane knew Diane must think she was making a fool of herself, but she didn't care, she didn't care, she didn't care.

"His name!" she said. "I've got to know his name."

MICHAEL SWANWICK is the author of three previous, critically acclaimed novels: In the Drift , Vacuum Flowers , and the Nebula Award-winning STATIONS OF THE TIDE. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and son.