The Gentlemen are past their time, scattered to the winds, driven into the hills and wild places to fill their mouths and bellies with thistles and sour grass. Spent cartridges, they were never meant to live so long—the peace of the city and the glamour of its streets is sustained through annual, monthly, daily sacrifice, hours and minutes digging little hooked knives into their flesh in search of their hearts.
Nevertheless, they persist. Some are barnacled into the truss of the city, but most are in exile, so many lonely Daedaluses still creating, still inventing codes in empty rooms. Some few live together, but most are strangers to each other, known only and intermittently through an old overheard passphrase, a pair of dusty hats switched in a late night restaurant, a bandaged finger and a memorial carnation marking the ambered cruelty of survival.
No one will come for them, alas, no poison in the ale, no prick of poinard on a foreign subway station. Whatever secrets they hold are long dead and gone, dust gathered on a featureless plinth raised in a forgotten city park. The Gentleman raise tribute to each other, and count the passing days.