But the curtains had closed, erasing Sevastyan from view, and I felt as though I had been left unanchored, adrift in the sea of voices. The noise was pressing into me and the heat of all the warm bodies was making my head swim. The air tasted sour with so many tittered words. And once again I could scarcely breathe, like some hot, invisible hand was closing around my throat. Faces pinwheeled past me. I could not tell the wolves from the sheep.
