Alistaire arrived with precise timing. It takes a lot of work to make things look like they just happened. He's in flawless Hellfire garb, just a touch rumpled, from his festivities immediately preceding the party. He was the Black King of the New York branch now. That station demanded making an entrance, and arriving bearing gifts. Both to those now under his watch, and to the Lord Paramount.

The closeted son of a hardline right-wing industrialist. The middle child daughter of one of Sebastian's old business partners, with designs on her father's company. The son and daughter, twins even, of a visiting ambassador of a country that the United States was only technically not at war with. A congressman's trophy wife, and her step-son who was off to Harvard Law in a matter of months, perhaps just a bit too comfortable on her arm. Alistaire had all of them delighted, all laughing, all ready to receive libations and meals and to chatter the night away. It was scandal, or the chance to stop scandals, all gift-wrapped and for the asking.