Field Notes

I once saw Porto Flavia on a Windows lock screen: a structure set straight into the Sardinian cliffs, suspended above a brilliant blue sea. It immediately became Septimus’s laboratory in my mind.

The original lock-screen photograph was protected by copyright, but this photograph gives you the idea: stone, sea, isolation, and a doorway cut into the edge of the world.

The entry hall of the Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg was the model I had in mind for Mayor Redcliff’s hall. Imagine spears in place of the muskets and you have a good idea of it: polished order, ceremonial symmetry, and enough weapons on the walls to ensure no one mistakes hospitality for weakness.