Asteria looked out the window of the apartment where she was staying at a dark alleyway, full of garbage of both the living and discarded debris variety, and wondered how she’d wound up here. In the distance, the lights of Budapest illuminated the sky, though all she could see from this vantage point were a few dim streetlights that highlighted the rundown architecture of Terezvaros. In an adjoining room, the laugh track from some stupid television show interrupted her thoughts. It was just as well; in the past few months she’d become abundantly aware of the fact that often times her thoughts were not her own.

She dropped the thin...