"Ah," says Nicholas delicately, pushing away from the alley wall with an indolent press of muscle against concrete. His hands drop to his sides, fingertips grazing the unmistakeable dark curve of a sidearm at his hip. "Iman," he acknowledges his occasional colleague with a polite, oblique slant of his head, attention largely fixed on the most present spectacle.

He advances, a swelling menace set into the slow forward creep and the tensing of musculature. "I don't believe that 'peace' means what you think it might mean."