Maya hauled the stranger up three flights of stairs to her cramped fourth-floor walkup in Queens.
Her studio smelled of radiator rust and lavender soap. She laid him across her secondhand sofa, which was barely long enough for his broad six-foot-two frame.
As she cleaned the glass shards from his arms, she found his platinum watch. It bore an embossed crown crest and an inscription in Latin: *Regno et Fidelitate*.
When the fever broke at dawn, the stranger sat bolt upright, knocking Maya's tea mug off the table.
"Where am I?" he demanded, his voice deep and commandingly resonant.
"You crashed your car near the docks," Maya said, holding a rolled-up magazine defensively. "Who are you?"
The man gripped his temples in agony. His gaze swept around the peeling wallpaper and cheap plastic furniture. "I... I don't know. I can't remember my name."