Overview
Kostel acts first and thinks later. Fortune gave him a devoted mother, Lina, who invariably defended him whenever matters boiled over — which generally meant he had picked a fight. Coen's father once observed that Kostel can never improve while someone keeps rescuing him. Coen cannot judge whether he was right, though the pattern held even after Lina's death: her nephew Vlad took over her role, watching out for the boy — out of kinship, partly, but also, Coen thinks, out of friendship. At times Coen suspects Vlad spurs Kostel's recklessness rather than curbing it — though to what end, he cannot guess.