The instant it happens, Louis knows. Their eyes meet through Daniel's mind and then it ends, and it won't matter how fast Louis pushes the motorcycle he's been loaned. The room is empty. They are gone.

Daniel is gone.

A matter of thirty minutes. Twenty. Such a short sliver of time. Louis had let himself hope, find comfort in the contact with Daniel's mind and what felt like an increasingly real possibility of success.

Louis breaks the metal door. The chair. Daniel's scent hangs in the room, mingled with Armand's, a reminder of how near he'd been.

Reaches out, trying again, finds nothing.

Feels the urge to fall to the ground.

Boxes it away. He promised Daniel. He knows what Daniel would have to say. He can almost hear him, succinct summation of Self-defeating bullshit.

So he returns to the hotel. Is buoyed in he smallest way by what waits for him; all the eyes scattered through the city have something for Louis. Three of his people, observing Armand, Daniel caught at his side. A flight number, a destination.

So Louis goes. Spends the travel time alternating between reaching out for Armand and reaching out for Daniel, seeking any form of contac.