Tight and marvelous. I liked the repeated use of the ashes in each part, Emily's cremation, the villa burning, ashes in the mountain air. I even thought is Sloane's horror at the news she's been cremated not at the destruction of her body, but at the prospect of her ashes spreading on the wind? She'll be everywhere, always with him wherever he goes. He can't compartmentalize his love and grief for her because she's omnipresent.

Though that might be a comfort in the end. Sloane's a fascinating character because he has these elements of humanity, of pain and feeling. Lovely that you're writing him.