His director friend Nicholas Sylvian introduces him to Maris York, a sculptor who makes model cities and who is freeing herself from Luc, her abusive partner.

Walker, who knows nothing about his parents or family background, discovers that he can perform magical acts and has dreams of inhabiting another identity, that of an Austrian named Moritz Benedikt who fought in the First World War and was subsequently murdered.

At one point Walker works on a film with director Weber Gregston, who appears in Bones of the Moon and is the narrator of A Child Across the Sky, which also features Philip Strayhorn.

The protagonist of Outside the Dog Museum, Harry Radcliffe, is the subject of an anecdote Venasque tells Walker in "Sleeping in Flame", and also appears briefly in the hospital scene.

Walker and Maris also appear briefly in Carroll's 1995 novel From the Teeth of Angels, in which they have a baby son, Nicholas, who was born with a hole in the heart.