"Taller than I expected, Miss Frost," Balducci said, not moving to greet me as I sat down. My long leather vestcoat shhhed against the tile as I settled into the chair, but after that, the only noise was the hum of the air conditioning.

Rand was seated at the edge of the table, naturally, easily, like an Armani model dressed on a police officer's salary, but losing none of the class. Finally he seemed to lose patience with Balducci and said, "Show her."

"This is pointless," Balducci said. "She can't tell us anything that-"

"Chickening out?" Abruptly Rand flipped the manila folder open and turned it towards me, then stood and staring at the glass. "What can you tell us about this?"

Curious, I stared at the picture: it was a bad photocopy of a circular design, some kind of braided wreath with a chain and a snake eating its own tail. Big black blotches covered the upper quarter of the design, but after a moment I puzzled out what I was looking at. "This is flash," I said. At Balducci's puzzled look, I explained: "A tattoo design, or a part of one."

Balducci nodded dismissively. "Told you," he said to Rand.

"And?" Rand asked.

"And… you need to tone the contrast down on your copier?" I said. It was half blotted out… but then I realized it wasn't a photocopy, but some kind of printout of an image, posterized to the point that it was almost illegible, with large-brush black blotches of a digital pen redacting some of the details. But it still had that distinctive natural look that meant it had started life as a photograph, not a drawing.

"This isn't flash," I said. "It's an actual tattoo."

"Toldyou," Rand said.

As my eyes studied it I became suspicious. The reproduction was terrible, but something about the wreath and chain had the flavor of a magical glyph. What if it was magical? These mundanes would have no way of knowing. But how could I tell from this printout? "Do you have a better picture? No-a different picture?"