Kelsey’s father was a Houston tax lawyer, something of his particular species of biz-speak tending to enter his daughter around meeting time; also a certain ability to waitthat Chia found irritating, particularly as manifested by a saucer-eyed nymph-figure out of some old anime. Which Chia was double damn sure Kelsey would notlook like realtime, were they ever to meet that way. (Chia herself was presenting currently as an only slightly tweaked, she felt, version of how the mirror told her she actually looked. Less nose, maybe. Lips a little fuller. But that was it. Almost.)

“Exactly,” Zona said, miniature stone calendars whirling angrily in her eye-holes. “We wait. While hemoves ever closer to his fate. We wait. If my girls and I were to wait like this, the Rats would sweep us from the avenues.” Zona was, she claimed, the leader of a knife-packing chilangagirl gang. Not the meanest in Mexico City, maybe, but serious enough about turf and tribute. Chia wasn’t sure she believed it, but it made for some interesting attitude in meetings.

“Really?” Kelsey drew her nymph-self up with elvin dignity, batting manga–doe lashes in disbelief. “In thatcase, Zona Rosa, why don’t you just get yourself over to Tokyoand find out what’s really going on? I mean, did Rez saythat, that he was going to marry her, or what? And while you’re at it, find out whether she existsor not, okay?”

The calendars stopped on a dime.

The blue hands vanished.

The skull seemed to recede some infinite distance yet remain perfectly in focus, clear in every textural detail.

Old trick, Chia thought. Stalling.

“You know that I cannot do that,” Zona said. “I have responsibilities here. Maria Conchita, the Rat warlord, has stated that—”

“As if wecare, right?” Kelsey launched herself straight up, her nymphness a pale blur against the rising tangle of green, until she hovered just below the canopy, a beam of sunlight flattering one impossible cheekbone. “Zona Rosa’s full of shit!” she bellowed, not at all nymphlike.