“Sparrow. Bonjour. What is your age?”

My heart gave one powerful beat and seemed to quit. “Old enough for most things.”

“Where have you come from?”

“I don’t think that’s relevant.”

“Sparrow!” Dana said.

But the black woman shrugged. “Keep your secrets, then, if you feel better. It doesn’t matter. Take me to this dead man.”

“Shall I call you Mistress, too?”

“When you need to call me anything, I will tell you what it will be,” she said pleasantly.

Gosh. Since there were no more channels for the small talk to run in, I led them all to the basement.

Again, I stood in the elevator in such a way that no one else could see what I did with the loose wires in the control box. I knew it was a delaying tactic; one of them could, with enough incentive and time, duplicate the process. I hated knowing that. Three more people who were aware that the elevator was not broken down. Mick Skinner seemed to be doing me all his disservices posthumously.

The apartment door was still locked. The apartment, when I opened the door, was quiet as — well, perfectly quiet. Dana came in after me, followed by La Maitresse and the large man. He closed the door after himself, which made me uncomfortable.

When I opened the bedroom door, I knew immediately that something had changed state. Mick Skinner’s mortal remains were where I’d left them. But the body seemed altered; maybe in its color, or the texture of the skin. I stepped in and plucked gingerly at the wrist I’d lifted before, and found that this time rigor mortis worked. “He’s different.”

Dana was standing in the doorway, staring. The woman pushed her gently out of the way and came to the bedside. “How?”

“Well… deader,” I said.

I found myself staring at my reflection in the sunglasses, long enough to realize that my way with words had not impressed her. “I need more room,” she said at last. “Can you give it to me?”

“Oh. Yes, down the hall.”

“Mr. Lyle. Bring him, please.”

At that the big man came forward and took the body off my mattress with no apparent effort. I led the parade to the next room, wondering what she needed space for. Dissection, maybe. I ought to tell her I didn’t have a garbage disposal. Mr. Lyle laid his burden tidily on the floor, and went back to the hall. When he returned, he had the leather case. He gave the woman an inquiring look.

“Yes,” she said.

He took candles out of the case. Lots of candles, in black. They all had something sticky at the base, and stayed upright when he placed them on the floor — one at the top of Mick Skinner’s head, one at each shoulder, at each wrist, at the outside of each knee, at the sole of each bare foot. He reached into the case again and came up with a tin box. I craned my neck when he took off the lid; the contents looked like flour. When he began to dribble it on the floor in fine lines, I realized that of course it was flour, and he was making the veves with it.