“Could we forgo this, do you think?” she asked. “It’s silly.”

Sherrea raised her eyes to Frances as she shuffled. I watched her small-boned, purple-nailed hands working over the cards, fllllllllt, fllllllllt, as she said, “This won’t take long. And we promise not to tell anybody you did something silly.” Thump — she set the deck on the silk and cut it into three piles. Then she snapped the top card off each pile and onto the table, face up.

“Oh,” she said, and stopped. Her head lifted again, and this time her eyes went to Theo. “Well, that was easy.”

Theo leaned even more. “What did — oh,” he breathed.

The Tower, the Ace of Pentacles, and the Emperor. I looked at Sherrea.

“For the question-and-three-cards, you want to be pretty literal-minded,” she explained. “Which means he’s in a tall building, the one associated with the most money and power; and either the building is owned by, or he’s in the company of, or he is, the bossman of the temporal reality.”

“Or all of those,” I said, staring at the three cards. “You mean, he’s in Ego? With Albrecht?”

She turned again to Theo, so I did, too. He looked like old ivory. “He is,” said Theo, barely audible. His glasses reflected afternoon sun; I couldn’t see his eyes. “Oh, shit. He sure is.”

Frances’s icy posture was melted. It had been replaced with the hunting-animal intensity I’d seen before, and that was turned on Theo. She hadn’t spoken, but she was waiting.

“What?” I said. “How do you know?”

“My dad’s goddamn advisory officer. I know those two freaks who were after you at the Underbridge — they’re goons of his. Oh, shit, shit, it makes too much sense.”

“No, it doesn’t. What does this have to do with Albrecht?” But as I said it, I knew.

“That’s my dad,” Theo replied.

China Black sat down suddenly. “Ah,” she said with a look at Sher. “This would seem to be our business, after all.”

The assembled multitudes were in the parlor, listening to Frances plan her murder, no doubt. I wasn’t with them. I’d found, after a few more minutes, that I needed a walk in the garden.

The front door didn’t object to the idea, and the path didn’t lead me back to the porch as I’d half expected. It was a brick path at first; then it became a trail of slate flags in a stream of silvery creeping plants. In the shade of a cluster of trees, I found an ornamental pond with a boulder beside it for sitting. So I sat.

I hadn’t been there long before Sherrea said behind me, “I know just how you feel. Hey, you’ve been doing this to us for years.”

I decided I wasn’t up to a heated response. I’d try Frances as a role model. Chilly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, fuck that,” she said, and sat down with a bump on the grassy bank. “You’re pissed as hell that you’ve known Theo for years and he never told you who he was. And that you’ve known me for about as long, and I didn’t tell you I was an accredited kick-ass bruja. In fact, you’ve had your nose rubbed in it that life has been going on outside your skin and nobody was filling you in on the details, and it bothers you a lot.”