The style is looser, more abstract. It’s how she draws when she’s drawing from memory rather than from a model. These faces, though still beautiful and symmetrical in the way of San Franciscans, are harder. Some have scars or predatory tattoos. Hissing snakes inked around a neck, the fangs of the open mouth framing a cheekbone, the forked tongue tasting the skin. They look like criminals. Their names are written next to them, too. A fair-haired man named Hatchet. A Japanese woman with long, sleek hair named Haruka.

The next page has a more detailed drawing of a man with the too-smooth skin and haunted eyes that mark him as older. He has a luxurious mane of dark curls around his face, high cheekbones and symmetrical features that are purposefully not perfect. The mouth is wide, the nose long and thin. He has a mole just under his left eye, with a tattoo of a crescent moon around it. Next to the sketch is the name in our secret alphabet: Ensi.

Here he is. The King of the Ratel. I lean close, until my nose almost touches the paper. I memorize every detail about him. This is who Tila was after. Who I am now after.

I turn the page. There is Malka, the Queen of the Ratel, supermodel beautiful, dark hair in long ringlets around her face, a quizzical smile on her face. A few pages later, among other hardened-looking criminals, is an unmistakable sketch of Nazarin. He looks crueler here, his eyes shadowed by his brow, the scars on his head sharper. His sketch is detailed. She’d drawn this from life. The name next to him is “Skel.”

Nazarin himself has told me he’s met her a time or two before, so it shouldn’t surprise me that he’s there with the other members of the Ratel, but it’s still so strange to see a sketch of him done by my sister. There’s a familiarity to the drawing that gives me pause.

I close the sketchbook and go to the kitchen. I log into my messages on the wallscreen. I want to turn something on and zone out and forget about my life, at least for a few moments.

Of course, it’s Tila’s account on the screen, not mine, because my VeriChip is under her identity. It makes me wonder: did they change Tila’s chip too, and, legally, is it Taema who’s in prison and Tila’s who’s free? Or is she a non-person at the moment?