She widened her eyes at me. “I guess I could try.”

“What was the influenza epidemic of 1918?”

She looked startled for a moment. Then her expression sharpened and settled. “That’s right, you’re the friend of the girl in 24. Some people can only be brave if they’re ignorant about what’s happening to them. She’s not one of ‘em. Made me explain to her everything we knew about this damn bug.”

“How does 1918 come into it?”

“Well, not for scale, at least. Not yet, anyway. But that time, there was no way to tell who would get it, and once they’d got it, there wasn’t any sense in who got a light dose and who died of it. Whole families would come down with the influenza, including babies, and the only ones who’d die would be the parents, who ought to have been strong enough to hold out. This thing is like that. Years from now we’re still going to be studying to figure out the population at risk.”

“Does that mean that people have recovered from it?” I asked.

Sunny had come up behind the Daughter. Her face was composed, but she seemed a little white around the mouth, and I knew she was waiting for the answer as much as I was.

“Too soon to be sure. If we can get the fever to break, there’s a good chance of the person pulling through. We’ve had a couple of patients already who’ve gotten over the hump. I think your friend’s temp is just about to peak. If we can get her through tonight okay, she may be in the clear.”

“If we can get rid of this gene-transforming stuff,” I said, “then everybody will be in the clear.”

The Daughter looked at me oddly. “The genie ain’t going back in the bottle.”

No, of course it wasn’t. The mutation, if that was what it was, had happened; the virus had crossed the Border, and was doing a fine job of ditching its half-evolved hosts and fastening on the real elves. I’d been careening along with the blinders on, half-convinced that if I did my job, everything would be fixed. But the passport and the virus had never been the same thing, and only one of them was my job. Sunny was watching me, and from the way she was doing it, she might have known what I was thinking.

But all she said was, “Come on. It’s dinner time.”

“Taco Hell?” I asked when we got to the car, which twilight was making sleek again.

“I don’t think I can face any restaurant south of Ho tonight. Do you mind?”

“I’m easy.” I blushed when I heard what I’d said, but Sunny didn’t seem to notice.