Wine sloshed over her fingers. She set the goblet down and groped in the impenetrable shadows. It was here. It had to be. Shrunk, maybe, or phase-shifted by post office mishandling, she’d flay the boy who brought it to her, or better yet find him in dreams and—

“Looking for this?”

Tara Abernathy sat in the armchair opposite, legs crossed. She held a silver-glyphed skull in one hand, like a jester’s puppet or a philosopher’s dummy.

“Ms. Abernathy,” Ramp said. “I thought you would know better than to bother me in my home.”

She did not need to move. The leather of the chair in which Abernathy sat split into thin straps, lashed up and around to snare and bind—

And passed through the woman as if she did not exist.

The straps reared back and swayed like confused cobras. Abernathy slapped one, and it slithered to quiescence within the upholstery.

Ramp glanced down at the open box. To either side of the lid she saw, taped, a business card: TARA ABERNATHY, CRAFTSWOMAN. No logo.

“Projection,” she said. “A shame. I can’t offer you a drink.”

“You would have tied me up to offer me a drink?”

“I have a strict vision of hospitality.”

Abernathy smiled at that, a bit.

“Do you know who that is you’re holding?”

“Yes,” she said, with a touch of distaste as if she’d smelled something foul.

“One of the greatest minds since Gerhardt. If not the greatest.”

“I don’t know about that,” Tara said, assuming a mockery of the man’s voice, that old country Craftsman’s tones he’d faked so well. She tilted the skull down and sideways, so it seemed to be embarrassed. “I’m just a plain simple bastard.”

“Impertinence. You do not understand what Alexander Denovo was, what he did.”

“I understand better than you, I think.”

“I worked with him for decades.”

“And I was one of the people he worked on.” She considered the skull. “You know, I prefer him this way. Looks less sinister, for starters.” Tara uncrossed her legs, stood, and paced the small chamber, tossing the skull from hand to hand. “Justice found what was missing from the evidence locker. The package was harder to trace. We thought we were out of leads, until a friend asked for my help with a family matter. Her father showed up in the middle of our court date in the sky, ranting, warped. Someone had messed him up with Craft I recognized. Turns out he was roommates with a Talbeg priest who also escaped the hospital during the crisis. We found the priest—who’s fine, by the way, thanks for asking—and we found the post office. The whole thing involved too many last-minute heroics for my taste. We had to waylay the delivery truck this afternoon. Sorry it was late.”

Ramp said nothing.