Ronan said, “The guard will be dazed for a while. The cameras are dazed, too. It’s pretty slick. I tried to get him to name it something. THE BEDAZZLER, all caps, but he’s not that sort. What do you want to see here? You can see anything. Touch anything. No one will know.”

Declan was badly disoriented. “I don’t understand.”

Bryde stepped into the room. He was a neat figure, controlled. Declan instantly recognized the posture. Not ego. Beyond ego. A man who knew precisely what his boundaries were and operated so thoroughly within them that he was untouchable and knew it. He did not have to lift a fist, raise his voice. He was a kind of powerful that other powerful people respected.

He held a small silver orb in between finger and thumb.

“It’s quite expensive,” he said, studying it. “Requires good ley energy, good dream, perfect focus. Razor focus, really. You have to hold what it means to be human in your head, because you don’t want to take that from them. These little baubles have to go off and send the mind in all directions but keep those pieces close enough to gather back. There is no point in a treat if it’s all trick. You may as well shoot someone if you aren’t going to put their minds back. A butcher ruins, a dreamer nudges.”

Declan found himself feeling precisely the same sensation as he had after his worst dream. He longed to wake up back in the apartment and find everything ordinary and correct around him. I don’t trust Bryde, Adam had said, and how could he? Look at him. Listen to him. Feel what he could do.

Declan remembered nothing about getting here. Bryde had taken it from him.

Declan took two steps back, putting himself on the proper side of the chain protecting El Jaleo. Immediately he felt better, giving the painting its space once more.

Bryde pocketed the orb and told Ronan, “I let Hennessy think she stole one, so we’ve got just this one left. So be efficient.”

“Where is she?” Declan asked. “Hennessy, I mean. Is she here?”

“She’s going to see Jordan,” Ronan said, and Declan felt a little pang of uncertainty in his gut. To Bryde, Ronan said, “She was pretty wound up. Do we know that … ?”

“She’ll be back,” Bryde said with absolute certainty. “She knows where she belongs. Go on. Eye on the clock. This won’t last forever.”

He pulled back into the dim courtyard, disappearing among the complicated black shadows of the tropical palms and flowers.