“Oh, look,” I said, “Miss Sturluson lives in a little brick house. It’s so cute.”

Yellin stared stoically at the dashboard.

“Is it okay that we’re showing up without a present?”

A slow flush crept up his neck, making the skin above his stiff, white color go all blotchy.

“Miss Sturluson is not an individual of high status. For Lord Cordus’s representatives to bestow a gift upon her would be grossly inappropriate.”

“Oh. Okay.”

There was a space almost in front of the house. I backed in.

“Not even a small gift? Like maybe a pen?”

Yellin’s cheek started twitching.

Honest to god, it was like shooting fish in a barrel.

I got out and stood on the sidewalk, checking out Helen Sturluson’s prim home, which came complete with white metal awnings and a cheery welcome mat.

As usual, it took Yellin a little while to get out of the car. I had the annoyed suspicion that he was waiting for me to open his door for him, so I was careful not to look in that direction. Eventually I heard the car door shut, and he walked past me. I followed along behind.

Given her adorable house, I wasn’t surprised to find that Helen Sturluson looked like someone’s sugar-cookie-baking grandma. Crinkly, laughing eyes; the scent of lavender; thick, suntan-colored stockings; thinning silver hair pulled up in a loose bun — she was the complete package.

Must be a stone-cold killer, I thought.

I assumed she was disguised, but for all I could tell, she might really be an old lady.

There are a couple ways strong essence-manipulators can make a disguise. Workings change one thing into something else — very effective, but energy-intensive to maintain. Half-workings let something oscillate back and forth between itself and another form, which saves energy.

The night before, Andy had disguised the rat kings as suitcases so we could carry them around Grand Central without attracting attention. He’d used a half-working for that.

Those I could recognize: to me, a half-worked thing looked like itself and something else at the same time.

Full workings were a different story. I couldn’t sense them at all, which wasn’t how it was supposed to be. People like me were supposed to become sensitive to all worked essence at the same time. A full working should stand out to me as a disturbed area in the fabric of reality. I wouldn’t be able to see through it, like with a halfing, but I should know it was there.

At any rate, either Sturluson really looked like an elderly human woman, or more likely, she’d used a full working to make her disguise. I couldn’t sense anything strange about her at all.

She let us right in and, after seating us in her over-furnished parlor, bustled off to the kitchen, leaving us surrounded by teetering knick-knacks, scruffy-looking potted plants, and at least a dozen small heart-shaped pillows.