“Once I sell these off, I’ll make more,” said Durga. “I’ll give you half the profits—if you’re still here to collect.” She gave Thuy an empathetic smile. With amazing mental rapidity, Durga had already absorbed much of Wheenk. “I hope things work out for you and Jayjay.”

Of course that set off a fresh round of self-flagellation in Thuy’s head, along the lines of, “Why was I so cold to Jayjay for so long!” To distract herself from her tedious internal wheenking, Thuy teeped around the enormous room, skimming across the masses of data in the items on display. “Can I read one of these?”

“Sure. You pick. Relax and enjoy.”

Thuy was just settling in with a dried gardenia that contained a romance adventure when—as they’d been expecting—Gladax appeared, old and strict. For once Gladax wasn’t dressed like a street person—instead she was swathed in the virtual robes of her mayoral office. She shimmered with the diverse faces of the Hibrane San Francisco citizenry, thousands of gold-framed images cascading from her shoulders like sheets of water. A further tessellation of faces rose up behind her head like a peacock’s fan. But, as before, she was carrying a net.

Ond grabbed Thuy’s arm, as if restraining her. “I was about to bring her to you,” Ond told Gladax in an ingratiating tone.

Thuy could see that Chu was literally biting his tongue to keep from contradicting his father. It pained the literal-minded boy to hear an untruth.

“Stand back,” said Gladax, swaying her net. Her hands were like slow butterflies against the glittering mosaic of faces. The rubbery net floated down; Thuy let herself be trapped. Gladax cinched the bonds around Thuy; Ond lent a hand.

Thuy struggled, but not for real—that would come later. Already she could feel why the net was elastic. For a dense, powerful gnome, the flexible meshes posed more of a problem than brittle ropes and chains.

Gladax forced some images into Thuy’s mind: views of a long, sunny room with straw mats on the floor. A gold harp sat upright at the room’s end. Chinese scroll landscapes hung upon the walls. This was the exercise room in Gladax’s mansion: their teleportation target. And now, pop, they were there. Teleportation was very easy with lazy eight.

Gladax’s tai chi room occupied the eastern side of the first floor of the house. Tightly bound and lying on her side, Thuy was facing a long window with a view of the garden. Winter and spring flowers were in bloom: oversized poinsettias, cyclamens, irises, tulips, freesias, snowdrops, and jonquils—bright against the gray background of the lowering sky. All the petals were in shades of red. The coaxer-tweaked blossoms seemed to have a certain level of intelligence: there was a considered elegance to the way they bobbed in the breeze; more than that, they were faintly messaging a tune.