She looked down, slightly relieved. “Then there’s something else you’re not telling me, and I think it has to do with the fact that you didn’t say we’d go to Niko’s death, you said we’d see how close we could get to it. Why is that?”

Chance spoke quickly, but not too quickly, and told the part of the truth that would serve him best. “Sometimes we can’t get to a place and time if another one of us gets there first.”

“And that’s what’s been happening?” she asked.

“Yes,” said the Trickster.

“Do you know who, or why—”

“Yes,” said the Trickster abruptly, eyeing Chance. “At least, we have an idea.”

Chance said nothing. The malfeasance of the undying was not an easy topic at the best of times; a vague sense of uncertainty and shame made him speechless. Miranda waited, tapping her pen on the table and observing the tension between them.

“All right,” she said eventually. “While you two hold onto your idea, which, I take it, deals with things beyond mortal ken, I’ll share mine. I’d like to look in on Marinel. I think it would be very interesting to see—or see if we can see—the last time she spoke to her husband.”

The Trickster smiled a broad, triumphant, I-told-you-so smile at Chance. “I agree. Why don’t you take us there, Miranda?”

“I’m not—” Chance began, anticipating the Trickster’s request.

“Just a little,” the Trickster coaxed. “And you’ve done it before, so there’s precedent.”

“Done what?” asked Miranda anxiously.

“Shared power,” Chance clarified, glaring at his brother. “But I didn’t do it willingly, and even a small part of my power is still too complex for a human to wield properly.” He looked away in defeat from the Trickster’s persistent smile. “I’ll help you. You just think about who you want to see and where and when you want to see them.”

Miranda raised her eyebrows, but she nodded and closed her eyes. Chance looked on with surprised approval as she flicked through memories of the case much as one would run fingers over the physical tabs of a row of hanging files. She tagged every glimpse and mention of Marinel Tsavian and of her husband, Niko. Then she narrowed the selection, jettisoning those of Marinel after her husband’s death, and focused on events after the mutilations began.

“What am I doing? How does this help?” she murmured, concentrating.

Chance leaned closer to her ear so that he too could speak in a low voice. “Can you feel anything? A certain similarity? Your senses might interpret it as a sound, a flavor, or a shading of a particular hue. What do you find in all of these scenes?”

“A smell of jasmine,” said Miranda in a distant voice that sounded almost sad. “Jasmine and old sandalwood.”