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“It was Cindée who called, not me.”

“But I knew you were behind it. You’re always behind it.”

“And that’s why you love me. Because of the intrigue.”

“You’re giving me an ulcer. I’m almost sure of it.”

“I thought I had an ulcer once, but it was just gas pains.”

Lucian exhaled a large ring of green smoke. It trembled in the air for a few seconds, revolving slowly. Then it spread out, like a transparent sheet of paper. Those familiar serpentine characters began to glow within the smoke.

“Should I take a picture?” I asked. “Maybe we could read it later.”

Lucian coughed. “It won’t show up on film. Not even digital.” He scanned the Polybius script. The runes moved before my eyes, flicking their calligraphic tails and dancing with one another.

“What does it say?”

“I’m not sure yet. It’s a kind of journal, and it’s written in shorthand.” He frowned. “There’s a lot that doesn’t make sense. Weird measurements and calculations. Almost like a recipe.”

“A recipe for what, exactly?” Selena asked.

Lucian stared into the smoke. “I’m not sure. Some of the notes are written in Catalán. I can barely read them. Other parts are in Old Castillian, mixed with Latin and Old French. I think he was trying to make it as illegible as possible.”

Lucian passed his hand in front of the smoking book. The characters trembled and shifted before him. I guess it was the equivalent of turning the page.

“There’s a refrain that keeps repeating,” he said. “But it doesn’t make sense.”

“What’s it say?”

“Ve por ella. It means ‘look through her,’ or ‘see right through her.’ But I don’t know who the ‘her’

is that he’s talking about, or even if it’s a real person.”

“I think there’s a way we can find out,” I said. “But first we have to call Becka. We need her to prep the Nerve.”

Selena stared at me. “What are you going to use the simulation room for?”

I smiled. “Art appreciation.”

19

The Nerve was full of people, and its egg-shaped white walls made it appear as if everyone had been trapped inside a genie’s bottle.

Mia and Patrick were talking to each other, probably ironically making fun of everything while unironically trying not to be freaked-out by their surroundings. Miles and Derrick were signing back and forth to each other, but their fingers moved so rapidly that I couldn’t quite get the gist of what they were talking about. Whenever Miles talked to me using ASL, his gestures were slow and deliberate, in the same manner as one might talk to a six-year-old. But when he was speaking with Derrick, all bets were off, and I always felt bad about asking them to slow down. I didn’t want to interrupt the conversational flow.

Even Baron had come along. He slept curled next to the door, his tail thumping the ground slightly as he dreamt. Probably he dreamt of Miles, who was the center of his canine universe. Lucian stood near the dog, watching him sleep. Their minds were equally unfathomable. But at least Baron was trained not to run away.

Becka and Selena were standing on the mezzanine level, where the controls to the simulation room were located. Through a mixture of arcane energy and sophisticated computer graphics, the Nerve could reproduce nearly any type of virtual reality. It worked on the same principle as a forensic total-mapping system, which recorded crime scenes digitally using a 360-degree bank of cameras.

The only difference was that the Nerve used alternating materia flows to create images that you could actually touch, and it could even see through physical substrates using infrared light.

At the moment, we weren’t using this priceless technology to re-create a crime scene. Not yet, anyway. First we were doing something completely different. And if it didn’t work, I’d probably get fired. But that was nothing new.

“I’ve loaded both simulations into the computer,” Rebecca said. “We have to wait another minute for the lens to calibrate. We just installed a new emerald laser, and it’s a bit persnickety.”

“It also cost nearly as much as this building.” Selena grabbed Becka’s extra-large coffee and moved it gently away from the screen. “So I don’t care if it’s persnickety or not. Let it warm up, and don’t spill anything on the controls.”

“I am a professional, you know.”

“Is that why your blouse was on inside out when you got here?”

Becka looked chagrined. “I was sleeping when you called.”

“It’s fine. Just make sure the machine keeps humming smoothly.” Selena turned to me. “Where did you get this idea from again?”

I smiled. “An article by Frederic Chorda on computer-aided painting analysis. Becka was the one who made me think of it, actually. She was talking earlier about computer techniques being used to analyze paintings like Las Meninas.”

Becka inclined her head. “Happy to be of service.”

“Where did you find the article?” Selena asked.

“JSTOR.”

“I didn’t know we subscribed to that database. And I just approved our electronic licensing agree-ments last week.”

“Sorry,” Becka said. “I may have slipped that one in.”

“Did you slip any others in?”

“Just a Shakespeare archive. And the Women’s Studies Index.”

Selena stared at her. “What do those have to do with forensics?”

“Nothing. I like blank verse and feminist theory. Is that a crime?”

“It might be in Texas,” Mia said.

“Oh, snap.” Becka grinned at her, then returned her attention to the monitor. “Okay, this is almost ready. I’m going to dim the lights.”

“Is there popcorn?” Mia asked.

“You’ll have to ask el jefe over there,” I said, pointing to Selena. “She approves all the refreshment decisions in the lab.”

Selena sighed. “Let’s just get on with this, okay? I’d like to get home at a decent hour, if that’s still possible.”

“Why did you take this job again?” I asked her.

“Honestly? The dental is superb.”

The walls began to hum softly as the circuitry within the white ceramic panels came to life. I smelled the tang of ozone, and I could feel an active materia field stirring the hairs on the back of my neck.

“I’m running the simulation,” Becka said. “Now.”

There was a pulse of white light. I felt static electricity move over the length of my body, like an invisible spiderweb.

When the light cleared, we were standing in Las Meninas.

The reproduction of the artist’s studio in the Alcázar palace was perfect. The white walls of the Nerve had become dark wood, terminating in a high ceiling. A door with recessed wooden panels stood ajar, revealing an entryway where natural light streamed through, and a flight of stairs that led up. There were paintings on the walls, and I recognized them now because Derrick had explained them to me. Mostly, they were copies of scenes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Everything was a copy of a fable, or a fable of a copy, the whole scene wrapped within a devious simulacro.

A small mirror hung on the far wall, reflecting nothing. It was supposed to offer up the image of the king and queen, but Becka had erased that. Now it was blind and dark, adrift and waiting for an impression of any kind.

Velázquez’s easel was positioned in the far right corner of the room, so that we could see the frame, but not what was painted on the canvas. That, too, had to remain blank. It was one of those unan-swerable questions.

The artist himself was absent. All of the people had been erased from the painting, leaving only a pure landscape behind. It was beautiful and still. I could see the light dancing as it filtered through the high windows of the room. I knew that if I touched the easel, it would feel solid and reassuring, even if its true substance was far closer to that of a dream.

What had the fairy Puck called the human world again? This weak and idle theme / no more yield-ing than a dream? It was hard to tell, as always, where magic ended and technology began. The boundary was no more than a flickering cursor that vanished if you looked at it too closely.

“Okay,” I said. “Everyone needs to get into position. Becka, can you illuminate the coordinates?”

“Sure thing.”

Becka entered in a stream of code. The room shimmered again. Ten sets of floating crosshairs appeared in various positions, each a different color. Glowing letters drifted next to the marks: Velázquez, Infanta, María Augustina , and even Dog. For Baron’s benefit, of course.

“Mia, you’re the Infanta. Take your position.”

She sighed. “I wanted to be Velázquez.”

“Tough. Just stand next to the coordinates.”

Mia took her place. “Should I do a dance now?”

“No. Just stand still.”

“Am I allowed to talk?”

“Whatever. Just don’t move.”

“Not even—”

“Mia.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay. Geez. No moving, I get it.”

“Good. Patrick, you’re Velázquez. Go stand next to the easel.”

He did so. “Is the canvas supposed to be blank?”

“Yes.”

“Can we paint something on it?”

“No. Just keep still.”

He muttered something, which I chose not to hear.

I scanned the room. “Hmm. Derrick and Miles, you’re going to have to be the meninas. Take the two marks on either side of Mia.”

“So gay,” Mia said. “I love it.”

They both took their positions.

I’m the pretty one, Miles signed to Derrick.

“You’re deluded,” he replied.

I remembered Lucian in my dream, standing at the door. I turned to him. “You get to be Don José Nieto, the chamberlain. Go stand in the entrance.”

“Am I coming or going?” he asked. “I can never tell from the painting whether he’s arriving or leaving.”

“I guess we’ll never know.” I kept seeing him as he’d been in my dream, wearing the shattered mask, his face bloody. Even though I knew that Braxton was the one who’d attacked me, I still saw Lucian’s eyes behind that mask.

I blinked to clear the image. “Right. We’re going to need everyone to pull this off. Selena, can you take the place of Mari-Bárbola? Behind the dog.”

She did so, standing three feet to the right of Mia. “Is this okay?”

“Yes. Perfect.”

“I don’t think we’re supposed to talk,” Mia stage-whispered to her.

Selena chuckled, but didn’t reply.

They were all going to drive me crazy.

“Okay. Becka, can you stand to the right of Selena? You’re going to be Nicolas Pertusato, the other little person.”

Becka took her position. “Should I be doing anything special?”

“Yes. We need Baron first, though.”

Miles whistled, and Baron was instantly awake. He snapped his fingers and pointed to the space in front of Selena. Baron trotted over and sat down.

I turned to Miles so that he could read my lips. “Is it okay if Becka rests her foot lightly on him?”

“She could sit on him, for all he’d care. It’s fine.”

“Okay. Becka, put your foot on Baron’s back.”

She did so. Baron glanced at it for a moment, then promptly fell back asleep.

“What about the remaining two figures?” Lucian asked.

“We don’t have enough people. We’ll have to shuffle.”

“It’s okay,” Becka said. “I’ve set the controls to remote, so I can shift the image parameters from where I’m standing.”

“Perfect. Can you call up Ordeño’s apartment now?”

“Yes. One second.”

Becka hit a button on a slender white remote. The room shimmered, and I felt another wave of static electricity.

Then we were standing in Ordeño’s living room.

“My God,” Selena said. “It fits perfectly.”

She was right. Even though Ordeño’s apartment looked nothing like Velázquez’s studio on the surface, it was spatially an exact duplicate. Everyone retained their positions without interfering with a single piece of furniture. The entire room had been designed to accommodate exactly this scene, as I’d suspected. Even the windows were in the right place, and the ceiling was just high enough. The only difference between the open doors was that Ordeño’s entryway still had yellow scene tape attached to it. Otherwise, their positions were identical.

“The painting is a map,” I said. “All we need to do is figure out what perspective we’re supposed to be looking from.”

“Ve por ella,” Lucian repeated. “‘Look through her.’ But who do you think he’s talking about? ‘Her’

might even refer to the room itself, if Ordeño was feeling truly diabolical when he wrote the instructions.”

“I don’t think he was being that arcane. There are five women in the painting. Six, actually, if you count the queen’s reflection. But we can check that later. For now, let’s try the perspectives that we can actually see.”

“I’ve programmed in image maps for the other rooms in the apartment,” Becka said. “All you have to do is say the name of each figure in the painting, and the program will provide their perspectival data. It’ll fill in the visual details for the parts of the room that are currently blank.”

Selena shook her head. “Tess, what made you think of doing this?”

“It’s actually kind of logical. I remembered Becka saying how computer programmers were using these complex algorithms to try to map out all the lines of perspective in paintings like Las Meninas. They wanted to literally peer behind the canvas and see what only the painter himself was able to see.”

I walked over to the blank space, where Velázquez’s canvas had once been.

“Ordeño used the painting as a kind of transparency, in order to hide something within his own home. Obviously, it’s hidden somewhere in plain sight, but in a place where nobody would think to look. In order to find it, we have to locate the right perspective. I think.”

Selena looked at me. “You think?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’m pretty sure. I came up with all of this while I was getting dragged through an undead garden. I haven’t exactly had the chance to test my hypothesis out until now.”

“Why don’t we try looking from the Infanta’s perspective first?” Lucian asked. “She’s often seen to be at the center of the painting.”

“Okay,” Becka said. “Activiating the Infanta’s perspective now.”

“Mia, what do you see?”

She squinted. “A hallway.”

Indeed, the interior hallway had appeared, leading toward Ordeño’s bedroom. It was empty and silent.