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I look at these pictures, again and again. I study her face, searching in vain for even the ruin of that cool, smooth, inventively untrustworthy operator who once held both my fortune and my heart in the palm of her mannishly large hand.

It was Ellis who first told me about The Emperor’s Old Bones—and she is still the only person in the world with whom I would ever care to share that terrible meal, no matter what doing so might cost me.

If, indeed, I ever end up eating it at all.

* * *

“Yeah, I saw it done down in Hong Kong,” Ellis told us, gesturing with her chopsticks. We sat behind a lacquered screen at the back of Sister Chin’s, two nights before our scheduled rendezvous with the warlord Wao Ruyen, from whom Ellis had already accepted some mysteriously unspecified commission. I watched her eat—waiting my turn, as ever—while Brian Thompson-Greenaway (also present, much to my annoyance) sat in the corner and watched us both, openly ravenous.

“They take a carp, right—you know, those big fish some rich Chinks keep in fancy pools, out in the garden? Supposed to live hundreds of years, you believe all that ‘Confucius says’ hooey. So they take this carp and they fillet it, all over, so the flesh is hanging off it in strips. But they do it so well, so carefully, they keep the carp alive through the whole thing. It’s sittin’ there on a plate, twitching, eyes rollin’ around. Get close enough, you can look right in through the ribcage and see the heart still beating.”

She popped another piece of Mu Shu pork in her mouth, and smiled down at Brian, who gulped—apparently suddenly too queasy to either resent or envy her proximity to the food.

“Then they bring out this big pot full of boiling oil,” she continued, “and they run hooks through the fish’s gills and tail. so they can pick it up at both ends. And while it’s floppin’ around, tryin’ to get free, they dip all those hangin’ pieces of flesh in the oil—one side first, then the other, all nice and neat. Fish is probably in so much pain already it doesn’t even notice. So it’s still alive when they put it back down . . . alive, and cooked, and ready to eat.”

“And then—they eat it.”

“Sure do, Tim.”

“Alive, I mean.”

Brian now looked distinctly green. Ellis shot him another glance, openly amused by his lack of stamina, then turned back to me.

“Well yeah, that’s kinda the whole point of the exercise. You keep the carp alive until you’ve eaten it, and all that long life just sorta transfers over to you.”

“Like magic,” I said. She nodded.

“Exactly. ‘Cause that’s exactly what it is.”

I considered her statement for a moment.

“My father,” I commented, at last, “always told us that magic was a load of bunk.”

Ellis snorted. “And why does this not surprise me?” She asked, of nobody in particular. Then: “Fine, I’ll bite. What do you think?”

“I think . . . ” I said, slowly, “ . . . that if it works . . . then who cares?”

She looked at me. Snorted again. And then—she actually laughed, an infectious, unmalicious laugh that seemed to belong to someone far younger, far less complicated. It made me gape to hear it. Using her chopsticks, she plucked the last piece of pork deftly from her plate, and popped it into my open mouth.

“Tim,” she said, “for a spoiled Limey brat, sometimes you’re okay.”

I swallowed the pork, without really tasting it. Before I could stop myself, I had already blurted out:

“I wish we were the same age, Ellis.”

This time she stared. I felt a sudden blush turn my whole face crimson. Now it was Brian’s turn to gape, amazed by my idiotic effrontery.

“Yeah, well, not me,” she said. “I like it just fine with you bein’ the kid, and me not.”

“Why?”

She looked at me again. I blushed even more deeply, heat prickling at my hairline. Amazingly, however, no explosion followed. Ellis simply took another sip of her tea, and replied:

“’Cause

the fact is, Tim, if you were my age—good-lookin’ like you are, smart like you’re gonna be—I could probably do some pretty stupid things over you.”

* * *