Ignacio, King, the rest of my Council, and I were sitting outside. No one else in the Bolivian Council had been able to get up off the floor.

Frank, Tony, and Cyrene tried to be involved in the conversation that Ignacio and I were having, but they were too preoccupied with the sun and their own return to being human—or nearly being human—to pay much attention.

King had never seen the desert and was examining the packed sandy dirt and digging up small ...