There's something about the smile that burrows under Rosita's skin like a splinter, that touches a part of her that shed all the social niceties and contracts that cities like this rely on to function a long time ago, a part of her she's comfortable wearing on her shoulders like armor when she needs to these days. It tells the side of her that speaks no language and recognizes no authority beyond what literally can or cannot be done that she is being mocked, to do something to prove she's not the kind of easy fucking target to be ignored.

That's not how this city works. A lot of the people around her are lucky that's not how this city works, and Rosita herself is lucky that she's not so far gone she can't recognize that.

"In our own world, one or the other of us would have just killed you by now," she answers, not a threat necessarily - she's not even saying they could, in a world like this one where people have magic and abilities that simply don't exist on the Earth they both come from - but an unflinching, unarguable fact. Hurt someone like Amelia hurt Carver, and it's payback in kind if she didn't finish the job in the first place. Simple, straightforward, cause and effect. "Here, he has to figure out how to keep being civil, keep talking to and working with you no matter what he'd rather do, no matter what it costs."

She says civil like it's profane, lip lifting.

"I like you, Amelia. But that won't change anything if I see or hear you pressing him about it again just because you can and he's there. He owes something to Grayson, but I don't." This, too, is not a threat. It's a line in the sand, an expectation she wants to be crystal clear on so everyone involved can move forward without crossing it.