I put my spoon down. “I just heard a voice in my head.”

“Yeah,” Felix says.

“Join the club.” Ariel beams again.

My stomach clenches. “It’s a symptom of psychosis,” I say to no one in particular.

“Not if your roommates have been conversing with the same voice in their heads.” Felix winks at me. “So unless it’s a group psychosis…”

“No jokes,” I say to Felix, then look at Fluffster intently. “You were saying?”

“I was trying to emphasize how sorry I am for your loss.” The voice in my head is as soothing to my brain as Fluffster’s fur is to my skin. Even the hangover recedes slightly, though it could be the Tylenol taking effect.

I stare at my pet as though I’m seeing him for the first time.

He stares back at me, standing unnaturally still.

“You better start at the beginning.” I rub my brow. “Why are you sorry? And what did I lose?”

Fluffster now gives Felix a penetrating stare.

“Fine,” Felix says to the chinchilla after a moment. “I’ll help you.” Turning his attention to me, he says, “So, he doesn’t remember this, but when we first moved in together, he had a transparent form that Ariel and I would sometimes spot. We thought maybe he was a ghost at first—”

“Wait, ghosts exist too?” I look at Fluffster, who seems to shrug his tiny furry shoulders.

“There are many Cognizant who can be invisible to people not under the Mandate,” Ariel says. “A few groups have the characteristics of mythical ghosts—but they are never souls of departed humans, so in the strictest sense, ghosts do not exist.”

“Fine,” I say, at a loss for words yet again. “Let’s get back to the domovoi. You two saw him, and I couldn’t because of the Mandate.”

“Correct.” Felix smiles. “You’re catching on very quickly.”

“And what did he look like?” I skeptically examine the squirrel-bunny-like creature in front of me.

“A bit scary, actually,” Ariel blurts out, then gives Fluffster an apologetic look. “But Felix’s dad explained that it was a domovoi, and that they protect the dwelling they inhabit.”

Felix nods and shoves away his plate. “It’s considered a huge blessing for a Russian household to have one.”

“I understand,” I say, though I don’t really. “What did you mean when you said he doesn’t remember? Do these domovoi have memory problems?”

“Right.” Felix shifts in his seat. “It all happened the night you got the original chinchilla.”

He looks at Fluffster pointedly, who seems to shake his head.

“As far as Ariel and I could puzzle out,” Felix continues, “the creature you got from the pet store had a seizure the very first night you brought him home, so the domovoi saved it, sort of, by taking its embodiment.”

“Fluffster had a seizure?” I look at my pet uncomprehendingly.

“I’m so sorry,” says the voice in my head. “My very first memory is trying to save the little creature’s life. The damage to his brain was too severe for my powers to repair, so I took his body.”

“You took his body,” I say dumbly. “So he’s dead?”

“I think that’s a philosophical question,” Felix says. “If this body were killed, the domovoi would be incorporeal again, so to me that implies the animal is still alive—or his body is, at least.”

I rub my temples.

“The key thing to remember,” Ariel says, “is that the being you know as Fluffster has pretty much always been the domovoi. And though he couldn’t tell you the truth about his nature, he’s always tried to be what you wanted him to be—a companion.”

I try to wrap my mind around that and wish for the millionth time that I weren’t so hungover. With the headache squeezing my brain out of my head, I’m having trouble deciphering how I should feel. Do I mourn the chinchilla I’d only known for one evening, or do I feel grateful to the domovoi for all the joy he’s brought me?

“He didn’t do that good of a job pretending to be a mere animal,” I say after a pause. “I always thought he was the smartest pet who’s ever lived.”

Fluffster proudly lifts his chin and chirps excitedly. In my mind, he says, “Thank you, Sasha.”

“You’re welcome,” I say, and giggle hysterically as I picture someone who isn’t one of my roommates witnessing this conversation. “So where did you come from?”

“I don’t remember,” Fluffster says and hungrily stares at my bowl of unfinished oatmeal.

I dip my spoon into the oatmeal and offer it to Fluffster. With a chirp, the chinchilla-domovoi grabs a clump and puts it in his mouth.

“Do either of you know where he came from?” I ask Ariel and Felix while Fluffster is eating.

“He didn’t talk to us when he wasn’t embodied,” Felix says. “Just kind of spooked me a few times.”

“At first, we thought he was Felix’s family’s domovoi.” Ariel sips her coffee. “Until Felix asked his dad about that.”

“Yeah,” Felix says as he gets up—probably to make himself a cup of coffee. “My dad says our domovoi lives in my grandfather’s house in Yakutsk, Russia. My best guess is that some Cognizant from Russia once lived in this apartment and had the domovoi, and when he died, he left the entity here. I think they follow people in certain families, but if no one is left, they stick with the house itself.”

Ariel looks like the proverbial lightbulb just lit up above her head. “You know,” she says. “Back when we pondered all this, we didn’t know Sasha was a Cognizant. But since she is, there’s a more intriguing possibility for Fluffster’s origin. He could be hers.”

“You’re right.” Felix places his coffee mug on the table, his eyes shining with excitement. “That would mean we have the first ever clue about Sasha’s heritage.” He looks at me. “Could you be from Russia?”

“Your parents always said that Sasha is a Slavic name,” Ariel says to him. “So it’s feasible that—”

My mouth literally hangs open as their words penetrate the haze of my hangover.

A clue about my heritage.

The mere thought triggers a cascade of hard-to-identify emotions that I should probably discuss with Lucretia, the Cognizant shrink at my work.

I’ve known I was adopted from the very beginning, so I’ve obviously wondered who my biological parents were and what happened to them. However, Mom (my adoptive one) wasn’t a big fan of such questions. She thought they meant I wasn’t happy with her and Dad. That logic was faulty, though, since I was happy with my new family—I just wanted to know who my real parents were.

When I was little, instead of counting sheep, I would regularly ponder questions about my biological parents as I was falling asleep. Did they lose me, or did they abandon me? If they abandoned me, was it because I somehow deserved it? Who are they? Where are they? What were they doing at JFK airport on that fateful day? The list of questions grew as I got older, until I learned to suppress my curiosity—as many of the possibilities were too painful to contemplate.

Now that I know I’m a Cognizant, however, I need to revisit the topic. The Council didn’t seem to have a clue as to my origins, and to quote Gaius, “not for lack of trying.” The good news is that being a Cognizant has shrunk the pool of potential candidates for my parents dramatically, as we are only a percent of a percent of the total world’s population.

On top of that, one or both of my parents were seers, which narrows it down even more. And now there might be something else I can latch on to: the domovoi, a.k.a. a Russian connection, assuming Fluffster really is—

“Sasha?” Felix says worriedly. “Are you there?”

“Sorry,” I say, shaking my head in the hopes of clearing it.

“It must be a sensitive subject for you,” Ariel says, lowering her voice in sympathy. “I’m sorry I just blurted—”

“No,” I say. “This is indeed an interesting idea. Does a domovoi have to ‘belong’ to a Cognizant household? What if he was living in the household of one of my adoptive parents?”

“I have no idea,” Felix says.

“I have to find that out,” I say. “Is there any way to make Fluffster remember what happened before he became furry? A way to verify that he really lived with my biological parents? Because if so, maybe he’d remember who they were—”

“I’d love to remember, but I just don’t,” Fluffster says mentally, and there’s a large dose of sadness in his words—which I guess is less odd compared to his mental voice affecting an accent.

Ariel looks at Felix, who shrugs and says, “I think you might want to talk to my dad about all this. I’d never met a domovoi before this apartment, but Dad knew the one at my grandfather’s house.”

“Okay,” I say and realize all this—or pills and liquids and food—has made my hangover recede. “I’d like to meet your dad for lunch sometime this week and see what he might know. I want to be sure Fluffster isn’t here because of your family. Besides, maybe your dad knows a way to jar Fluffster’s memory.”

“He’d be thrilled to have lunch with you,” Felix says, then grimaces. “My mom might not be as excited, though. You know how jealous she gets.”

In Felix’s mom’s defense, his dad does seem to enjoy the company of females a little too much—and that includes me, though at least he’s not as weird around me as he is around Ariel. I think I saw him drool when he first met her.

“Maybe a family lunch?” I say. “This way, your mom would be there to supervise.”

“Sure,” Felix says. “But you’ll regret adding Mom to it. Despite what I keep telling her, she still thinks we’re together.”

Ariel chuckles, and I just shake my head. His mom actually thinks both of us, Ariel and I, are with Felix. I’m not sure if it’s because polygamy is a thing in Uzbekistan, or because she’s convinced her son is irresistible to women—or both.

“Great,” I say. “I’m going to research who owned this apartment before us, and if they were Russian. I’ll also find out if my adoptive parents have any Russian heritage, or had pets, or, for that matter, if they are Cognizant—since we do tend to attract each other.”

“Your mom doesn’t have the Mandate glow,” Felix says. “But I’ve never met your adoptive dad.”

“It’s unlikely that a Cognizant would marry a human,” Ariel says.

“Then again, they did divorce,” Felix says and yelps in pain. Ariel must’ve kicked him under the table.

I exhale a relieved sigh. If Mom were also Cognizant, I don’t know what I’d do.

I eat another spoonful of breakfast and give Fluffster the next one. “I have to head to work soon, so we’ll have to set up the lunch via text.”

“Sure thing,” Felix says, taking out his phone. “Let me call the family units.”

“Are you going to finish your oatmeal?” Fluffster asks in my head.

“No.” I push the plate toward him. “You’re welcome to it.”

“I’m actually full,” Fluffster says but walks up to the oatmeal and gives it a mournful glare. “I guess I’ll eat it. It’s a shame to throw away perfectly good food.”

“Felix poured too much for me as usual,” I say. “He thinks my stomach is as big as his.”

Fluffster looks at Felix’s unfinished plate disapprovingly. “That boy is going to bring this household to financial ruin.”

Felix pretends to be busy with the phone, but I can see he’s trying to suppress a grin as he mouths to me, “Welcome to the dictatorship.”

“I heard that,” Fluffster says in my head—and given Felix’s reaction, it’s clear he heard the thought too, proving that the domovoi can send thoughts to multiple people at once.

“Hi, Mom,” Felix says into the phone. Covering the mouthpiece, he tells us, “Sorry, guys, I’m going to take this in the living room.”

“No respect for his elders,” Fluffster mumbles in my head, darting a grumpy look at Felix’s back.

“I better go,” I say, getting up. “I have stocks to evaluate.”

“Wait,” Fluffster says in my head. “Can I ask for a big favor before you go?”

“Of course, buddy,” I say out loud, and despite the lingering headache, I can’t help but smile. I’m actually having a multidirectional dialog with my pet. “Do you want your dust bath?”

“Felix can help me with the bath,” Fluffster says. “I was hoping you could show me one of your magic tricks. Ariel has told me so much about them, but you’ve never shown any to me.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, blinking. This has to be the first time I’ve been accused of not showing someone my effects. “I didn’t know you would understand—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Fluffster says, his mental voice extra soothing. “It’s just something I’m dying to see.”

Though I really need to rush to work, I don’t think I can say no to such a cute and cuddly spectator. Besides, now that I’m forbidden from performing magic for people not under the Mandate—which is almost all of them—I have to treasure these opportunities.

“Show him the thing you do with the cards,” Ariel says.

“A thing with cards.” I suppress the urge to chastise Ariel for reducing a whole branch of magic to such a triviality. Casually dropping my hands so they’re parallel with my pockets, I say, “Got it. Too bad I don’t have any cards on me. But hey, can you get me a lighter?”

“Here.” Ariel walks up to the kitchen counter and grabs the lighter we keep there in order to relight the stove burners when necessary.

Since she shifts her own and Fluffster’s attention so admirably, I dive into my pockets to make sure I have the props required.

I have a deck of cards in one pocket (who doesn’t, right?) and random utility items in the other one, including a small lighter I just pretended not to have. I breathe a sigh of relief when my fingers brush over flash paper—something I also carry in most of my pockets. This assures I’ll be able to add nice pizzazz to my effect, so I say, “Please also bunch a paper towel into a small ball for me.”

Flash paper is nitrocellulose—an explosive that somehow became a magician’s prop. When lit, it makes an extremely bright flame, like the combined flashes of a zillion phone cameras. And, when the stuff is bunched into a ball, it looks a lot like a wrinkled paper towel.

Ariel does as she’s told. In the meantime, I prepare what I need without Fluffster or Ariel being the wiser.

“Here you go,” she says and hands me the ball of paper.

I take the paper towel and pretend to make it into a tighter ball—but in reality, I put it on top of the crumpled flash paper. I then pretend to bunch the paper further, and it’s the easiest thing in the world to palm the original paper towel and be left with the flash paper ball visible.

Neither Fluffster nor Ariel notice the switch, which makes me feel better about all the hours of my life I’ve spent practicing this move.

“Keep your eyes on the paper,” I tell them, mainly because I enjoy rubbing in my deceit like that, but also because psychologically, it tells them I want them to make sure the paper doesn’t get switched. This way, they’ll later swear the paper couldn’t have been switched thanks to them “always keeping eyes on it.” Also, it helps with the next part because as they stare at my hand, they miss the moment when I palm the deck of cards in my pocket.

“Actually, Fluffster, can you move back a little?” I ask, in part as misdirection and in part because I’m really concerned the flare might ignite his gorgeous fur.

As he scurries back, I move the paper into the hand that’s secretly palming the deck. Neither participant can see the deck from their point of view. I then use my now-empty left hand to grab the lighter from Ariel’s hand.

They don’t question me moving the paper. Fluffster’s motion distracted them, and I also used a principle in magic known as “in transit action.” The paper ball went into the hand I needed as though to make room for the lighter. I mean, would I grab a lighter with my left hand, like a barbarian?

I inwardly smile.

The first part of the trick hasn’t started as far as Fluffster and Ariel think, but in terms of methodology, it’s already over.

“Look very closely.” I light the lighter. “I’m going to turn this paper towel into a deck of cards.”

I touch the lighter to the ball of flash paper, and the explosive substance ignites—blinding Ariel and Fluffster exactly as I re-grip the deck of cards in my outstretched hand.

My own headache reignites thanks to the ultra-bright light, but I disregard the pain as a worthy sacrifice for my art.

“Wow,” Ariel exclaims.

“How?” Fluffster asks in my mind.

To them, it looked like in a literal flash, a paper towel ball turned into a deck of cards.

“I’m not done,” I say and launch into my own version of the famous Ambitious Card routine—an effect where a card appears at the top of the deck after being put in the middle, under progressively more impossible conditions. Most of the phases I show them are from magic books, but I end with a finale that I invented.

Ariel squeals in glee as the card jumps to the top despite the deck going back into the card box and being held inside Ariel’s hands.

“You’re so much better than that guy on YouTube,” Fluffster says, his rodent nose crinkling.

“You watch YouTube?” I stare at him, dumbfounded. I still retain enough wits to extend my hand to Ariel—who puts the deck back into it.

Since everyone thinks the trick is over, I use their lack of attention to swap the deck for the bunched-up paper towel that I hid all this time. Then I say, “Oh, one last thing. I should give you back your paper ball.”

I reveal that the deck of cards “turned back” into the paper towel, and Ariel examines it in disbelief before putting it in her pocket like a treasure.

“Fluffster loves to watch YouTube,” Felix says as he reenters the room. He looks at me with that very annoying expression he has when he thinks he knows how I did something. Often, he does indeed know, so I’m glad he missed the majority of my performance. “I rigged up a computer for him in my room,” he continues. “If you could get a PhD in cat videos, he would be Doctor Fluffster by now.”

“Isn’t it scary for you to watch cats?” Ariel asks. “In a rodent’s body and all.”

“No,” Fluffster says, presumably in all our heads. “I like cats. Well, most cats—not that neighbor’s one. Maybe I was a cat before?”

Now that I’m not performing magic, my sense of time returns, and I realize I’m going to be so late that I won’t have time for the research Nero demanded—and I don’t want to start our Mentor-Mentee relationship on such a sour note. “I’ve got to run,” I say, heading for the door.

“I set up the lunch with my parents,” Felix says as I pass him. “I’ll text you the deets.”

“Sounds good,” I say from the doorway. “Later, everyone.”

In the hallway, I risk a glance at my phone and wish I didn’t.

Not only am I late, but I have messages from Nero. He added a few more stocks to his early-morning demand.

If I don’t get to the office right now, I’m screwed.

I’m rushing to the elevator when a familiar voice rings out from the farther end of the hallway.

“Sasha,” Rose says gleefully. “I’m so glad I bumped into you.”

I turn to look as she approaches.

A recycling bag in one hand and cat in the other, Rose looks to be having one of her good, spry days. This happens sporadically, as though Rose goes and takes a swim in the alien rejuvenation pool from The Cocoon movie Mom loves so much.

I’m not at all surprised when I spot Rose’s Mandate aura. Her being one of the Cognizant is the only thing that could at least partially explain her relationship with the modelesque Vlad, who, thanks to his vampirism, looks to be her grandson.

Feline eyes stare into mine, and I’m relieved to find that Rose’s cat Lucifur doesn’t have the same aura as the rest of us.

If this creature were supernatural, I’d be extremely concerned.

The cat realizes I’m staring back, and (though this could be my imagination) gives me an imperious nod. Her eyes seem to say, “Ah, if it isn’t the peasant who saved our majestic life when the enemies of the crown conspired to make us swallow that loathsome key. We shall grant you a boon, peasant. We will let you keep your pathetic life. Bask in this honor. Now get out of our sight.”

I lose the staring contest with the cat, and to cover it up, I say, “Let me help.” Coming up to Rose, I grab the recycling bag and take it to the garbage disposal shaft.

“Vlad already told me about your status, but I had to see it for myself.” Rose nods appreciatively toward my Mandate aura when I face her again. “How could I not realize you were a Cognizant?”

I study her carefully. With her heavy but stylishly applied makeup, she looks at least twenty years younger than the eighty-plus I always suspected her to be—but then again, being a Cognizant, she may be exponentially older.

“So, Vlad isn’t your nephew,” I say, curiosity almost making me forget how late I am for work.

“No, he isn’t,” Rose says, and I catch a hint of a blush through the makeup. “I apologize for that lie. I’m not even sure why I said it. Perhaps because our relationship is so tied with my power that I—”

“And what power is that?” I ask, my curiosity stoked further.

“The power of a witch, of course,” she says, her chin lifting. “I would’ve thought that part would be obvious.”

“Not to me. You’re the first witch I’ve met.”

“That’s probably for the best,” Rose says and strokes Lucifur behind the ear—to the creature’s purring delight. “Some of us can be… less than nice.”

I can’t help looking at Rose’s frail stature and wondering what she means by that. Is she hinting that witches are evil or dangerous in some way? Not wanting to offend her, I steer the conversation to what I’m most curious about. “So how did you and Vlad meet?”

A small smile appears on Rose’s face. “It was back in France,” she says, her gaze taking on a distant look. “Right before that dreadful Revolution—”

“Wait,” I say. “What do you mean ‘back in France?’ Are you originally French?”

“I thought you knew,” Rose says and glances down at her stylish outfit, as though for confirmation.

“You have no accent,” I say and realize that with the last name of Martin, Rose could indeed be from France.

“Of course I don’t,” she says proudly. “I’ve lived in the United States since the Civil War. But if you have any doubt…” She proceeds to say something in what sounds like fluent French.

My hangover reasserts itself, making the hallway spin. “So, when you say you met around the French Revolution, you’re talking about the one with Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Robespierre, and Napoleon?”

“Yes,” Rose says. “And the Civil War was the one with Abraham Lincoln, who was such a nice—”

A door across the hall opens, and one of our neighbors comes out. He has no Mandate aura, and he looks to be around Rose’s age—except I now know that isn’t the case. He could easily be Rose’s great-great-great-grandson.

Rose wrinkles her nose almost imperceptibly, the way she always does when this neighbor tries to flirt with her. Now that I know what I know—that she has a hot boyfriend (or maybe husband?)—I can’t blame her for her lack of interest in the older man.

“Hi, Rose,” he says and smiles—a tactical mishap, given the stained teeth.

“Hello, Mr. Duffertnizer,” Rose says, her voice even cooler than usual.

Lucifur hisses viciously at the guy, bringing to mind territorial lions on nature shows. Mr. Duffertnizer—who must’ve seen those same nature shows—submissively takes a step back toward his apartment.

“We’ll have to continue this conversation later, Rose,” I say. “If I don’t get to work soon, Nero will—”

“Say no more,” Rose says, her expression reminiscent of Mona Lisa. “I best feed Luci before she gets all cranky.”

Both Mr. Duffertnizer and I look at the small fluff of nerves in Rose’s hands and wonder what this cat would be like when actually cranky. However, he bravely remains in place, and I hear him try to engage Rose in conversation again as I enter the elevator.

Exiting the building, I grab the first taxi that comes my way and start reading up on the stocks Nero asked me to research.

At 10:45 a.m., I unpeel my eyes from my work monitor. In the ten out of fifteen remaining minutes before my deadline, I write up my recommendation in an email to Nero. However, my finger stops before pressing “Send.”

This isn’t my best work. Because my time was limited, I had to cut a lot of corners, and the resulting analysis is more instinctual than backed by data.

If I’m honest with myself, this recommendation is little better than an educated guess.

“Most of the financial sector runs on hunches,” I tell myself and click the send button decisively.

Then I stare at my inbox, expecting Nero to instantly reply with some kind of admonishment about my lack of research rigor.

When no instant reply shows up, I distract myself by checking voicemail.

Two of the voicemails turn out to be from my dad, and my guilt over doing a crappy analysis blends into a more familiar shame—that of being a questionable daughter. Including these two messages, I’ve probably ignored over a dozen voicemails from Dad at this point.

Not that he doesn’t deserve it. Like a horrible cliché, he cheated on Mom with his secretary, which led to the break in my adoptive family. I don’t know if my strong reaction to their divorce was normal or if it was made worse by my biological parents abandoning me.

Whatever the reason, I couldn’t face Dad for years.

After a while, I did forgive him enough to reconnect. Until his screw-up, he’d been a good dad, and even after the divorce, he’d paid all our bills up until I moved out of Mom’s place—though his shark lawyer had ensured he didn’t have to. However, more recently, he’s left Mom to fend completely for herself, and I’m again mad at him for that. It might be irrational, but it feels like he’s abandoned our family yet again.

I locate Braxton Urban in my contacts and stare at the number. Do I want to do this? Then my finger taps the screen, and the phone starts ringing before I consciously decide to return the call.

Have I forgiven my dad, or am I doing this because I have questions for him? He could have Russian ancestry that would explain my domovoi.

In fact, he could be one of the Cognizant himself.

Of course, it’s also possible that my recent near-death experiences have put my anger at him in perspective. If one of those zombies had killed me, Dad would’ve been extra crushed because we hadn’t seen each other in so long.

The phone keeps ringing, and I realize I’m secretly hoping I get his voicemail—which is completely illogical. I guess a part of me thinks that if I leave him a message, it would be possible for me to pretend my earlier avoidance was at least in part a game of phone tag and not—

“Sasha!” Dad’s gruff voice is overflowing with excitement. “Sweetheart, I’m so happy to hear from you.”

“Hi, Dad,” I say sheepishly. His enthusiasm amps my guilt more than any chastisement would have. If it were Mom in Dad’s shoes, she’d start with, “So you remembered you have a mother?”

“I saw you on TV,” Dad says. “You were amazing.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I say and wonder if he’s actively trying to make me feel guilty. Now I regret that I wasted the invite to the TV studio on Mom. If I were honest with myself, I’d known that Mom wouldn’t show up, just as I’m now convinced that Dad would’ve flown from San Francisco, where he now lives, to be there for me.

Then again, if he had come, he would’ve seen a zombie try to kill me and then gotten glamoured into forgetfulness by vampires, so maybe it’s for the best he wasn’t there.

“Please don’t tell me how you did that,” Dad says, repeating what he’d always say to the teenage me when one of my effects fooled him—a rarity when I was starting out.

“Sure,” I say as sarcastically as I did back in the day. I guess Dad didn’t see the debunking YouTube video. “I was so going to tell you before, but now that you don’t want to know…”

Following the old script, Dad laughs his distinct, guttural laugh.

Instinctively, I glance at my inbox. There’s an email from Nero that’s just one line.

Come to my office, now.

“Dad, I got a work thing, but we should get together and catch up,” I say into the phone. “Are you going to be in New York anytime soon?”

Dad doesn’t speak for a few seconds. He probably can’t believe I just invited him to meet. “I’m here until Tuesday,” he finally says. “That’s why I called.”

“Awesome. Are you free for lunch on Monday?”

“I’m always free for you, sweetheart. How about Fuji Emporium? You still like sushi, don’t you?”

“Sounds great,” I say. “I’m sorry, I really have to run now.”

“No problem,” he says. “I’ll see you there at 12:30. Monday.”

“See you.” I hang up the phone just as I hear Dad say, “Love you—”

I stare at the phone for a moment, then switch my attention to my inbox.

For some unknown reason, my heart rate is up, as though I’m afraid of what will happen when I meet Nero. But that’s absurd. Yes, meetings with one’s boss are important, and can cause stress, but you’d think with the last few days under my belt, I’d be beyond such mundane worries. Unless this is excitement over meeting my new Mentor?

I know what it’s not—jitters at seeing a person I dreamed about kissing.

And briefly thought I actually kissed.

It can’t be that, because it was Kit, a shape-shifting Councilor, all along.

The real Nero has no clue that we kissed, because we never did.

As I make my way through the building in the direction of Nero’s office, the anxious symptoms worsen, and I resort to relaxing breaths in the elevator in order to calm down.

Am I worried he will fire me for the crappy job this morning? And if he does, would he also end his Mentor responsibilities (whatever they are)? Would I ever see him again—

Wait.

Why do I care if I see him again?

Almost on autopilot, I tell Venessa—one of the more annoying specimens in Nero’s horde of assistants—that I’m expected. She looks incredulous for a moment, but then reluctantly instructs me to proceed.

My treacherous hands shake as I reach for the handle of Nero’s office door.

Knees wobbly, I stumble into the brightly lit, spacious, modern-artsy room as though it were the dark and cold underground lair of an evil villain.