It was time to pick Omari up from school again. I put on a different jacket. I couldn't wear the other one until I had a chance to clean it and patch the hole in the sleeve. I especially couldn't wear it to the school. Life was being hard on my clothes.

I got on the trolley. I still got a few looks for the scrape on my face, but it wasn't nearly as bad as before.

Jumping off near the school, I walked over to the pickup area. As I wove in and out of the groups of parents waiting for their kids to come out, I caught more than a few looks there too. This time, they were kind of pitying. I felt the urge to make an announcement that I was hurt in the course of my job, not because I let some loser lay hands on me, but I didn't want to draw even more attention.

I met the same blond woman's eyes who'd asked about Jacob before. She quickly looked away, back at the petite woman she'd been talking to. This was awkward.

At least I didn't have to wait long before Omari's class came out in an organized stream. I searched through the line of tiny people and found his familiar backpack towards the end. He frowned as he saw me, his eyes going immediately to my face as he veered over to me.

"What happened to your face?" he demanded. Loudly, I might add.

I resisted the urge to glance around to see who was watching. Realistically, I knew anyone in the vicinity was looking.

"There was a mishap at work," I said quietly, bending down. "I'm fine—it's just a scrape. See?"

He scowled. "I thought you were just a mailman," he accused. "Why are you getting hurt so much?"

That was a good question. But I couldn't have this conversation with him here, right now.

"Why don't we go home and—"

"Ms. Hill?"

It took me a moment to respond to the call of my name. I wasn't used to being called Ms. Hill.

"Yes?" I said, turning to see it was Ms. Nguyen, Omari's teacher. This couldn't be good. Her eyes lingered on the scrape on my cheek as well, but she gave me a professional smile, ignoring the mark. I liked her already.

"I would like a moment to speak with you, if you have the time?"

I glanced down at Omari, but he was looking down at his feet, scuffing the pavement with one shoe. Looking as guilty as possible.

"Yeah, sure," I said slowly. "I have time. Lead the way."

She nodded and turned to go back the way they'd just come from. Omari fell into step next to me and we both followed his teacher into the school building. What could this be about? Omari wasn't the type of kid I was worried about getting in trouble in school. He was a sweet kid at heart.

I stepped into the classroom after Ms. Nguyen, feeling almost like I was the one in trouble. She shut the door behind us and moved to lean against her desk, crossing her arms across the pale pink cardigan set she was wearing today.

"What's going on?" I asked, Omari silent by my side.

She sighed.

"Omari is a bright child, usually very sweet and considerate." She paused. That was a prelude to bad news if I'd ever heard it. "However, he has been getting into fights with some of the other boys lately, and I don't know why. When I ask him what the problem is, he won't tell me."

Her eyes moved to watch Omari, who was doing his best not to look at either one of us.

"How many fights?" I asked, completely blindsided by this. I would have sworn Omari would never hurt a fly. He didn't have a mean bone in his body.

"There have been two incidents. Neither party was injured, but this isn't a pattern that I want to see continue, so I thought I'd talk to you about it."

"I see." I glanced down at Omari.

The stubborn thrust of his chin let me know he probably wasn't going to open up here, in front of his teacher.

"I'll talk to him," I said firmly. "It won't happen again."

"I simply wanted to make you aware of the situation. There haven't been any parental complaints as of yet, but it would only be a matter of time if this continues," she warned. "And if Omari is deemed a danger to his classmates, he'll have to be separated."

"I understand. Thank you for letting me know."

"Of course. Thank you for meeting with me. And I'll see you tomorrow, okay Omari?"

"Bye Ms. Nguyen," he said quietly, too subdued for his normal bubbly personality.

"Goodbye."

I said goodbye too and led Omari out of the class.

I didn't say anything until we were well away from the school, opting to walk rather than take the trolley. I knew it was easier for me to talk while I was doing something else. Maybe that would be true for Omari too.

"Why have you been fighting, Omari?" I asked as we maneuvered through the crowd. "Are the other kids being mean to you?"

It was the only provocation I could think of. Omari got along with basically everyone. Unlike his sister.

"No," he said. "They just . . ." He trailed off, biting his lip.

"They what?" I prodded, wrapping an arm around his shoulders to protect him from the adults on either side.

"They were saying mean things about phoenixes. And dragons," he blurted out, looking up at me with big eyes. "Really mean things, Mia."

I felt my stomach sink. This wasn't something we could discuss on the street.

"I'm going to drop by the office. We'll talk about this when we get there, okay?"

"Okay."

Opting to hop onto a trolley for part of the rest of the way, we walked the last bit again. I racked my brain for a good way to approach this. Once we were in my office, I leaned back against the desk and gestured for Omari to sit in the seat in front of me.

"Am I in trouble?" he asked, his chin trembling a little bit, but then firming up again. "Are you going to send me back to Father?"

I felt my heart break.

I would never send him back there to that man. The same man who thought deliberately getting his own child sun-sick was a good plan to lure his estranged child.

That sociopath was never laying eyes on Omari again.

"Of course not," I said fiercely, crouching down to give him a tight hug. "I love you and you're staying with me. Whether you like it or not. All right?"

His arms wrapped tight around me. "Promise?" he asked in a small voice.

"I promise." I squeezed him again. When his arms loosened a bit, I pulled back so I could see his face. "Now. What were the other kids saying?"

He swallowed.

"They said that phoenixes and dragons are animals. That they aren't people and that they're terrible and violent. And that's why they aren't allowed into the city domes." He let out a huff of breath, anger lighting his eyes. I was glad to see it rather than the sadness and hurt. "We aren't animals, Mia! Why would they say that?"

I sighed. I'd heard this kind of talk my whole life, but it had been different for me—I'd never known anything else. It was second nature for me to brush off that kind of talk, to keep myself somewhat separated. To keep my heritage a secret.

But it wasn't second nature to Omari. He'd grown up in phoenix territory, not around humans in a city dome. He hadn't encountered the racism against us before, not like this.

"Because they're ignorant," I said, trying to make him understand. "When the war between the phoenixes and dragons happened, it hurt a lot of humans," I explained. "The reason why they say things like that is because they're afraid of us and what we can do, because they can't change forms at all. And, because we now live separately, they don't meet a lot of us and don't realize that we're just people too. Does that make sense?"

"We hurt them?" he asked, his face worried. "Why would we do that?"

I didn't want to have to explain to him that sometimes people just got hurt for no reason. Or that sometimes war happened for no good one.

"It wasn't on purpose," I said instead. "In wars, people get hurt. That's why it's good to avoid them as much as we can."

He was silent a moment, frowning.

"Like fighting?" he asked.

I smiled a little.

"Yes, like fighting. You don't want to hurt anyone, right?"

"I guess not," he sighed. "But what if they're being buttheads?"

I suppressed a laugh.

Barely.

"If they're being buttheads, you just ignore them if you can. If they're being mean to you, then go to the teacher. If they try to hit you, you can defend yourself. I don't want you to get hurt, okay?"

"Okay."

"I also need you to be very careful not to reveal who or what you are, either," I added seriously. "Because humans are afraid of us, they don't want us to live with them. So we can't let our secret come out. Do you understand?"

"Yes," he said glumly. "But it's really stupid," he added, frustration clear in his tone.

"It is really stupid," I agreed. "But we're strong, right?"

He was looking down, tapping the heel of one cartoon sneaker against the toe of the other.

"Hey," I said. He looked up to meet my eyes. "Everything is going to be okay. Got it?"

"Got it," he agreed. "But I'm still going to call them buttheads in my head," he said defiantly, his eyes narrowed.

I laughed, standing up and holding out my hand.

"Deal. Let's go home."

He slipped his hand into mine.

"Okay," he said, smiling slightly, looking a little less curled into himself.

I really hoped everything was going to be all right. It felt like there was a pitfall just waiting for us around every corner. All I knew was that I was going to try my best to make sure Omari had a good life.

And nobody better get in my way.