“I used to work with Kaori back at the University of Oxford. She brought me here to be her…” He trailed. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth a lot, like using the whole thing was too much effort. “Deputy director. Though titles don’t matter here.”

“And she has you giving tours to the freshman?”

He fiddled with the edge of his glasses, a nervous tic of his I’d already picked up on. “She has a tough time delegating. She’d rather do everything herself. Which doesn’t leave a lot for everyone else.”

“I gathered. And how long have you been here?”

“A couple of weeks.”

He opened a door to a small white room with a padded table. The room—the whole place—smelled new, like the staff had just peeled off the plastic wrap. He mumbled something about hoping the tests weren’t too invasive and then fled the room so I could change out of my clothes and into a paper kaftan. My brown, tattooed arms and legs stuck out from the blue paper doll dress. Someone came in without knocking to press a cold stethoscope to my chest and take my vitals. Someone else drew a vial of blood the color of crushed rose petals.

I let myself be poked and the inside of my ears gawked at while I offered smiles and cracks. My Storyteller voice slips out of my mouth, sometimes, when I’m mid-chat with someone and I’m not sure yet if they’re a friend or a lead on a doc. The voice is the soothing low drawl of a yoga teacher and its eyes spark with just a little mischief. It speaks mostly in questions. What if… And why do you think… Do you mind if I just switch my camera on real quick? And I’ll sip my coffee and whoever’s talking keeps their eyes on mine and forgets about Scarlett’s blinking red light. After a marathon unloading session, more than one person has stood up on woozy legs, clocked the business end of the camera, and remembered it was there.

I tried the Storyteller voice on a few of the people who rolled in. How’s your day going? And just before the pinch of a needle in my arm, it’s gotta be going better than mine, right? What’s up here, anyway? I got one to cough up something about looking for abnormalities in my blood before she blinked free of the Storyteller voice, like, waitaminute.

Each time one of them left, Yusuf popped back in, so it was pretty clear Kaori told him not to leave me alone for a second.

“Babysitting?” I smirked at him.

One corner of his mouth hooked up into a smile. He shrugged.