“It doesn’t matter,” she insists. “What would you give someone?”

I look out the window. There’s a store across the street, but can’t make out the items on display. What are you supposed to get? Something formal? Something useful? Pictures seem too unoriginal. What’s something unique?

Then it hits me.

“How about something from Belvun?”

Glacia’s eyes light up the moment the suggestion leaves my mouth. “Yeah! Our family’s never been off-planet before.”

I finish eating and push away my plate. Glacia plucks up the rest of my berries and uses them as eyes for her pancake smiley face. Then she drinks the rest of her juice in one gulp, but it must be sour because she scrunches her face.

I chuckle. “Careful.”

“It was the pulp.”

I roll my eyes and take a swig—then gag. The juice is loaded with so much pulp that the lumps rub my throat when I swallow.

Glacia smirks. “Told ya.”

The Threshold sector apartments are located near Ceremony Dome, six blocks north of the Crown. We walk into the main office and a woman greets us at the front desk. She hands out four devices, one to each of us except John. He’ll get an apartment in Horizon’s sector of the city.

The woman shows us to the elevators, and we ride up to the fifth floor for a sample room tour.

“This is the standard layout,” the woman tells us. “One bedroom, a kitchen, bathroom, and living room.”

The bedroom is bigger than the dorms in the Crown. The living room is the same size and has a couch, table, and hologram projector. A window behind the couch faces Ceremony Dome, and beyond that is Shield Tower.

“The going rate for this layout is twenty-five hundred shims per month in-residence and eight hundred out of residence—that is, while you’re away on expeditions. Recruits usually keep this layout for two or three years, then upgrade to the suites once they’ve become more established in their positions.”

“Suites are sweet,” Victoria chimes in. Then she starts laughing, way too amused by her joke.

“How much is a suite?” Michael asks.

“Upwards of fifty-two hundred shims a month in-residence, and two thousand out of residence.”

“But you live like a king,” Victoria says, finally controlling her fit of laughter. “Spa baths, the best food the Embassy has to offer, and beds with the fluffiest pillows and blankets you’ve ever slept on.”

“The pillows are imported from Yillos,” our tour guide adds. “Chisel Swan feathers are the softest in the galaxy.”

“Biggest birds in the galaxy, too,” Victoria adds.

We hear water running in the kitchen. Ellin looks around the entry, then rushes inside. “John,” she calls as she disappears. “Come on, in here.”

The water turns off and Ellin reappears with John. None of us noticed he had wandered away.

“Fancy sinks, huh?” the woman says, smiling kindly.