“Aren’t you going to be late to class?” Athena asked as she lowered the intensity of her ability.

“Ah, crap. Yeah, I should go. Are you sure you’ll be okay here?”

“Undoubtedly,” Athena said.

“Right, well, you keep safe and, uh, if the staff do anything, you tell me, okay?”

“Of course. Thank you, Sam.” Athena waved the girl goodbye. She could have continued putting pressure on her—make her doubt her friends and her loved ones, make her terrified of the world and the government and of every lurking thing. In the end, Sam would only have one person she didn’t doubt, and that would be Athena herself.

But that would take a lot of time and Athena didn’t feel like doing that just yet. She still had to figure out how to get back into the room.

And then the door clicked open and Teddy stuck her head out into the corridor. “Hey,” she said.

“Theodora,” Athena said.

The bear girl yawned. “Why’re you up so early, Tina?”

“Emily woke up already.”

“Yeah, but the Boss is like that.” Teddy rubbed at her nose. “You coming in?”

“I suppose. There’s not much to do.”

Teddy shrugged a shoulder. “You can sleep on the Boss’s bed when she’s not here.”

That did sound nice. “Are there books?”

“Yeah.”

It was Athena’s turn to shrug. “Might as well, then.”

She was sure Big Sister Emily would have all sorts of important tasks for her later, so until then, she could relax a little.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

A Receipt for Ulcers

Emily arrived home with an odd sense of trepidation. She found Sam near the dorm entrance, the girl cocooned in a pile of blankets and eyeing everyone who entered with suspicion. That had Emily herself a little nervous, but she arrived at her room with no trouble.

She’d kind of expected to find a mess inside. Instead, Teddy was reading her red book while thumping her feet on the bed, and her new sister, Athena, was bundled up in Emily’s favorite chair, a stack of Emily’s schoolbooks on the desk next to her. “Big Sister Emily!” Athena cheered.

Teddy craned her neck back without actually moving from her spot on the bed. “Hey, Boss,” she said.

Emily closed the door behind her and smiled at the two. “Hello,” she said. “Um, how was your morning?”

“It was all right,” Teddy said. “Real quiet. We need another computer so we can look at stuff while you’re gone.”

Emily, for the first time in her life, considered the benefits of a parental lock on a computer. “We’ll have to see,” she said. “Maybe I can find a used laptop somewhere. You can use mine on some days.”

“Cool.”

Athena extricated herself from her blankets. “So, Big Sister, are we doing anything Villainous today?”

“Uh,” Emily said.