Emily tightened her grip on Teddy’s hand until the girl returned the pressure. It made Emily feel a little better knowing she wasn’t alone. Not that much better. Her only help was a girl who looked five years younger than her with powers that . . . that Emily had never really looked into. For all she knew, Teddy’s power was the ability to sleep for more than fourteen hours straight.

They were led to the back. The restaurant was shaped like a large L, so that the seats at the back were around a corner with access to the washrooms and where the patrons at the front couldn’t see them slip into an employees-only room.

“Next time, just come in from the back,” the waitress said as she took them past a little janitor’s closet and to a corridor with a door that presumably led out back and an old wooden staircase leading to another door at its bottom. “Down there. Good luck.”

“Th-thank you,” Emily said.

The waitress waved them goodbye and stepped past them and back out into the coffee shop. The door clicked shut behind them. Emily took a deep breath; the air smelled like dish soap and soggy mops. “Okay,” she said.

“You all right, Boss?” Teddy asked. “You look like you haven’t eaten anything in a bit.”

“I’m okay,” Emily lied. She wondered if it was too late to go back to her dorm. Or back home. She was sure her mom would accept Teddy, and her dad would like her, too, after a bit. Coming here, she decided, was a terrible idea.

Emily pulled her phone out of her purse and looked at the time. She had ten minutes before she was late.

The first step creaked underfoot. The door loomed above her, a thick old thing covered in hammered tin with a big handle that looked well-worn. Her knuckles tapped on the door with a quick, nervous one-two-three beat.

Emily was preparing to turn around and leave when the handle wiggled, something clunked on the other side, and the door creaked open.

The first thing that hit her was the faint odor of cigarette smoke, the kind of smell that clung to clothes and meant she’d need to take a shower on arriving back at the dorm. The second thing Emily took in was the size of the area before her.

She had expected a tight corridor, maybe some terrifying basement, but instead the room before her had more in common with a bar or a small pub. It didn’t have any windows, and there were steel posts rising out of the floor every few feet holding up the ceiling, but the room had tables and sofas against the walls. A bar sat at the far end with a TV above it turned to an all-day news channel.

“Welcome.”