He sat back down to his plate of Mrs. Ellsworth’s famous rigatoni and picked up his fork. “Sorry to interrupt your family dinner,” he said with a smile that spread just a bit too wide on his face. I glanced over at my mom and saw that her face had a stiffness to it that made it clear that Salzburg, per usual, was getting on her nerves. All the officers tended to sit up a little straighter when they had dinner with my mom, but Salzburg was one of those people who laughed too loud, talked too much, and generally tried too hard to impress her. It set her teeth on edge.

“It’s no problem,” I said, hoping that didn’t sound like the out-and-out lie it was.

“I had something exciting to show your mom, and I just couldn’t wait.” He held up a small black camera that was sitting on the table before plunking it back down to take another bite of his pasta.

“More security cameras?” I asked, glancing over at my mom. “Don’t you think that’s a little obsessive?” We live on an island, in the middle of who knows where, behind a three-foot-thick wall with security officers swarming the place like ants. How could we possibly need more security?

“Regan,” my mom said, her voice tight. “That isn’t your place. Is it?”

I felt like a tire with the air let out, and I nodded and looked down at my own plate. She was right. Security was none of my business.

“No, no,” Salzburg said around his mouthful of pasta. “It’s a valid question. These, my dear, are no ordinary cameras. These,” he said, patting the camera by his side like it was a dog, “these detect Butterflies.”

I swallowed the bite of pasta in my mouth too quickly and choked. My mom thumped me on the back as I leaned forward to cough up a lung into my napkin. Sitting back, I took a sip of water, my eyes still streaming as my mom shot me a disapproving look.

“I didn’t think we had that kind of technology,” I said.

“These are a prototype,” Salzburg said. “Technology stolen right out from under the noses of the Mayhem themselves.”

“Really?” I said, picking up the camera with a newfound reverence.

“Really,” Salzburg said. “We managed to bring in one of their agents alive, and this little gem was hidden in his pocket. They were using it to detect our agents. Well, the joke’s on them, because we managed to replicate it and are planning on using these cameras to detect Mayhem members. They can threaten this Academy all they want, but the second they breach security we’ll know it.”

Mom cleared her throat, and Salzburg snapped his mouth shut with an audible click.