“We will,” she told him. She smiled at him. “I’m not angry with you, Klaus, I love you—that’s never changed. But I am worried about you. We’ll talk.”

“You look like crap,” Ink said as Michelle got off the elevator on the Committee floor. She said it with a little too much pleasure.

“So I’ve been told,” Michelle replied with a sigh. “Adesina had a bad night and I didn’t get any sleep.”

Juliet immediately stopped looking pleased about Michelle’s crappy appearance. “What’s wrong?” she asked. Bright red tattoos started swirling on Ink’s face. Even though Michelle had screwed things up with Juliet—by sleeping with Joey, which had not been her finest moment—Juliet was still part of Michelle’s life.

After Michelle had adopted Adesina, Juliet had become a de facto aunt. Recently, Michelle had convinced Babel to take Juliet on as her assistant. Not only because she knew Juliet would be great at it—hell, Ink had put up with Billy Ray at SCARE for three years—but because she and Adesina could see Ink more often if she was living in New York.

“I think everything she went through in the PPA is finally catching up,” Michelle said. There was a tremor in her voice. Do not cry, she thought. This is no place for that. “It may be PTSD. I’m not sure. All she said was, ‘They’re coming,’ which has to be about the soldiers. Or maybe about the doctors at the camp.”

“Good grief, then why are you here?” Ink gave Michelle an impressive glare, and her voice rose. “Who the hell did you leave her with? Why did you leave her?”

Michelle put up her hands. “Hey,” she said sharply. “Mrs. Klein is with her, and I made an appointment for her to see someone tomorrow.” She really didn’t like explaining herself. She wasn’t a shitty mother. At least she hoped she wasn’t. “I’m going to tell Lohengrin I need to take some time off. Which will thrill him to no end. But please, give me more of a hard time. You know how much I enjoy that.”

A soft voice floated to them. “Girls.” It was Margaret. “I think you can take this somewhere else or down a notch.”

Michelle looked around the austere lobby—everyone was staring at them: secretaries, the mail boy, and what looked like a couple of visitors. Awkward. So much for a professional demeanor, she thought. Then Michelle saw Aero and Earth Witch standing with a couple of people she didn’t know. One was a joker about her age. His face was a jigsaw pattern of flesh. Brown skin abutted ruddy white and all the subtle tints in between were present in patches on his face, neck, and hands. Michelle assumed his entire body was the same. She didn’t remember getting a brief on him.