“The most important thing is that you answer honestly,” Dr. Conner says as he crosses his legs and opens a leather folder. “It will greatly increase our chances of getting you into the appropriate classes. As it’s unusual for us to accept a student midyear, especially one as old as you, we don’t have the time to leisurely assess your strengths and weaknesses the way we normally would.”

“Absolutely. Fire away,” I say as my brain races through its own assessment. Conner—deriving from cunnere, meaning “inspector,” and cun, meaning “to examine.” “Did you get any transcripts from my school?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Certainly not. I can assure you that none of that information exists here. And everything said in this office is confidential and used only for teaching purposes. No one else has access to your files besides Headmaster Blackwood and myself.”

Layla’s and Blackwood’s warnings ring in my head. Did he think I was testing him to see if any of my personal information was on record here?

“Oh, good. Then let’s tackle your questions,” I say with less pep.

He runs his hand over his short beard and frowns at me. “Are you an introvert or an extrovert?”

“Extrovert. Hundred percent,” I reply.

“Do you have any injuries that currently limit your movements?”

“Nope. No injuries.”

“Which level of balance most accurately describes you—the ability to walk a ledge, a tree branch, or a tightrope?”

I can feel my forehead scrunching as I consider my answer. Where is he possibly going with this? It feels more like an assessment for playing extreme sports than for a school. “Tree branch. Are there really people at this school who can walk a tightrope?”

“Climbing skills?” Conner asks, ignoring my question.

“Excellent.”

He looks up for a brief moment. “How excellent?”

It’s starting to seem like none of these questions are going to be about my academic strengths. “Trees are my best, but I can climb rocks, shinny up poles…basically, if there is a texture and a handhold, I can climb it. It’s sort of a—” I stop myself before telling him that there’s a running bet among my friends in Pembrook about what I can climb and how fast. Rule number one, I remind myself.

He lifts his eyebrows. “Nighttime or daytime?”

“Either.”

“Nighttime or daytime?”

“Really, both are fine.”

“I’m glad you think so,” he says in a way that tells me he’s not glad. “But when I give you a choice, I expect you to choose.”

I shift my position on the couch even though I don’t need to. “Nighttime.”

“Why?” he says, and looks up at me.

“Well,” I say, and pause. “Darkness doesn’t bother me, and it can be really useful sometimes.”

He nods and jots down a note, which by this point in this bizarre conversation I would really like to see.

“Which of your senses would you say is the strongest?”

“Huh, okay, let me think.” When I was little, Dad and I started playing this game where one person was blindfolded and would follow the other through the woods and away from the house for five minutes. The leader would zigzag and go in circles, trying to confuse the blindfolded person as much as possible. But if the blindfolded one could find their way back to the house, they won. I always did it by listening and by touching the trees. Dad swore he did it mostly by scent, which I still think is unbelievable. He started designing outdoor strategy games like the blindfold game after my mom died when I was six. We’d go on camping trips for long weekends and he’d teach me all sorts of tricks—survival skills, I guess is what they really were, though they felt more like puzzles or games back then. He never admitted it, but I think he was trying to find ways to exhaust me physically and mentally and keep me from asking questions about my mom.