Jillian’s body exploded in a plume of blue and gold flame, forming into a blindingly beautiful bird whose wingspan stretched all the way across the office. Dani didn’t topple her chair backwards in a panic, but she came awfully close.

“Okay, okay, go back to human before you set off the smoke alarms!” Dani shouted over the roar of Jillian’s fire.

Jillian was laughing when she became human again, ducking behind a privacy screen painted with a writhing golden dragon. Over the top of the screen, she called, “The first time I changed, it was in the League offices. In front of Akako Hayashi herself. I didn’t know I could do it. But she could sense that something had changed in me. I’d spent a little too much time around the rift and it changed me.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re living in a fireproof house.”

“If it makes you feel any better, the office is fireproofed, too.”

“Do you think the rift is going to change me?” Dani asked.

“Well, there’s no way of knowing, really,” Jillian said. “But your genetic make-up is already pretty different, so I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”

“Zed said you have the genetics department working on some sort of test. But you visited the faille site, at least once, right?”

Jillian nodded. “I got close for a few minutes before I started getting dizzy. Bael basically had to carry me out. And then I lived here for a few months, absorbing who knows how much residual supernatural radiation. It may be that I carry some sort of gene that meant I would change no matter how close I got to the rift. Honestly, this whole conversation is probably me being a worrywart. I just want you to have a realistic understanding of the risks involved with your work. And frankly, I didn’t trust the League to fully inform you.”

Jillian Ramsay was someone whom she could trust, maybe not with all of her life’s secrets, but at least Dani knew that Jillian didn’t consider her employees cannon fodder on Jillian’s climb up the League career ladder.

“So, how do you feel about the whole, ‘working with the League changed my entire life as I know it’ thing?” Dani asked.

Jillian snapped her fingers again, snuffing out the pretty little flame. “Believe it or not, it’s made things a bit easier on the relationship front. Dragon boyfriends suffer way less anxiety when you’re fireproof.”

“That makes sense.”