“That’s you?” Morgan says from behind my shoulder.

“In seventh grade.” I’m weirdly self-conscious about him seeing me with long hair and wearing a dress. I don’t want him to stop calling me dude.

“She’s clearly not here,” he adds.

I scan the rest of the room: neatly made bed, laptop sitting closed amid the papers, orchestra folder sitting under her flute case on the shelf, and a nest of hair ties sitting on top of her chest of drawers.

“Her backpack isn’t here either.” But it’s the only thing missing. What did I expect? Charred marks on the wallpaper and broken furniture? Morgan sneezes violently, and rubs his nose. His eyes are watering, leaving eyeliner tears down his cheeks.

“Allergies?”

“Tomatoes, cats,” he says. “And certain kinds of magic. Does Natalie have a cat?”

“No pets allowed and only twelfth graders get familiars, usually around graduation. Emmi’s the only tietäjä with a cat.”

“I think I’d rather have a dragon.” Morgan stifles another sneeze in the crook of his elbow. His face looks like a Rorschach test.

“Let’s go. Not going to find anything more here.” We creep out of Natalie’s room and head back to the elevator.

Before we can press the button, the doors open.

“Oy, what’s you lot doing in here?” MacCrone looms, her face contorted in a scowl. Her one good eye laser-sears right through me. Fiona stands beside her, tongue whipping in and out of her mouth between fangs that could rip my arm off.

Morgan curses under his breath beside me.

“Playing truant again, are we?” She continues to glare at me and I imagine this is what it must feel like to be incinerated by a solar flare. “I didn’t expect you to succumb to bad influences.” Her attention wanders from me to Morgan.

Morgan? One of the best mages at school, a bad influence?

“We just wanted to check on Natalie,” I stammer. “We thought she had noro because she wasn’t at school, but she’s not here either.”

MacCrone jams her boot against the closing elevator door and sifts saliva through her teeth.

“That noro’s doing the rounds,” MacCrone says without her usual amount of drill sergeant conviction.

“If she was sick, she’d be in bed.” Morgan slips his hands into the pockets of his patched and safety-pinned jacket.

“She’s not, and her backpack’s missing too,” I add, wondering if MacCrone might be the one to tell about the liekkiö.

“Breaking and entering, are we now?” MacCrone raises a single eyebrow, causing the scars down the other side of her face to pucker in an even sterner expression.

Busted.

“We—um—”

“We were just concerned about her.” Morgan saves me.

So pathetic, the little voice seizes the moment. Can’t even get delinquency right.