Koji and the doorman had both been wearing all black. I looked down at the beautiful beaded top of my dress. Not only were the straps whitish, but the top four or so inches of the dress were too.

“Yeah,” Kara said, following my gaze. “That’s a lot of white.”

“Am I going to get in trouble?” I would’ve thought Cordus’s staff knew the rules.

Zion shook her head. “If that’s what Lord Cordus’s staff put on you, that’s what he wants you to wear.” She paused. “It just means you’re very strong — the more white, the more power. He’s decided to advertise your potential.”

“I wonder how much white he’d put on Callie. If he ever got her down here, I mean,” Kara mused, looking at my dress.

Before I could think of anything else to say, the doors hissed open. The elevator, along with several others, emptied onto a marble hallway. There were attendants waiting at one end to take our coats. They both looked like tough customers, so maybe they were guards as well as coat-checkers.

After handing off my fur, I followed Zion through a short hallway into a large room, with Kara trailing behind.

I’d been vaguely imagining some medieval scene — everyone standing around watching Cordus sitting on a dais at the end of some ornately decorated hall. Maybe he’d even be on a throne, like a king.

What I’d walked into looked more like a hoity-toity cocktail party. We were in what seemed to be a very large living room. It stretched dozens of feet to both the right and left. The floor was carpeted, and people were standing around in clusters, chatting and drinking. Some were seated at various furniture groupings. Some stood alone or with just one other, near the walls. A few were standing at the floor-to-ceiling windows, taking in the cityscape. I couldn’t see much, with all the people in the way, but it seemed we were up pretty high.

The good news was that no one paid us the slightest attention when we came in. The bad news was that the room was full of Seconds. Most had a human shape, but some were bizarre, and a few were terrifying.

I saw a green man standing off to the right. The fact that it was holding a glass of wine and chatting cordially with someone made it all the more disturbing. Something in the room’s lighting made its skin fluoresce green all over, as though it were made of foil. Or maybe it could control the effect and was showing off.

I saw a snowman that reminded me, with a sharp twinge, of Bob. The snowman was speaking to something that looked like a miniature elephant.