The elevator opened on Williams, who seemed to be standing guard. Again with the all black. He glanced at my flushed face. His upper lip lifted slightly.

Is he sneering at me?

Like any of this was my fault! Anger coursed through me. I balled my hands up and glared at him.

Cordus didn’t seem to notice Williams’s lack of either manners or white clothing. He just nodded at him and walked by. Fuming, I followed.

Andy was at the coat check, and Theo was in the living room, unobtrusively watching from a corner. I saw Hank and Kristin circulating with drinks and hors d’oeuvre.

There were far fewer Seconds present than last time — sixteen, by my count. Most looked familiar from the circuit I’d made with Cordus the last time. I was relieved not to see Innin, the tiny woman who’d wanted to trade Florida for me.

A green man was lounging on one of the couches. I thought it might be the same one who’d been present at my last visit. As before, the brilliant color mechanism of its skin — scales, maybe? — was all active, so that it glittered like green tinsel. Horrifyingly, Cordus put his arm out for me and headed in that direction.

He stopped to speak with several other Seconds on the way, but all too soon he settled me on the couch across from the green man and sat down beside me.

“We greet you with honor, Gnaeus Cornelius Marci Filius Cordus,” it said in a raspy voice, licking its lips with a dry gray tongue.

Cordus answered it with a long string of sound that must’ve been its name, and the two began to converse.

I studied the thing. What the hell was a green man, anyway? I couldn’t imagine how I’d ever looked at the small, stooped, naked figure in my picture and seen a human being. The creature in front of me was more reptilian than human. It had no nose and a long, skinny neck with a pronounced kink. Its arms were strangely long and bumpy. And how had I missed all those claws? Each was more than an inch long and shaped like a talon.

I shuddered, remembering what they could do to flesh.

The thing sitting across from me shifted, and its skin twitched, flashing green light in my eyes. I realized what I was seeing: feathers. They were mostly tiny, no bigger than a ladybug. The bumpiness on the arms came from an edging of larger ones.

The green man glanced at me. I realized I’d been staring and looked down, abruptly scared. Kara had warned me not to stare. Idiot.

“My Lord, why does it accompany you if it is not yet trained?”

“My apologies, Ambassador. She will be disciplined.”

Cordus spoke in a cool, offhanded tone, as though my future punishment was almost too obvious and uninteresting to mention. I felt goose bumps run up my arms.