She sat in one of the swiveling chairs and placed her palms on her knees, trying to remain at ease, but it was not so simple. The Foxfire inside her felt . . . effervescent, like tiny bubbles rising through champagne. That same giddiness echoed in her own breast. She hadn’t felt the invader inside her react that way to anything. It had experienced a kind of joy or anticipation when Piero and Rayan fell under its influence completely, but that held a sinister edge. This was something else, and, inexplicably, it frightened her more.

Misato closed her eyes, falling into herself. It was a technique she learned with Jenny at a meditation retreat. The suite on Tokyo Bliss Station had been painted an inviting sky blue, puffy white clouds drifting through the lobby via their AR integration. Soft, twinkling sitar music filtered down from the ceiling, and attendants dressed in crisp white robes glided out to meet them. Everyone who worked there was so serene, composed, as if nothing could jar them out of a benignly smiley mood.

“It’s a good day,” the woman said as she came to her and Jenny. A helpful cloud popped up above her head, spinning, the name Solaris printed across it. “When you join us here, friends, every day is a good day.”

Solaris gestured to the open hall to her right, past the registration desk. They had reservations, so they were allowed to walk right on through.

“Kuh-reepy,” Jenny muttered as they went. “Her name is Solaris, because of course it is.”

“Give it a chance,” Misato chided.

The guru led about twenty of them through holotropic breathing exercises in a brightly lit rotunda. Most meditation seminars Misato had attended were held in dim rooms filled with enough pillows to make a nap seem like a good idea. But this rotunda was almost blindingly yellow, the lights and walls a cheerful buttercup color. They sat on hard mats after their breath work was done. She heard Jenny snigger as the guru, her long hair braided to her waist, began chanting.

“Are they going to turn the lights down? My eyes hurt.”

“It’s part of the experience,” Misato explained. “You have to fight against it, keep your eyes closed so completely that no light slips in.”

Jenny sighed. She hated it.

Misato didn’t know what to think. She had never tried to sit in direct sunlight with her eyes closed for that long. After a while, she noticed the red, glowing nature of her closed eyelids, as if her skin had become a lantern, lit from within. The chanting became rhythmic, mesmerizing. She went back a second time without Jenny there to distract her and found it easier to fight the bright light, to venture so deep inside herself that even the floor beneath her and the chanting disappeared.