It’s been hours of this. My head is pounding, and I just want to go home.

One might think that after the crippling trauma of being abducted and the exhaustion of an international flight, I would be allowed to go home to recover. But if one is now a spy for a historic order, they apparently cannot expect such treatment. Instead, as soon as my plane touched down at JFK, I was whisked to the seat of the Families’ Inner Chamber—which is hidden in the basement archives of the Cloisters in Fort Tryon Park—to be debriefed.

The flight back had not been easy. I was constantly looking over my shoulder for some unknown threat. When I attempted to use the lavatory on the plane, I almost had a panic attack from the small space and had to ban myself from drinking so I wouldn’t have to go again. And it’s not like anyone here has offered me a drink since, so my mouth feels as dry as the ancient illuminated manuscripts displayed in the Cloisters museum upstairs.

Despite being in a building renowned for its epic architecture, the actual room where the Inner Chamber convenes is just a boring boardroom with a long table seating a lot of Very Important People. Not all of the Inner Chamber is present, but those that are include members as illustrious as a US senator—who if the Families get their way may be our next president—the French minister of culture, a big deal film director, an even bigger deal Italian fashion designer, and my mom. They are each a representative from one of the families that have been stewards to the memory of the exiles—or the “Makers,” according to Michael—for hundreds of generations. The order is built around this stewardship, with the intent of recovering the exiles’ lost innovations and sharing them with mainstream society. And now that I finally have a seat at the table, I don’t want to screw it up.

“I’d like to take another look at the golem bird,” the senator says.

Kor bumps my knee with his, and when I glance at him, he gives me an encouraging smile. Just a little longer, he mouths silently.

Despite the subtlety of Kor’s actions, they’ve still drawn the table’s attention, and now everyone’s watching us uneasily. I’m used to this when I’m in public with Kor.

With his dramatic cheekbones, pale skin, and almost-black hair, Korach Chevalier is the kind of person who always attracts a lot of admiration but seems completely unapproachable. Whenever someone who thinks they know him sees him acting close and comfortable with me—an average person in every way—it shakes their image of his cool, enigmatic nature.