“You can count on us,” says David. “Right, Jennie?”

Jennie doesn’t nod or agree, but she doesn’t give me the snide comeback she normally would, either. Something in my gut tells me she’ll keep my secret. I mean, stranger things have happened of late.

“What made you change your mind?” Taeyo asks me.

“Yeah,” Emmett echoes. “I thought you said you’d never do that in a million years.”

“I did say that.” I think of Taeyo and his altruistic app. I think of Hattie and her quest for choice. I think of what it means to be Gom. “But I feel different about things now.”

“How?” Emmett asks.

I take a big breath. “You’ll see, Em. You’ll see.”

21: Make Way for the Bionic Girl

DAVID, BEING THE TOP-NOTCH GUY he is, decides to stay with Jennie to make sure she’s okay. She seems grateful, and I finally understand why the two of them are friends. It’s just like in Adeline’s monologue, when Mago Halmi said to the goddesses: There is light within us all, as there is darkness within us all. These two absolutes make us whole. Jennie may have some dark bits, but there’s light inside her, too. Just as there is in the Horangi.

“So I guess I’ll be seeing you around,” I awkwardly say to Jennie as I put on my shoes and give the door-sin a farewell compliment.

She scowls. “Not likely.”

“Really?” I say. “We’re back to this already?”

She gives me a sheepish smile in return. “Sorry, old habits die hard. Yeah, I guess I’ll be seeing you. And uh, thanks for today.”

When we get back to the campus, there’s a nervous energy in the air. People have started to gather in one of the forest clearings by the lake, milling about in groups and whispering anxiously to one another. It’s like they’re waiting for something to happen. Something bad.

“Do you know what’s going on?” I ask Taeyo.

He looks down at his phone. His notifications have been going off like fireworks since we left Jennie’s house. “It looks like we have a pest problem. Several of our offices have been destroyed already. Everyone’s talking about it on our community Slack channel.”

Emmett and I share a look. What kind of pest is big enough to destroy buildings?

“She’s an inmyeonjo,” Taeyo elaborates. “They think she was drawn to the campus because of the magic we’ve been doing, and then she found all the mirrors. Now she’s dead set on demolishing every last one, and people are getting hurt in the process.”

Emmett looks confused. “What’s an inmyeonjo?”