“No computers.” She pocketed it. “Did you disobey instructions in any other way?”

“Will I get that back?”

“No,” she said, glaring at him. “Strip.”

“What?”

“Strip, or we’ll strip you.”

He stripped. A goon rotated him by the shoulders and bent him over a table. “Gonna do a cavity search, guapo?” asked Ángel, his voice high and trembling despite his bravado. “Hope you got some lube.”

The goon let go without probing further. “He’s clean.”

“That wouldn’t have been necessary if you hadn’t demonstrated your willingness to disobey instructions,” said Evanston, handing him his clothes.

“So it was punishment, not security,” gritted Ángel, still shaking as he pulled his jeans up over his hips. “Got it.”

“I don’t think you do,” she said. “Mr. Cruz, have a look at this.”

He pulled his T-shirt over his head as she turned on a TV. She showed him footage of a large crowd of angry people, assembled in front of a bank of skyscrapers. There must have been five hundred people there, chanting angrily but incomprehensibly, waving homemade magic-marker signs that said things like SAVE OUR SPECIES and HUMANS FIRST.

“This was last week,” said Evanston. “On the eighth anniversary of Oberon’s arrival. Chicago.” She pushed a button on the remote. “This one’s in Dallas.” A protester waved a sign that said DEATH TO MONSTERS.

“Las Vegas.” The signs read GOD HATES ELVES and KILL THE ELF-LORD. A brick sailed over the heads of an array of cops and bounced impotently off the gleaming surface of the Luxor Casino.

“Since Oberon’s arrival eight years ago, there have been thirteen credible assassination attempts,” continued Evanston. “He has been poisoned, shot at, and targeted by explosive-bearing drones. He has been injured four times, once quite seriously. Just last April a bullet missed his head by about six inches when he was in New York for a UN meeting.”

“Right,” said Ángel, tugging his hair out from the collar of his shirt. “That’s really scary. But it doesn’t have anything to do with me. I didn’t seek out this position. He asked for me to come.”

“I know,” she said. “He was determined to bring you here. I advised against it. My job is to keep him safe. I do that by controlling every aspect of his environment, and that includes you.”

“Well, good to know where I stand,” sneered Ángel. “Can I have my phone back?”

“No. You cannot have your phone back. From now on, any communication you make with anyone outside this estate will go through me.”

“But—”