I kick off my other shoe. I kind of love that they care enough to not wear their shoes inside. I always thought it was gross that we do, but my mom always says the housekeeper will clean the floors. Everything is someone else’s problem in my family.

Peak slides the bag from my wrist after we dart into her room, slipping the door shut and locking it. She opens the bag of candy while I look around. Her room isn’t a bad size, about half as big as mine but way more comfortable. Every square inch of her walls is covered with posters or pictures of her and her friends. A worn pink blanket covers her bed, but not like the trashed kind of worn—more like the soft and loved kind.

And then I see it. Peak’s cello. And I can’t breathe. It’s like seeing the actual Mjolnir up close or something. Every word I had planned flies out of my head at the sight of her instrument.

“It’s beautiful,” I say, thinking of how those strings and that bow have gotten me through the roughest of nights since I came here.

“Well?” she asks, interrupting my thoughts.

I turn back to her, shoving my hands in my pockets and waiting to see if she says something else.

She raises her eyebrows. “That’s it? Really?”

“There was a speech,” I say, taking a step closer to her.

“There was?” she asks, not moving forward but not backing away either.

“It was a great speech,” I say, desperately trying to remember it now that she’s so close.

“Oh yeah?” And I think she’s maybe getting a little annoyed again.

“I’m sorry.” I hang my head. “Your lips seemed to have rewired my brain. I’m, uh, attempting a reboot.”

She sighs and climbs into the center of her bed, taking the candy and soda with her. She grabs her pillow and hugs it tight to her chest. “I don’t know what to do with you. Part of me is so amped that you’re here and that you’re Bats.” I smile, but then her face falls, and I follow suit, trying to brace for whatever comes next. “The other part of me knows that this is extremely messed up. You were sent here as a spy, right? You completely lied to me this whole time?”

I swallow hard because accurate. Well, except the one thing. “Let me show you the reports. I never spied.”

“Seeing is believing, I guess,” she says, her voice flat.

For once, my anxiety making me overthink everything is useful. I pull off my backpack and unzip it, taking out the now-wrinkled papers I printed earlier. She looks them over. Her eyebrows draw together, but then rise as she lets out a breathy laugh.

“He actually believes this?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t he?”