Someone, an old white man in the corner, stifles a laugh, and the atmosphere turns, from one of stiff discomfort to mean-spirited delight. The Hero Pharm colleagues I recognize from my childhood, from last night, remain as emotionless as ever, but I feel it, their eyes scanning me.

I’ve misspoken, but how can I articulate what I mean in front of this hostile group? I wanted some connection to Dad. I knew about our trusts, of course—untouchable until years from now, except to pay for an unlikely Dad-approved STEM degree—but I thought we’d receive … some token, some proof we were his daughters—some evidence he loved us enough to give us a piece of his kingdom on earth.

A kingdom that had forsaken him completely, I guess.

“Is it easier for you to understand the proceedings if we continue in English?” asks Nítuchí.

I grind my molars.

Nítuchí drones on about his new mission at Hero Pharm, something bland and corporate that makes me feel small, and the rest of the meeting is a blur of clenched fists and bitten tongues.

“Your uncle suggested you be offered an internship,” Nítuchí says as the half hour nears its end, his face pinched.

“We’re not qualified,” I spit back. An internship at a pharmaceutical and biotech company? I mean, come on, nepotism at its finest.

“Of course you are!” Teddy says, just as Nítuchí replies, “You are not qualified for the vast majority of our internship offerings, but we could certainly look into an administrative position, perhaps at reception, in the event you would like to remain on Viloxin.”

Nítuchí means I could have an internship answering phones. And I know I should probably be grateful for any chance at all to remain connected to this place, but my eyes burn with tears, and maybe that makes me entitled and spoiled and ruined, but all I can think of is Dad dying alone in Stökéwood, while Nítuchí reigned here, with his cruel humiliation tactics. All I can think of is Viloxin, Dad and Lady’s not-so-home-country, and the gleaming future I had imagined as one of its proud residents abroad, which feels as false and hollow as my relationship with them right now.

“I—excuse me,” I say, abruptly rising from my chair and running out, tripping on the vintage Chloé wedges I shouldn’t have worn.

I run for Dad’s old office—dipping and dodging around the new maze of the building, remembering only that it was a small corner room that faced Mount Vilox. Somehow I sniff it out: I find it there, the same as before, empty except for a framed picture turned toward the window. A silent shrine. I jiggle the door handle and find it locked.