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Sunshine sighed—a sound I barely heard over the hum of conversation and general noise in the enormous room. “You have no idea how badly I want to rescue you and sit your whole squad down and give them a talking to. But! You want to adjust and live outside your family, so I willmakemyself sit on the sidelines so you can figure this out. I just have to remind myself it’s for your own good.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“Don’t apologize!” Sunshine said, sounding more like Binx with a growl in her voice. “Come on, I see that Emi is on duty. We should go say hi.”

Emi was a secretary who worked at the information desk. She and Sunshine were friends long before I arrived, and Emi had become my second workplace friend, too—though I didn’t get to see her much outside the Cloisters as she worked a lot. (It seemed to me like she worked more shifts than was legal. I knew she volunteered for the extra hours. When I asked, she said she was happy to cover them so I left the matter alone.)

She was an amazing, kind person—she’d spent multiple afternoons teaching me about her duties as a secretary so if I was asked about my fake job, I could give basic believable information.

Emi also let me ask her questions about humans since she was full human without a drop of magic in her blood. (She was the one who’d suggested I invite someone from my apartment building to the supernatural fall market.)

Sunshine stomped up to Emi, heading for the lower portion of the desk that had been designed with shorter supernaturals in mind. “Hey, Emi!”

Emi, from the perfect smooth ponytail her black hair was pulled back into, to her gentle smile and warm dark brown eyes, exuded an incredible amount of calmness that staked her desk area out as an island of serenity in the chaos of the Cloisters.

Her crisp white dress shirt was as spotless as her work reputation, and there was something so innately graceful about the way she moved—even now when she looked up from her computer and removed her fingers from the keyboard. “Sunshine and Slayer O’Neil!” Emi was always careful just to use my last name when I was masked up. “What a delight to see you two.” She slid off her stool and approached the low counter. “Did you need something?”

“Nah, just stopping by to say hi,” Sunshine said. “You’re on the night shift tonight?”

“Yes.” Emi smoothed her navy-blue pencil skirt. “One of the regular night shift secretaries is out with a cold, so I’m subbing for him.”

I’d been ransacking my brain for good questions to ask her and when I found one, I finally spoke. “How is your family?”

“They are excellent,” Emi said. “Their garden is exploding with eggplant and zucchini. I’ve been forced to lug bags of it to the employee breakroom every day. You should both take some. I’ve been leaving it in the breakroom connected to your department.” Emi shifted her gaze to me. “If you wanted to try that zucchini bread recipe I gave you last month, you should take some zucchini, O’Neil.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll do that.”

Emi did a quick scan of her desk to make sure no one else had approached it before she returned her attention to Sunshine and me with a friendly smile. “How did the market go?”

“Oh, yeah.” Sunshine peered up at me. “Weren’t you going to invite one of your neighbors?”

“I did,” I slowly said.

“Someone accepted?” Emi asked.

“Yes.”

“That’s great!” Emily reached across the desk to pat my shoulder. “You’re getting better with humans!”

“Not exactly.” I fidgeted, feeling weirdly guilty. “I asked my new next-door neighbor. He’s a vampire. Everyone else couldn’t make it.”

Sunshine hooted in laughter, but Emi only blinked in surprise.

“A vampire moved into your apartment building?” Emi asked.

“Yes.”

Emi opened her mouth to ask a follow up question, but her secretary senses must have kicked in because she abruptly whirled around to face the front section of her desk.

Sunshine and I also turned so we could see what had grabbed her attention.

CHAPTERTHIRTEEN

Jade

Agorgeous woman who was tall—taller than me—sauntered up to the desk. She was carrying a briefcase and was wearing a sleeveless dress that was purple marked with a black pattern that almost looked like scales.

I didn’t know which was more eye catching—her dark purple colored hair or the bracelets and matching ring she wore, all of which had massive gems that I was fairly certain were diamonds. Like,hugediamonds. She was also wearing a necklace of simpler design that had a purple stone in the center. I didn’t have great magical senses, but I was willing to bet a wizard would feel some kind of enchantment on the necklace—it lookedold.