When she rose the next day, her attendant was absent. The panel next to her door reminded that she had another appointment with the physician, Hunter. The information displayed included an interactive map but for the most part she already remembered where she was going.

She patted the chest of her jacket to feel the bulk of the rolled page hidden in its secret pocket and made sure that all of the ties were done up, that her hair looked presentable.

There was something about the day that felt final. Sleep had come fleetingly the night before, between ruminations on what the possible outcome would be. She tried to imagine what it would feel like to be modified, to be mentally hijacked the way that the ‘altered’ men were.

Unsettling her further, her desperate attempts to read some little corner of the aetheric fog continued to yield nothing. But then again, the entire floor was silent and isolated. She understood herself to be completely alone, monitored by clearly visible cameras in the corners of the hallways and the strange bracelet they’d strapped to her wrist when she awoke.

She followed the path laid out on the screen, the path she remembered from the previous night. In the same hallway where her attendant had broken down the night before — the same hallway where she’d met her assumed ally Mr. Hasan — she was met with the blinking face of another altered man. He stepped in front of her and recited the magic number that identified her, 055-7426B.

This man seemed fresher than the one who’d attended to her previously. Instead of the gray-uniform jackets that any number of people wore — that she herself wore — he was wearing a heavy, dark-green shirt buttoned to the neck. His trousers were a mix of the uniform gray and the dark green, integrated into strange blotches and faded into a deep, earthy brown. His hair was a shock of bright red, pulled up at the crown into a tight braid that exploded out into a frizzy spray behind him. He was shorn around the groaning implement on the side of his head, but his hair had not been as aggressively cut as her attendant’s had been.

“055-7426B, I am Bancroft, Lexicon O., I am not your attendant but will serve as such for today’s appointment.”

“How come my last attendant did not have a name and you do?”

“I am not your attendant.” He repeated. His voice was not tinny and far away, it boomed in a deep pleasing bass through the speaker on the machine.

“Who are you then?”

“I am an altered Dyad serving General Malloy on the city guard.”

“You are a security guard?”

“If you wish to characterize it so.”

“How would you characterize it?”

He blinked, his eyes far more awake than the last altered man she’d interacted with. They were colored with deep honey brown and looked into her face with unmistakable focus. “I protect the council’s interests, the city is under my watch for that reason alone.”

“Who are the council?”

“Do you wish me to recite the names? If I did, would they mean anything to you, 055-7426B?”

If it hadn’t been immediately clear that this man was not a living kiosk as her attendant had been, she understood loud and clear in that moment.

She shook her head.

“Very well then. For your understanding, the council are the King’s advisers.”

She wondered if any of them were named Lane but knew well enough not to ask. “Why is the council interested in me?”

“They are interested in any potential Mystic looking to join our ranks, of course. But assuredly it was explained to you that you and your sister are something of anomalies?”

“You realized that Senya can focus her attention to assist healing. Can no others in your city do as much?”

He nodded slightly. “Her talent is rare, yes, but beyond that your sex is quite intriguing to us.”

Evara wasn’t sure if she heard him right. “Sex?”

“You are both women, biologically. We ran chromosomal tests.”

She was called back to the conversation she’d had the night previous, Mr. Hasan’s wonder clicked into place. “Of course, there are women and men and everyone in between who use the aether in the wilds.”

“We were unaware of such things. All of our Mystics are male.”

She gave him a light nod and kept her thoughts to herself — she could assume that they’d simply missed the women in plain sight. It’s easy enough for a woman to hide it, she’d never even met an aether-reading woman with the physical tells the men had, unless she’d been born biologically other than female. And she’d only met maybe three of those women in all of her years, each of them had grown adept at blending in their own way. The only thing they could not mask was the abnormal tallness. But then again, both Evara and her sister were significantly taller than the women and men that inhabited the city. Aside from the altered men she’d encountered, she easily dwarfed everyone else she’d met — Dr. Hunter, Mr. Hasan.

As they turned the corner, she noticed a scar up the side of the man’s neck and suddenly realized his likely background. “Are you a Mystic?”

He looked down at her with a weary look in his eyes. “Wouldn’t you know if I was?”

She immediately regretted saying anything and tried to recover with her best guess of the situation. “I don’t feel you in the aether, but you are a big man and you have a scar on your neck that seems well below the, er, machine.”

He blinked away and gave her a little nod. “You are correct that I am big and scarred but lack Mystic talent. Some are unwieldy that diverged from royal lineage.”

“But you are…” Her voice trailed off. “You’re altered.”

“I am.” He did not elaborate, and she did not push. Not only were they just outside the physician’s office but she felt again as if she’d traipsed into unsteady territory. It was terrifying to her that the royals would mangle one of their own. If they’d no mercy for their own sons, she’d supposed they’d have very little for anyone else.

He stood at her side as the office door slid open. His presence chewed at her; she was eager to part with him. But she couldn’t go without asking one last question, “If I was of such interest, why did the council not send you immediately?”

“The council was only recently made aware of your situation.”

“My situation?”

He looked hard into her face, sizing her up. “We want to make sure that no mistakes were made in your assessment.”

Perhaps Mr. Hasan's allyship was in question.