The mice cheered twice more in response to my circuits around the room, and I was beginning to give serious thought to asking them why they kept doing that—damn the consequences—when there was a knock at the door. I stopped dead, wiping the last of the drool from my chin as I called, “Yes?”

“Alex, it’s Shelby. I’ve got my dad with me, and he says he’ll only come in if you’ll sit on the bed and promise to stay sitting the whole time we’re in the room. Can you do that? Please?” There was a degree of anxiety in her voice that I very rarely heard from her.

I walked back to the bed, gesturing for the mice to get out of the way before I plopped down onto the mattress. Most of them ran behind the pillow. One—the one that had been the first to say I wasn’t sick after they’d checked my wound for signs of the lycanthropy-w virus—scampered onto my knee and sat, tail curled primly around paws. It looked up at me, silently asking for permission.

I nodded. It wasn’t like having the mouse there was going to hurt anything, and it might help, depending on how things went down. Besides, I appreciated the company. It made me feel a little less alone. “I’m sitting,” I called. “It’s safe to come in.”

The door swung open, and Shelby stepped into the room. Her face matched her voice: anxious and drawn, tight with worry. She held the door for her father as he entered after her. Riley Tanner didn’t look worried. He just looked angry.

“So quarantine is good enough for our people, but it’s not good enough for you, is that it, Price?” he demanded, not bothering with pleasantries. “I don’t see why you think you’re going to change my mind about basic protocol.”

“Hello, sir,” I said. “I’m fine, thank you for asking.”

He blinked, apparently taken aback. “I didn’t ask.”

“I noticed,” I said, in my best “I am a scientist, don’t fuck with me” tone. It was hard to fight the urge to stand and put myself on a level with him: like Dr. Jalali, he was using his height to assert dominance, towering over me because there was nothing I could do to stop him. And like Dr. Jalali, I needed to let him have that feeling of dominance. I had needed her to provide me with medical care without the risk of infection. I needed him to let me out of this room while I could still do some good. “As for why I’m asking you to change your mind . . . sir, I never said you had to quarantine your people, just monitor them closely. Keeping them—keeping us—isolated at night is a good idea for the sake of everyone’s peace of mind, but there’s no risk of transformation until twenty-eight days have passed. That’s twenty-eight days of backup you’re planning to waste, all because you don’t understand this disease.”

“You’re drooling, son,” said Riley. “Go ahead. Keep telling me you’re not sick.”

“This is a side effect of the mixture I ingested to make sure I wouldn’t get sick,” I said, fighting to keep my tone level. I wiped the side of my mouth with my hand. “It irritates the mouth, which can cause excessive salivation.”

“Well, you irritate me, so I guess you and your ‘cure’ have something in common.”

“Dad,” snapped Shelby. “You said you’d listen to him, not come in here trying to score points like this was some sort of . . . of sport. Why aren’t you listening to him?”

“I don’t know, honey, maybe because he was raised by Johrlac, nearly got you turned to stone, and got one of my best men killed within a day of showing up on this continent?” Riley wheeled on Shelby with unnerving speed. She felt it, too: she took a step back, letting go of the door. It swung shut. Riley didn’t appear to notice. “He’s been nothing but bad news since you got involved with him. I told you to cut ties as soon as you reported he had one of those heartless mind-suckers living with him, but you didn’t listen. You had to save your boyfriend. Now he’s here, wreaking havoc amongst the people who should be able to trust you to have their backs. So why don’t you tell me, daughter dear? Why are you listening to him at all?”

“Because he knows what he’s doing, and he’s not letting personal feelings interfere with his work,” she snapped, her normal temper surging back to the surface. “He’d do this job for anyone. That’s a thing you should be glad of, because if you were treating me the way you’re treating him, I’d sure as hell not be volunteering to help you with anything.”

Riley glared at her. Shelby glared back. I looked at the mouse on my knee. The mouse looked up at me.

“Sometimes I wish I had the ability to conjure popcorn from thin air,” I said.

The mouse flared its whiskers in amusement. “It is as in the teachings of the Noisy Priestess,” it squeaked. “Always should popcorn be eaten when people fight over foolish things.”

“Uh, Alex?” I looked up to see Shelby looking at me, a bewildered expression on her face. Her father wore a virtually identical expression. “Are you having a chat with your mice while we’re arguing about whether or not to let you out of quarantine?”

“No,” I said, standing. I did it slowly enough that the mouse was able to run up my arm to my shoulder, where it perched, whiskers quivering. “I’m having a chat with my mice while you argue about whether or not there’s anything here to argue about. It seemed like less of a waste of time.”

“Son, you want to sit yourself back down before we have a problem,” said Riley. His tone was tight and cautioning.

“No, I don’t believe I do,” I said. “You’re not stupid, are you, Mr. Tanner? I don’t see how you could be. I’ve met your daughters, and intelligence is often partially genetic. More, I’ve met your people. The Thirty-Six Society doesn’t listen to you because you’re big, they listen to you because you’re smart. You know your country, you know your territory, you know your local cryptids. You’re the best man for the job you do.”

“Flattery isn’t going to make me stop telling you to sit down,” he said. There was a note of confusion in his voice, like he couldn’t quite figure out where I was going with this, and consequently didn’t know how to make me hurry it up.

“Sir, if you’re not stupid, why are you persisting in acting like you are?” It was hard to keep my tone level as I asked that question. Shelby’s alarmed expression and “cut it out” hand gestures weren’t helping.