Mireia woke the next morning to a room like an icebox.

She rolled over, groaning, “For Heaven’s sake, Sparky, I know you wanna be a penguin, but turn off the air. . . .”

~The air is not on.~

She bolted upright in bed, certain she had just heard the voice of a child.

Beside her, Jez mumbled something incoherent. There was no one else there. Not even Bernard.

“. . . Hello?” Mireia tried, hoping that either someone would show up or she would get no answer at all.

Jez started to sit up, muttering groggily, “Someone here, Miri?”

“Hi,” the voice said aloud. It was an older child: a boy of perhaps ten or eleven years old.

Jez leapt out of bed, then yelped in shock, “Holy shit, it’s freezing in here! What the hell?” but then she gathered herself, and answered the voice boldly, “Look, whoever you are, this is a private room, and you need to get out!”

Mireia stared at her.

She blinked back. “What? You try living with my brother for a while, and you’ll get used to stuff like this.”

“I thought you didn’t believe him.”

The voice began laughing, and Mireia realized she could feel him speaking. A gentle pressure, flickering in the back of her mind like a small candle struggling to light.

~I am no ghost, I am alive! Can you not feel the difference? There is plenty of activity in this town, but I am not part of it.~

Jez’s jaw had dropped, and Mireia suddenly realized that hers was likewise agape.

Jez worked her mouth soundlessly for a moment, and finally managed, “Then . . . what are you?”

~Your teammate.~

They glanced at each other, brows raised in question.

Teammate? she had to ask herself, A . . . living spirit? But wouldn’t a dead spirit be non-existent? Aren’t spirits eternal? Then that would mean. . . . She couldn’t make heads or tails out of it, not first thing in the morning, and she could see the same confusion all over Jez’s face. Most of what she knew about this sort of thing came from Ruben, and nothing he’d ever said covered anything like this.

~Technically I—and Bernard. I am his partner.~

“Bernard and I,” Mireia muttered automatically, “Um . . . look, whoever you are, can you . . . well . . . show yourself? Or maybe not . . . it’s sort of dangerous, I guess—“

~No danger. I would know. I can also tell you exactly how many people are in this building, and exactly where Bernard is. He went for a walk early this morning, and he now waits in a café, wondering if either of you want to join him.~

The room grew even colder before it started to warm a little, and the air became drier as a cloud of ice crystals formed before them, denser and denser until a shape could be made out; or a series of shapes, rather. She still wasn’t sure what she was looking at, but whatever it was, it was so big that it wouldn’t fit in the room, and didn’t fully materialize. Smooth, icy surfaces formed in large triangular structures, until they could make out a scaly, bright-eyed figure with a blocky snout and long, slick spikes. He was a dragon. Not like any dragon Mireia had ever seen, but undeniably a dragon.

~You do not remember me, do you?~

They hesitated, looking at each other, equally confused, and shook their heads.

He came a little closer.

Jez reached out almost immediately to touch him, curious, before she caught herself and drew back, but the icy being pushed his crystalline nose into her hand. She ran her fingers over the surface, and Mireia found herself reaching out as well.

“Call me Toby,” he said aloud. Though he appeared to speak, as far as they could tell his “voice” was simply emanating from somewhere around his head while his jaws moved.

The scales were as smooth and solid as they looked, but although they were cold, she found she could rest her hand against them without getting chilled.

“Toby,” she echoed softly, committing the name to memory, “And are you . . . male?”

What seemed like a smile lifted his icy features, and he resumed the odd telepathic speech, ~My ‘self’ is more of what you might call masculine, yes, though I am still very young and not of full development. My kind grows slower than humans. We . . . ,~ he paused, settling a massive clawed paw on the other bed as he halfway seated himself, ~I can say little of my people, even to Bernard. They are . . ,~ he hesitated again, and said, ~Forgive me. It has been some years since I used English. I am trying to use Bernard to integrate, and he is not of . . . not awake, and we are hard to explain.~

In place of speech, Mireia felt as though she were simply becoming aware of his thoughts. Somewhere beneath those thoughts, she dimly sensed an abstraction which could only have been called language, though she couldn’t have put it into sound if she tried. It was his native form of communication. His people had little need for language—not in the way she was used to thinking of it.

He didn’t possess a true body, nor, as a result, any micro- or macrobiological sex components. His form was constructed from the air itself. Natively, it would have been carbon and oxygen, but in this climate hydrogen and oxygen were more convenient. Mireia caught vague impressions of a frigid world, and frosty figures of carbon dioxide ghosting briefly in a violent wind. They required the absence of heat to survive. That was difficult in a place like Charleston, but Toby was able to connect with cold places, mainly underground, and exchanged heat from his immediate surroundings. He had great control over this ability, though it was stronger in winter, and he would also be stronger with Bernard’s help.

The figures Mireia thought she saw in her mind’s eye were indistinct, but so alien that she found herself straining to get a better look, mentally begging him to go back and show her again. He refused. It was forbidden to share more than he had.

He resumed the telepathic “speech,” ~We decide when very young what shape we take. It is usually one of the others we share our world with. I chose my appearance when I met Bernard. I saw such dark and terrible creatures in his mind that I used them as inspiration, and turned them into something not so frightening at all, and it helped him overcome some of his trauma. I chose to bind myself with him, and in doing so I have gained not only wonderful friendship, but the ability to perform in unexpected ways, in . . . ~ he phased out for a moment, then returned, apparently having found the words he was looking for, ~Unprecedented biospheres. Since then, I have contracted my service to ETHICS. I was already working alone on our current assignment, but at less than half my potential ability. That may not be something we can afford to do. I shall need Bernard’s help.

~But enough. There will be time to talk.~

Then Toby said, “I believe you were to go shopping?”

Mireia nodded, emphatic, “Yeah. If we can just get this one normal day in, that would be great –er, relatively normal. Tell Bern we’ll be there, I guess.”

“Of course!” He quipped cheerfully, “You are here to have fun, and I will never be against having fun! We will be wait-ing then.” He would direct them once they got downstairs, for practice.

Then he vanished, misting out of sight, and the room became a little warmer. The glow of his presence in their minds flickered out, as though he’d never been there.

They stared at each other for a moment, and then Mireia shook her head, shaking off her bewilderment. “I can’t, Jez. I just can’t.”

Jez began gathering belongings they had scattered late last night. “You can’t? You’re handling it better than I am, and I woke up one night with some Victorian-looking chick at the foot of my bed, no thanks to Rubie.”

Mireia sighed, “I can’t explain it. It’s all insane, but something feels right about it.”

“And yet,” Jez grouched at her suitcase as she fished out a shirt, “Everything feels wrong. . . . Oh, don’t misunderstand me: I feel it, too. Like they’ve always fucking been there. But this is wrong.” She sighed heavily, “I’m sorry, Miri. I’ve been swearing like Mike. Heh. . . . Glad he’s not here, right? He’d’ve called the cops by now. And he and Bern can’t be in the same room. Guess it’s good not to have that headache around.”

There was only one take-away for Mireia from those two: No matter what was said on T.V., a broken family dynamic wasn’t something that could be fixed with a few sweet words. Bernard and his long-estranged cousin were very different people, on very different paths. It was possible they’d never get along. It was highly probable that, given what they’d be told, Mike had been involved in the past; and if that was the case, then maybe there had been a time when things had been very different. One tiny little detail had changed their lives completely, however: until now, as far as any of them remembered, there had been no aliens.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

That was a pretty big detail.

We’re all going to go insane by Monday, at this rate.

She stood to find the blouse she’d planned on wearing—white with lace and gold accents—a pair of brown capris, and a comfortable pair of white Birkenstocks she could walk for miles in, and then she reached for her makeup bag. The Lord willing, she’d have her normal day as planned.

She ran a curling iron through her hair, attempting to give it some life and control the frizz that everyone else swore didn’t exist, chatting away while Jez pulled on a t-shirt, denim shorts, and the tennis shoes she usually wore. Mireia pinned the gold barrette she’d worn yesterday into her dark locks and chose a pair of gold earrings with dark brown ornaments that matched her eyes and capris, while Jez waited by the door, fiddling impatiently with the digital keychain pet cat that she so often killed out of neglect.

Then they finally walked out.

* * *

Bernard had been awake since five a.m.

Since then, he had gone for a walk around the block, perused the outside windows of the bookstore, then showed up at the coffee shop the minute it opened, where he stayed to wait for the girls.

Since the crack of dawn, Toby had begun darting in and out of buildings, up and down stairways, down halls and corridors, gardens, cemeteries, and historic structures of all kinds.

By now, Bernard was staring off into space, keeping his distant gaze somewhere in the region of his third bagel as he nursed his fourth glass of soda, feeling very much as though in a sort of dull aftershock following the complete meltdown of his senses.

Suddenly, he was aware of everyone around him in a way he’d never been before; and not just people, but everything. He was even aware of which way the wind was coming from, the changes in temperature through the atmosphere as the sun rose, and the presence of thirteen ETHICS Agents in the downtown area, based on Toby’s own observations of them. Five of them knew who he was. The others were less aware of why they were there, but had been placed in case they were needed. The Charleston area had been crawling with them since yesterday, but most were now on their way out, with the instructions that the added security was no longer necessary. No explanation was given. Just a sudden reassignment. Toby was a top-secret asset.

Bernard continued eating his bagel, as though the act could somehow save him from this fate.

At the same time, however, Toby was so peaceful and happy, so ready to offer support, that Bernard honestly wasn’t sure he could have made it through the night alone. By no means was he in his right mind, even now, but somehow Toby was making things better, even as he was making them worse.

Eventually, Toby flew off to greet Loren and his partner Saara, who had gotten a room in the same hotel. Loren had been half-dressed when Toby greeted him, and Saara . . . was a vision Bernard didn’t think he’d ever forget. She had been standing naked in the middle of the room, gesturing exuberantly while she complained about prudish human cultures and having to wear certain clothes a certain way. She had the most jaw-dropping figure he had ever seen, with incredible golden brown skin, shallow-set brown eyes, and round, expressive features. Everything about her seemed so full and soft and . . . lush.

Bernard shook his head, cursing the lack of sleep.

Loren tried to explain why she couldn’t prance around town in a bikini or expose herself to teenagers—and why it wouldn’t be considered “a display of one’s beauty and good health” (at which point Toby became more distant, apologizing to Bernard for bringing him in so close). The argument sounded like one they’d had several times, mostly involving inappropriate daily wear, and the inclusion of undergarments along with such social standards.

It eventually boiled down to Loren explaining that clothing was designed to fit with said garments. They wouldn’t fit properly otherwise, and she would eventually regret her decision. That was just as true in her adopted home in South Africa as anywhere else. Humans didn’t have fur to protect their skin—they had been wearing garments since long before their ancestors walked the Earth. They had evolved to require clothing. Besides: civilization was dusty and dirty.

In that moment, Bernard was thankful for Loren, because if he had to spend any length of time around her, he was going to have a hard time maintaining eye contact as it was.

Still: she came through the door of the coffee shop half-an-hour later in a gold-and-black crop top and a black denim skirt that ended below her broad thighs, and placed an order before she approached him directly. The way she moved as she bent over made him glad she wasn’t wearing a shorter skirt, because he wasn’t sure she’d know how to do it decently—or, based on her earlier comments about restriction, if she’d care to.

“Are you alright?”

He glanced up at her. Eye contact, man. “Yeah. Just . . . having a weird morning.”

She and Loren glanced at each other, and Bernard heard Toby’s voice in his mind, ringing like a clear, unbidden thought, ~I will try to tone things down, for you, until you have adjusted,~ and even as he said it, Bernard could feel everything fading back to normal, just a little.

“I know you’d like to be left alone,” she said softly, almost conspiratorially, “But I thought we should ask, anyway. The . . . dream . . . is an unexpected turn of events.”

“I’ll be fine, really,” he assured them, “It’s not as bad as it seems.”

“Are you sure?”

“It would have been worse without the help. I’ll be okay. It’s just weird.”

Saara stepped back, patting her friend on the shoulder, “Well, I guess if you need anything, you’ll be able to contact us.”

~That is correct.~

Bernard nodded, “I’ll let you know. Will we see you again this weekend?”

Loren nodded, “Yeah, we’ve got to introduce ourselves to your parents.” He grinned, “If you’re gonna work for me, boy, I’m gonna need your mother’s clearance before I let you fly anything or operate any equipment. Everything else . . . well, we’ll discuss it. It’s going to be a little sticky.”

“No joke,” Bernard snorted, half to himself.

The two of them walked back up to the counter as their breakfast was served, and Bernard leaned back, waiting, while Mireia fiddled around with her makeup as though it was the most important thing in the world. To make matters worse, everything she spoke, she stopped.

~Will those girls ever stop talking?~

He barely suppressed a smile: they rarely ever did, although it seemed as though Mireia was doing most of the talking . . . something about wanting to find a new pair of sunglasses, which he knew too well meant they would probably backtrack more than a few times before she’d made up her mind.

For God’s sake, just walk out the door, he thought fervently.

The girls eventually arrived and ordered breakfast. The three of them sat quietly, enjoying the morning and listening to the radio above while he struggled to get his senses straightened.

Toby came back about fifteen minutes later, still only speaking to him, ~Are we going somewhere or what? I am bored.~

More accurately, he was bored with his partner.

~Come on! Before it gets too hot!~

Bernard finished his soda and set the glass down, trying not to slam it, “He’s driving me crazy.”

The girls looked at him in confusion.

“Our . . . new friend. He wants to get moving before it gets too hot out, even though he’s already spent all morning running wild through the city. I didn’t get nearly enough sleep for this.”

Mireia smiled, “We’ll be ready as soon as we’re finished eating.”

~You eat slower than you used to.~

The thought was directed to all three of them, and they had to grin despite the surreal familiarity of the comment. Yes, adults were slower than children. He would have to get used to it.

In the middle of Elton John’s “Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” just as Bernard was starting to think he’d finally fall asleep, a pale hand quietly set a milky cup of coffee down in front of him.

He looked up at a slender-framed stranger in khaki slacks and a finely pressed white shirt, donning a sleek dark gray felt fedora and expensive-looking sunglasses. The man shook their hands in turn with a firm but elegant grasp, quietly and very formally introducing himself—Dr. Zachary Maesera, whom Bernard remembered speaking to over the phone—before addressing Mireia, “How are you doing?”

She stared at him, momentarily transfixed before she recovered and acknowledged him with a nod, “Fine.”

“That’s good. I take it our friend’s treatment is working out?” The doctor carried himself with the same well-spoken voice and mannerism that he’d had on the phone. Then again, in this woozy sleep-deprived state, the lights on the man’s white shirt and porcelain skin gave him a bit of an aura, so Bernard wasn’t sure he trusted any of his senses right now. Except for Toby, because for some reason that was the only thing that felt real, other than the soda in his hands.

Mireia nodded uncertainly, “Yes, sir. He’s good as new.”

Dr. Maesera was thoughtful for a moment, and then shrugged it off, “Must be important. None of my business, so I’ll get to the point: should you ever need help again, any hour of the night or if it’s a dire emergency, I’m the one to contact. Your friend will have a directory at your disposal, and he should have my pager. I’m typically available night hours.”

Another man—dressed down in dingy work clothes—shot a dark glare as he walked by, started to say something, then walked out.

A woman behind the counter remarked, “He must not have ordered enough coffee!”

The doctor shrugged and answered, “Some people you just can’t please.”

She laughed, “You got that right, Doctor! Just lemme know if y’need anything else!”

He smiled, “Of course!” and turned back to their table, dropping his voice again, “Alternatively, if you contact headquarters, ask for me by name. They’ll know me. If they attempt to circumvent your request by supplying someone like the bitter farmer that just walked by, you should know I’m the only real doctor in this region, with a diploma and credentials to prove it. It’s fairly overkill for most situations, but I perceive these to be extenuating circumstances.”

“You could definitely say that,” Mireia said, and unless Bernard was mistaken, she was nervous.

Dr. Maesera smiled, “Can I offer you a word of advice?”

Her brows rose, but she sucked in a breath and said, “Sure.”

“Chamomile tea is a great calming agent, but it will make you drowsy.” He pushed the coffee closer to Bernard. “And if you’re going to keep a caffeine habit, you really don’t want to know what that soda is made from. This is mocha—a little more forgiving than coffee, since you don’t seem like a fan.”

Bernard reached for the mocha curiously, muttering a tired “thanks.” He’d never liked coffee, and had never ordered it.

“Valerian root is good for sleep,” Dr. Maesera added with a little smile on his lips, “which you appear to need. I hate to be brief, but I have places to go this morning, so perhaps we’ll meet again sometime, hopefully for more coffee and not another emergency,” he shook their hands in turn before strolling out the door.

The worker behind the counter called out to their table, “He comes in here about once a week, and he really knows his drinks! He mostly talks about tea, but he’s got great taste in coffee, too! If he gives you advice, I’d follow it!”

Bernard smirked at the cup, “I’ve never really been into coffee.”

“Tell you what then: if you like that one I’ll get you another on the house. My pleasure.”

After drinking a second mocha and buying a third, Bernard was feeling possibly more energetic than he had in years—not alert by any means, but energized. He cradled the precious drink in his hands as they finally walked out the door.