A deep, angry voice rang out: "Mr. Marek!"

She fought the urge to tunnel into her blankets, but the young man, absurdly, gave a half-bow so serious that it could only be mocking. Whoever owned that angry voice wasn't someone he feared. "Sir," he said, without the faintest note of disrespect.

Above and around, the light grew and footsteps echoed. "You have ten seconds to tell me what has happened here." The angry man sounded much closer, perhaps only a few beds away. His accent was English, the snobby kind. Something about that made a nervous laugh jump in her throat.

"I heard a noise on my rounds, then discovered Miss Ellsworth playing hide-and-seek."

"And the clamor that you've caused" — Mr. Angry tapped forward without his army — "what possible reason could there have been for that?"

"The young lady required a practical demonstration of my powers, sir."

A figure came into sight just beyond the edge of the screen. He wore a long black coat and a head of white hair brushed straight back from his forehead. It was difficult to see much more of him than that since his face was half in shadows, but he only had a little height on Marek. He must've been a very old gentleman, if his hair was anything to go by. "Ah, of course," this man said. "She'd awoken from her sleep and 'required' you to throw around clinic beds in the middle of the night. That makes perfect sense, thank you."

If that white-haired man had been talking to her, she would have turned to an icicle right where she sat. But Marek — and what an odd name that was! — seemed not to notice the frigid vitriol rolling his way. "She didn't think Extraordinaries were real, so I thought I'd best prove that we are." A pause. "And I didn't go throwing around all the beds; some of them I kicked."

"I've no time for games. Give me the truth."

"That is the truth, sir — that and her alarming lack of memories. Why, she didn't even know her own name till I gave it back to her."

After a moment of silence, the white-haired man turned to Elise, his face still in shadows. "Is that the truth, Miss Ellsworth?" He had no anger now, only caution. Assessment. "That you have lost your memories?"

The words seemed to fall from her tongue of their own volition. "Y-yes," she said. "Yes, I have."

He stepped into the light of her bedside lamp, revealing a face much younger than expected. Ten or so years older than Marek, he might've been. But the most alarming thing was his chalk white skin, as if he'd been drained of blood. She recoiled from the sight. He seemed used to this reaction, for he pressed forward until he stood no more than a foot from her. His greatcoat settled about him, and his pale gaze latched to her like a leech. "Tell me what you remember."

No, she wouldn't. She didn't want to. Nothing about this man seemed the least bit warm or concerned — he eyed her with a cold detachment that drew her flesh up like a draft. Her intent didn't matter. The truth burrowed out of her like a living thing. She told him all that she could remember, starting the dream that had woken her. When she started describing him entering the clinic and yelling at Marek, he waved her off.

"That's enough," he said. He turned to the people still hidden beyond the screen, then called out, "Andrews."

"Yes, sir!" a woman answered.

"Go locate one of Ellsworth's friends, the Travere girl or the Addens one; it doesn't matter which as long as she brings photographs of herself and Miss Ellsworth." He brushed something away from from the sleeve of his black coat. Light flashed on a silver badge that he wore in his waistcoat. "Have I any need to repeat myself?" he said, as if wondering why Andrews hadn't left yet. Andrews said that he hadn't any need, that she had everything memorized, and then hurried off. Hard to blame her. His icy attention returned to Marek once more. "You, go tidy the mess you've made — including the dents."

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Of course," Marek said, without hesitation. But his gaze slipped to Elise as he headed off, slipped and stayed there until forced to break it by distance.

"The rest of you, secure the corridor." When they left, taking their lights with them, the white-haired man settled into the chair that Marek had vacated. "You must forgive my skepticism," he said, and she wanted to slap him for that must. It twisted an apology into a demand, one that she wouldn't give into. "The truth is never an easy thing to come by under the best of circumstances, and that's especially true here."

She said, "Why?"

That simple question seemed to knock him back into his chair a little. Metal screeched from the direction of the doors. Marek sounded busy. He waited until it had stopped before speaking. "Imagine a small subset of the human population for whom the rules of reality do not quite apply, then imagine them contained within a single town, and taught by a single institution." He reached into his coat, then withdrew from it a silver cigarette case. "Imagine next all the near-magical abilities that it is possible to imagine — the existence of perfect liars, for instance." He opened his case, made a selection, then pressed it to his lips. "And when you've finished trying to imagine all those things, tell me how to be certain that anyone I might question could possibly be telling me the truth."

Those were a lot of words to tell her nothing at all. But it raised a question, one that all his talk seemed designed to have raised. "How do you know that I'm not a perfect liar?"

He clapped his case closed. "Because that isn't your area of expertise, Miss Ellsworth." Next, he sought and found a lighter in his suit jacket far within the depths of his greatcoat. "You have what are termed 'passive abilities' — that is to say, powers that don't require conscious effort to maintain or use." He lit his cigarette. "Yours kept you alive after a rather nasty fall."

Marek's words clanged in her head: Do you really think you fell?

It was quite the question, and she couldn't help but give it voice. "Did I really just have a fall?" she said.

Though the man didn't cease his insouciant lounging, his pale eyes gleamed brightly. He took a long drag off his cigarette. "You've never been in the habit of defying gravity, unlike some other fine citizens I could name."

That wasn't an answer. Marek had hinted at something, but this man had outright avoided even telling her that much. "That's not a yes or no."

"Indeed. Your perceptiveness knows no bounds."

Dark hatred flashed inside her for this man. She had no real idea as to who she was or where she was, and he sat here making snide remarks. "Shouldn't someone concerned with truth give it away sometimes?"

Smoke rose from his cigarette, unwinding itself like a great snake between the two of them. "There are rules against discussing open cases."

Whatever that meant, it also was a clear no. Frustrated tears pricked at her eyes, and she wiped at them with the back of a hand. "Please, I don't ... I don't know what happened to me." She curled tightly into her blankets, trying to muffle her ears from the tremulous desperation in her voice. It sounded weak, and she didn't want to be weak in front of him. But she was. "I don't even know who I am. Can't you tell me something? Anything?"

He sat up, then tapped ash into an empty drinking glass beside the lamp. For a long time, he said nothing. Simply smoked or looked at his hands or rid himself of ashes. It seemed that his heart was as black as his clothes were, and that he would not tell her another word. A short distance away, something very large crashed down against the floor; Marek gave his insincere apologies to the officer who yelled at him to be careful.

"I've been told that it's in my best interest as Chief of Security to investigate your fall as an accident," the white-haired man finally said. "I'm certain that you appreciate what that means, for I have it on good authority that you've always been clever."

If she'd been clever before her fall, she didn't feel that way now. Her mind worked like ancient gears, turning his words over and over. He'd been told to investigate things as an accident ... he'd been told ... By whom? No, that didn't matter, not at the moment, and if she asked he probably wouldn't name whoever had ordered him to fix his findings. But he had been given a conclusion before the investigation had started or during it, which meant that someone wanted her fall to look like an accident, so that meant —