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fact: Kit had to know Aliyah’s injury was from a terrorist attack. Kit had investigated Paul’s apartment personally, as well as the other attack sites. And Kit was far from dumb.
    So why hadn’t Kit told Paul about the Flex overdoses when Kit had visited Aliyah at the hospital? Why had Kit kept Paul purposely ignorant?
    Come to think of it, Kit had only visited a few times. Odd behavior for a best friend. Odder still for Aliyah’s godfather.
    What on Earth was Kit hiding?
    A realization: Paul could trace Kit’s movements if he had to. Each of Kit’s E-ZPass toll payments left a bureaucratic record somewhere, Kit’s expense reports marked where Kit had eaten his allotted meals, Kit’s credit card records would reveal where Kit had stopped to fill up on gas…
    The FBI reports uncurled beneath his fingertips, the letters on the page marching like ants, helpfully reforming into authorization request forms at Samaritan Mutual.
    Paul wadded the report tight again. He’d always been a quick reader, reading people’s emails over their shoulders before he realized what he was doing – his eyes absorbing the words before his conscious mind could shut it down. ’Mancy was like that: reflexive, unconscious.
    Had anyone on the subway seen the newspaper change? Thankfully, the smooching couple was self-absorbed, and everyone else was staring down at their phones. Paul looked up at the advertisements lining the ceiling, featuring teams of black-armored SMASH agents: “ Physics: not just a good idea, it’s the law. Report all ’mancy! Call 1-800-SMASHEM! ”
    There were a hundred mundanes on this car. If one person saw him doing ’mancy, SMASH would haul him to the Refactor.
    No. He had to research in the safety of his office. His plan was good, he thought, but… he was too inexperienced. This plan needed a real ’mancer.
    That’s why he planned to find a mentor.
    He got off at the next stop, butterflies vomiting in his stomach. And yet for all his nervousness, his arrival was somehow reassuring: he was at Samaritan again, the safe place Paul always retreated to when everything went wrong.
    As Paul walked through the lobby, he ached to pretend nothing had happened, to spend the day completing forms. That was how he relaxed; sometimes, he’d ask his co-workers if they had anything they wanted filled out. Samaritan’s forms were notoriously impenetrable; it was satisfying, resolving the departments’ conflicting requirements into one perfect claim.
    The only forms he’d be signing today would be magical ones.
    Samaritan Mutual’s Claims Adjustment department had all the charm of a community college: rows of battered industrial desks from the 1960s, flickering fluorescents, permanently grimed tile floors. People walked back and forth to talk to each other, since Samaritan’s CEO, Lawrence Payne, infamously disdained email. “Email makes men waste time writing thoughts that should be spoken,” he claimed – and so most forms were still filled out with typewriters, and the phones never stopped ringing.
    The office was Payne-free today, which made Paul grateful. Mr. Payne, an octogenarian ex-Marine, descended periodically from his penthouse suite to sit in on random calls. He called them his “snap inspections”, keeping the office in a tizzy of busywork.
    Still, all conversation came to a stop as Paul pushed his way through the frosted glass doors. His co-workers’ faces turned towards him like flowers towards the sun, angling to offer him pity.
    Please, don’t , he thought. He envisioned himself as an ocean wave, moving inexorably toward the shore. If anyone interrupted him, he’d smash against them in a spray of salt tears. Aliyah filled his every waking hour with regret, a regret that threatened to unman him; he needed to ride this swell of hatred, scouring grief with vengeance.
    Kit intercepted Paul, ushering him into his office, closing the door behind them. “Imani said you might show today.”
    Kit was