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Education Plans, or IEPs. It went along with the shared fiction that any of them would live long enough to need a career.
    Jonah was an erratic student, mostly A’s with the occasional F. He didn’t obsess much about the failing grades. What was Gabriel going to do, flunk him out? When he missed things in class, it was because (a) he hadn’t had enough sleep because of his work with Nightshade, or (b) he was distracted by the background drama. Right now calculus was the least of his worries.
    Even on the best of days, Jonah felt like he was under siege in class. On this particular morning, it didn’t help that he was jet-lagged and emotionally bruised from the events in London. Any gathering of teens was bound to be a cesspool of emotions, and the classroom was no exception. Jealousy, embarrassment, grief, unrequited love—it was all there on any given day.
    He was most aware of lust. Lust hung in the air like September pollen. Sometimes it was a kind of broadband hormonal yearning that splashed everyone in the room. Other times it had a specific target. Rudy Severino, for instance, was gazing longingly at Jonah’s best friend, Natalie Diaz, looking for a reaction to the sizzling texts he was sending. She’d read them, smirk, and text back. They were at that stage in their relationship where their desire for each other made everyone else feel like an extra. Even in the middle of a classroom. Jonah was glad that Natalie was going out with someone, but he couldn’t help wondering how it would all turn out.
    Nat and Rudy were in a band together, and failed romance was a major cause of band breakups. Jonah wouldn’t want to be on Natalie’s bad side. She was tough. She used to run with the Outlaws in Lorain—before her extended family sent her to the Anchorage.
    Nat worked in the clinic and dispensary that served students at the Anchorage. A healer savant, she could spot disorders through the skin. Often, she was the only one who could determine whether a therapy was working or not. Jonah had always thought of healers as gentle, tender souls, his model being Jeanette. Not Natalie. She was a warrior who played to win.
    Calculus finally ended and Jonah stuffed his tablet into his backpack. His debriefing with Gabriel was next on the agenda. He could have slept in and gone straight to the meeting with Gabriel, for all the math he’d absorbed.
    Natalie and Rudy were waiting for Jonah outside the classroom. Well, actually, they were totally entangled, as if being apart for an hour of class was more than they could bear.
    “Get a room,” Jonah suggested.
    They jumped apart, Natalie apologizing profusely. As always, she was hyperaware of Jonah’s celibate status. The two of them kept a measured foot apart all the way over to Gabriel’s office. Which was almost as annoying as the embrace.
    “Who else is in town—do you know?” Rudy asked. “Charlie and Thérèse came back for the debriefing. I don’t know who else. I just got back last night.” His eyes felt like they had sand in them.
    “Rudy and I have some new songs we’d like to run by Syou,” Natalie said. “Could we go back to your place after the meeting?”
    “I’m going to go see Kenzie,” Jonah said. “I need to talk to him about Jeanette.”
    Natalie squeezed his shoulder as they turned down the alley next to the Keep.
    The Keep Nightclub was housed in a rehabbed warehouse perched on a bluff overlooking the river. Gabriel Mandrake’s offices were above the club, on the uppermost floor, where walls of windows offered a stunning view. In one direction lay downtown, a forest of glittering buildings; in the other, the river and the lake beyond. Several stories below lay the gritty industrial landscape of the Cleveland Flats.
    They entered the main building through the alley door, touching their palms to the sensor by the entrance. Gabriel was a geek for gadgets and high tech. He’d been a materials man from way back, a kind of Renaissance minister of