The Monday morning of Casey’s graduation saw me furiously running a lint roller over the outfit I’d set aside the night before. Why? Because I’d laid it across the stool in front of my vanity mirror… which was exactly where Gorou had chosen to take a nap while listening to me sing in the shower.

  Now, in hindsight, I should’ve hung the pantsuit on the closet door, as opposed to leaving it within easy reach of a trickster like Gorou. But I also didn’t expect him to be so, so — so thoughtless!

  His nosing at the base of my tail while I went through half of a lint roller also hadn’t helped, either, but at least he’d managed to get out a small tangle that I hadn’t been able to reach.

  Eventually, though, I was all put-together and ready to go: lilac pantsuit (with tail hole!) paired with a cream blouse, and a cute pair of slingback kitten heels to finish off the look. I’d also put up my hair such that while a few locks of hair were left loose to frame my face, enough of it was pinned back and out of the way that the lack of human ears on the sides of my head was plain to see at a glance. From experience, making it obvious that the ears weren’t fake helped people realize that I was Moonshot and not some cosplayer indulging her hobby in public.

  “Gorou! I’m heading out!”

  My only response was a loud yawn and a fan of tails in my general direction. I flicked an ear in mild annoyance, but quickly put his antics out of my mind and headed out.

  Then I went right back inside, because I forgot the bag with Casey’s graduation gift in it, despite the fact that I’d put it right by the goddamn door.

  A moment’s thought took me to the rooftops, which I used to make the two miles between me and Georgetown’s main campus far less of an issue than they might have been otherwise. That neighborhood had never been part of my usual stomping grounds, and I didn’t want to get much in the way of attention today. Today wasn’t supposed to be about me, and I would very much like it to stay that way.

  Unfortunately, once I arrived at the location proper, I realized that staying unremarkable was going to be a bit more difficult than I’d initially hoped. Georgetown held its commencement ceremonies on the lawn of its flagship building, Healy Hall — an absolutely gorgeous building designed by the same people responsible for both the Jefferson Building and the Library of Congress. I never really got to explore the building’s halls, given that Georgetown’s law school campus was closer to Union Station and the National Mall, but what little I’d seen of it was just… my goodness, it was beautiful. As far as backdrops for graduation went, there were few better options that I could imagine.

  And by the time I arrived, Healy Lawn was already full of people. I watched from the roof of the library, one building over, and looked for a spot that I could slip in relatively unremarked. But families were milling about, sitting in the seats laid out on the lawn, taking photographs, and generally spread out across just about every available space. I’d wanted to get myself all set up under one of the trees flanking the stage, since I’d be out of the way from both the people and the heavy-duty speakers they had for the event, but I wasn’t seeing a way to get there without drawing some attention. How was I going to—

  “Your attention please!”

  My ears perked up at the voice blaring over the speakers I’d wanted to avoid.

  “The 2021 Commencement Ceremony is about to begin. Please make your way to your seats.”

  And just like that, the crowd all headed over to the seating laid out on the lawn, leaving me a nice opening to fall apart into flame and reappear beneath the shade of a tree. Quiet, discreet, out of the way, far from being the center of attention.

  And if someone did spot me? Who cared? I was a graduate of this university; hell, it was on my Wikipedia page.

  Another few uneventful few minutes passed as the university planners let everybody get to their seats, and probably tried to corral a couple of latecomers among the student body; Georgetown traffic was absolutely abysmal at the best of times, and it wouldn’t have surprised me if some of the students just walked over and put on their gowns after arriving. I took the opportunity to check my phone and — oh, a text message.

  Casey Allen

  r u here?

  Rather than answer in words, I turned my phone sideways, took a picture, and sent him that instead.

  He responded with a thumbs-up emoji, and the app let me know he was typing something else, but the typing soon stopped. Another minute without any response, and I just shrugged, putting my phone back into my purse.

  And then another few minutes later, the speakers crackled to life again.

  “Honored guests, please welcome the 2021 graduating class of the Georgetown University Law Center.”

  The usual graduation ceremony fanfare started playing over the speakers, and with it, the graduates walked in, led by the dean of the law school. They entered in alphabetical order, and this was where I first kept my eyes peeled, knowing that Casey would be closer to the front row with his last name of ‘Allen’. The dean stopped in front of the first student row and gestured for them to fill in from left to right. Try as I might, though, I wasn’t able to spot Casey amongst the first row. Curses; of all the time to have superhuman hearing instead of superhuman vision…

  The students filed in, resplendent (and probably overheating) in their graduation gowns — heavy things of nylon and velvet, probably weighing a good fifteen pounds, and capped off with the doctoral stole over the shoulders — and sat down one by one. About five minutes of this process later, complete with shuffling, jostling, tripping, some muttered curses, and at least one twisted ankle from a high heel that landed funny, there remained one final student in a gown, carrying the class banner. The dean shared a nod with the student and turned, heading towards the stage. This last student, still carrying the banner, followed the dean onto the stage, where — wait. Wait… no. No, there was no way.

  That last student placed the class banner down in the prepared holder for it, then turned to look directly at my spot under the tree.

  And Casey winked.

  “That cheeky little…” I murmured under my breath as I watched Casey take his seat on the stage. There was only one reason for him to be on stage… and he didn’t tell me, the little shit!

  The music cut off now that the graduation procession had finished, and the dean stood to address the assembled students, faculty, family, and guests. What did he say? Well, um… I’ll be honest: I didn’t have a goddamn clue. You’ve heard one graduation speech from the dean of a school, you’ve heard them all. And given the current dean had been one of the professors that singled me out and treated me differently for being Moonshot, if in a more subtle manner, I wasn’t particularly inclined to listen to him.

  So I just let his words wash over me, checked my phone to see if that cheeky little mentee of mine had managed to sneak another text message through (he hadn’t), and waited until what I considered the main event.

  Fifteen minutes later, I finally got my wish.

  “And now that you’re all good and tired of hearing me talk, I’d like to introduce the student speaker for the graduating class — President of the Student Bar Association and your Class of 2021 salutatorian, Mr. Casey Anthony Allen.”

  I couldn’t help my slightly strangled gasp at those words. What? Casey was — and he hadn’t said anything!? I needed to amend slightly — that cheeky, precocious little shit!

  Okay, really quick: most people probably know the title of valedictorian, which means “the person with the highest GPA in the class”. Beside that is the salutatorian, the person with the second highest GPA. Far too often you will find that the valedictorian only cares about grades, with almost no time or investment spent in extracurricular activities beyond the ones that look good on a resume, or which build out skills that might make them a more attractive hire. The salutatorian, on the other hand, often demonstrates a frankly absurd level of involvement in student life, extracurriculars, social gatherings, etcetera.

  And Casey, who was by far my favorite of all the new hires that had joined the firm since I started, seemed to be no different! He’d been working thirty hours a week for us since December! I’d signed forms stating that he was joining me for trial so that his attendance wouldn’t get dinged while he was in court! And this whole time, he’d been maintaining both an absolutely stellar law school GPA, far above my own 3.28 average, and been the top dog of student government?

  Fucking hell, how did we manage to poach him out from under Big Law!? Clearly I needed to count my lucky stars again!

  By the time I’d gotten my wits back about me, Casey had already stood up and taken his position at the podium. He adjusted the microphone down slightly, set out a few sheets of paper on the podium, and cleared his throat.

  Then, he began speaking.

  “Distinguished faculty, family, friends, and my fellow graduates of the Class of 2021: before we go any further, I need to make one small correction to the introduction that our esteemed dean gave me. While I have been your SBA President this year, I had to step back from several of my duties during the final semester, and relied heavily on the help of our SBA Vice President, Shauntelle Ferguson. I doubt the Student Bar Association would have kept running quite so smoothly without her stepping up to take the reins like she did, so I’d really appreciate it if everybody could give Shauntelle a round of applause for her help and hard work!”

  A young woman stood up from one of the rows in the front third as a roar of applause grew around her, punctuated by cheering and a few shouts that I couldn’t quite make out from all the way over here. Casey led the claps, and when he slowed his clapping to a stop, the rest of the student body followed suit in short order.

  “So obviously, any of you who’ve paid even the slightest bit of attention to all those email blasts for the last few years know that there’s something I want to talk about,” Casey said, “but which I have been, ah, what’s the phrase… strongly discouraged from mentioning.” At this, he turned to ever-so-slightly gesture towards the dean of the law school, which prompted a few boos and jeers from the graduates in the crowd, and… well, left me a little mystified? Had I missed something? “So instead, I’ll be talking about something else. And forgive me if this is a little off the cuff, or seems somewhat out of left field — but it’s something I feel deserves to be said.

  “Most of us carry some sort of expectation when we arrive at law school,” he continued, only briefly glancing down at the podium. “We take the things we’ve heard, the stories we’ve been told, the ideas and thoughts and what-ifs of everybody who’s ever attended, or decided not to attend, or who wasn’t able to attend. Don’t be a gunner, they’ll tell you, because nobody likes gunners. If you want a job you need to be on a journal, or on the mock trial board, or the moot court board, and if you don’t get any of those, then you’d best hope you find a spot in one of the clinics. Big Law is the big cheese, the holy grail, the only option worth chasing. And don’t think about what kind of law you want to do, because every new area of law you study from 2L onwards is going to be the one you suddenly most want to practice.

  “Unless you’re going for patent law, but you people already have your chemistry or physics or engineering degrees anyway. Yes, Connor, I’m looking at you and your Master’s in Aeronautics Engineering.”

  It was faint, but I could barely make out an exasperated-if-affectionate “Come on, man…” from the crowd, followed by another smattering of laughter.

  “The point is, with some exceptions, we all take in these opinions, ideas, and impressions from those who came before us, which then form preconceptions that we need to push past, biases and assumptions from which we need to break free. Don’t be a gunner? So often, that term is just social ammunition against the kinds of students who learn better through direct participation, because somebody who doesn’t want to put in the work is afraid they’ll break the curve. You need a journal, or legal clinic experience, or competition board membership to get a job after graduation? Well, if you’re looking at clerking for a judge or working in Big Law, then sure, that will probably help, but they’re not the end-all be-all. None of these things are a silver bullet; none of them guarantee you a place. And by the same token, not having one of them isn’t going to instantly disqualify you, either. It’s just going to take a little bit more work.

  “Now I know what some of you are going to say: ‘but Casey, there’s only so many spots on these journals, or these competition boards, or in the clinic programs; it’s not fair’. And you know what?” Casey leaned into the microphone and podium in a perfect mirror of the way I liked leaning in for emphasis when facing the jury.

  “You’re right. It’s not fair.”

  He let the moment hang for a few seconds, let his audience marinate in that statement before continuing.

  “Maybe one of your classmates has a relative working in Big Law that’ll scoot them past the hiring manager and straight into a position. Maybe another classmate worked as a judge’s secretary, and now that judge will take them back over another, more qualified candidate. Maybe a classmate is already set for life, and is going to take that law degree to do fulfilling, idealistic nonprofit work while you suffer the third degree from a client you’d rather kick to the curb, but whose money you desperately need to pay off your student loans. All of those things are true, by the way! Maybe not necessarily of our graduating class, but of a graduating class somewhere in this country. None of it is fair! But here’s the thing? You are correct, yes. It’s not fair. You’re 100% right.

  “But you do not have the right to complain about what is and isn’t fair until you’ve gone out there and done everything in your personal power to change that.”

  It wasn’t a yell, or a shout. And though Casey had phrased it the same way one might put an admonishment, he wasn’t being insulting, or demeaning, or pejorative in any way.

  From the tone of his voice, the height of his chin, and the set of his jaw, it was a simple statement of fact.

  “Our alma mater here, Georgetown? It was founded as a Jesuit school. And in that vein, I’m going to paraphrase an old prayer, that even those of us who aren’t Jesuit, or Catholic, or even Christian have all heard: grant me the grace to accept the things I can’t change, the strength to change what I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. You’re right — the world isn’t fair. But none of us, from the most privileged to the least fortunate, have the right to just sit there and complain about it. It is our duty to stand up, to reach out and try to change that unfairness with our own two hands. Only once you’ve done that, once you’ve exhausted the limits of what you personally can and can’t change, and drawn on the full depths of wisdom to try and chisel away at small, malleable chunks of that larger monolith you think you can’t change, do you get to complain about fairness.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “And before somebody tells me to put my money where my mouth is? I’ve already started doing that!” Casey took a deep breath, and when next he spoke, his words were softer, almost somber. “When Shauntelle took over some of my duties as SBA President, it was because I’d had the luck and honor of being invited to join the trial team at the firm whose offer of employment I accepted, Bierman Viskie & Schotz. I’m not going to elaborate too much; if you’ve read a newspaper at all this year, you’ve heard about it, about how the client was murdered before trial to try and save the defendants hundreds of millions of dollars in a likely judgment. But what you probably haven’t heard about is what that money has gone towards: setting up a new charitable foundation, which aims to prevent the very situations that gave rise to the lawsuit in the first place.

  “This is our duty as lawyers, as professionals who are ever so keenly aware of the unfairness and injustice in our world! To find that unfairness, attack it where we can, and seek aid where we can’t! Over the past few years of law school, you have all heard over, and over, and over about how lawyers and the courts are the bulwark of American liberty and democracy! But liberty is for the people. Democracy is of the people. Do not lose sight of them, because once you do, then despite any complaints you may have had, you’ll have become part of the reason the world feels so unfair.

  “Before I get down from my bully pulpit, I have one last thing I want to impress on everybody first.” Casey raised one arm. “Look to your left,” he said as he gestured, then switched arms. “Look to your right. If you think the world is unfair, you’ve tried to change that, and you’ve exhausted your limits? Those people sitting next to you are your brothers-in-arms. Nobody can move a mountain alone, and any time history has said some great change happened because of one person alone, it was lying.

  “LGBT rights and the AIDS vaccine didn’t happen just because one trans woman threw a brick at Stonewall. Segregation didn’t end because one black man had a dream, or because one black woman refused to give up her bus seat. The Americans with Disabilities Act wasn’t signed because one paraplegic woman laid across the steps of the Capital. The ECLIPSE Act wasn’t amended because one Moonshot broke out of jail to escape an unjust sentence. They were the first, or the loudest, or the most memorable, but never the only ones.

  “We are not alone in this. If we want to make the kind of world we want, the kind of world that’s more fair and just than the one we grew up in, we’d do well to remember that. I know I will. And I hope you all will, too.”

  Casey bowed his head ever so slightly and gathered his speech printouts from the podium.

  There was dead silence for a moment. Nobody applauded. The audience seemed to not know what to do.

  Then, from roughly the middle of the pack of graduates, one person stood up. He looked to the left, to the right. Then he brought his hands to his mouth, took a deep breath, and yelled.

  “FedSoc delenda est!”

  Firstly… that raised questions. Big questions, ones that I didn’t have time for, because second? This seemed to be the signal for the graduating class to go absolutely hog wild with applause: stamping, cheering, hooting and hollering and what have you. And like, yeah, there was definitely some context here that I was missing, but even if I ignored that, uh, holy shit?

  No, seriously; holy shit. Look, I’d heard student commencement speeches before; most of them were lackluster, full of platitudes, and either hollow simpering for the institution or self-aggrandizement. But this one? Casey’s speech? It was none of those things. He was meaningful, powerful, purposeful in a way that students rarely were.

  And it left me with the absolute certainty that I needed to get Casey in front of a jury, ASAP, because god, damn! And to think that this was the same person as the adorable 3L who kept trying to disappear into his favorite oversized v-neck sweater!

  The dean of the law school took over the podium as the applause was winding down, but his initial attempt to get the commencement ceremony back on track after Casey took it for a ride met with resistance. The student body redoubled their applause and looped in loud cheering to drown out the dean, complete with another couple shouts mirroring the one that had set off the applause in the first place. The dean stood there with an awkward hunch to his shoulders, and suffered the extra minute or so that Casey’s classmates forced the rest of the audience to spend stewing in his speech before they allowed matters to continue.

  Sadly for the dean, though, it seemed that Casey’s speech had stolen the entire show. Why else would the response to his introduction of Georgetown Law’s 2021 commencement speaker, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, have felt so… well, flat? Hell, I’ll be honest: while I would normally have listened to the Chief Justice with rapt attention, I instead found myself tuning him out.

  Casey’s impassioned rallying cry to his fellow graduates was just too tough of an act to follow, especially with the layers of implication resting atop it.

  Ten minutes of the exact by-the-numbers “sanctity of the law” and “defender of the Constitution” speech that we all expected from the Chief Justice, he finally bowed out to a smattering of applause, and — wait, shit, now the dean was calling up the students to come from the side I was currently on, get their diplomas on stage, and go to the side opposite. Uh. Clearly I did not think my cunning plan all the way through.

  Well, nothing for it. I slipped around to the back side of the tree I’d been standing in front of, eyed the roof of the library across the street, and popped over there in what was hopefully a less-readily-visible flash of purple flame. Then I sighted the copse of smaller trees on the other side of Healy Lawn, which I hadn’t picked initially because none of them were quite as big as the one I’d initially positioned myself under, and flickered into position behind them instead.

  But since music had begun to play once more, and the first row of 2021’s graduating class had been asked to stand from their seats, this meant that my sudden disappearing act had hopefully gone completely unnoticed—

  My phone buzzed from inside my purse, knocking me out of my self-congratulatory chain of thought, and I pulled it out to check.

  Casey

  >i saw that

  … damn. Eh, I was due for a little ribbing, anyway.

  By the time I’d finished situating myself at my new position, the first set of students had already gotten into position, the Dean had handed the valedictorian the first diploma, and was now handing Casey his. Unfortunately, my position meant I wasn’t exactly able to get a proper photograph… but, if the way the valedictorian had exited stage right and made zero moves to head back to the stands was any indication, not having a great photo op wasn’t going to matter much!

  Sure enough, Casey walked off stage with diploma in hand, and made a beeline for my little hideaway under the trees with a massive grin on his face.

  And once he got close enough, I grabbed the sneaky, precocious, charismatic little stinker in the biggest damn hug I could give!

  “Oh my God, Casey!” I exclaimed, my tail wagging so damn hard in my excitement that I was swaying side-to-side a little bit. “Holy shit, hun! That speech was incredible! But also you have definitely been holding out on me and I am going to get the full story from you later!”

  “Your tail is—”

  “Don’t care!” I interrupted. “Too excited!”

  “Okay, okay!” Casey chuckled, giving me one more squeeze before pulling out of the hug. “You really liked it?”

  “Let’s put it this way? I had better hear you’ve passed the Bar come October, because if this is what you can pull off for a commencement speech, I have got to see what you can do with opening or closing in front of a proper jury! Oh, right — here!”

  Casey’s face, which had been rapidly reddening under my rather effusive praise, swiftly fell to interest and confusion as I grabbed the bag with his gift in it out from behind me and pushed it into his arms.

  “What is—?” He cut himself off as he took the bag, hanging it from a couple outstretched fingers of the hand holding his diploma, and reached into the bag with the other. He pushed past the wrapping paper, found something he could grip on, and pulled it out of the bag.

  “I picked this out during my trip to the UK,” I said, smiling softly as Casey went wide-eyed at the sight of my gift. “Every good trial lawyer needs a briefcase they can trust, and I didn’t take you for the type to be content with a boring old black or tan number.”

  It was an absolutely gorgeous briefcase, sueded leather dyed a soft, pleasant shade of steel blue. It was different enough to let Casey stand out, but professional enough to not draw the wrong kind of attention. I’d seen its cousin in an out-of-the-way leather goods shop in Oxford, and while none of those had appealed, the owner let me know of a supplier in Italy who had some magnificent wares. A quick web search, a couple calls, and a word from Ambrose later, I’d secured Casey’s graduation gift with a minimum of fuss.

  “Oh, wow,” he murmured, running his fingers over the material. He flipped it open, pulling out the shoulder strap from inside the bag, and slung it over his shoulder to see how it laid. Casey knocked his graduation cap askew with the motion, but after getting that back into position, he adjusted the straps on the briefcase so that it hung perfectly level with his hip.

  And then I found myself wrapped up in yet another hug, which I happily returned.

  “Thank you,” he half-whispered, voice a little choked up as the hug grew tighter. “You didn’t have to, but… thank you.”

  I didn’t respond to that, largely because saying anything else might’ve ruined the moment. But the heavy fabric of Casey’s graduation gown was uncomfortably warm, and I really didn’t want to get all sweaty. So I flicked my ear, which shifted slightly against his forehead, and he thankfully took the hint to loosen his hold.

  “So, how many times did you rewrite your speech?” I asked Casey in a slightly teasing tone, once he’d stood back up straight.

  “Bwuh—um, that… uh, seven times? Wait, no, there was also — actually hold on, does that one count? Um… but there was also—”

  “Casey!”

  My right ear panned towards the new voice that had just yelled in greeting, but Casey himself had an almost full-body flinch, and as he turned to face the new arrival, the soft smile he’d still had while thinking about how many revisions his speech had gone through fell away entirely before he replaced it with a new, almost ear-splitting smile.

  The difference, though, was that this one didn’t reach his eyes.

  “Hey, Dad,” Casey greeted back with an extremely faint, almost unnoticeable reluctant warble to his tone. “Hi, Mom.”

  I turned to face the newcomers myself, and found myself… unimpressed.

  Casey’s father and mother were dressed for a day at the yacht club, and very much not for their son’s graduation from a doctorate program. To their credit, both of them were in visibly good shape, if the natural tans and functional muscle I saw in both of their exposed arms was anything to go by. But, Mr. Allen? Boat shoes, khakis, and a polo shirt, no matter how expensive the designer labels (and yes, I know that’s an Armani logo on your polo shirt, you still should’ve worn something more suitable to the occasion), were inappropriate for a day such as this.

  And while the somewhat embarrassed, aggrieved look Mrs. Allen had adopted on seeing my pantsuit suggested that this had been his idea as opposed to hers… that didn’t excuse her choice of a sailor blouse, capri pants, and strappy sandals. Her idea or no, she could have dressed for the occasion, and clearly chose not to.

  Suffice to say, the Allens’ startling lack of sartorial decorum brought Casey’s comments the other day into sharp focus.

  “Congratulations! That was… ah…” It was around this point that the apparent tunnel vision responsible for guiding Mr. Allen to his son faded away, and the man laid eyes on me, only to balk a little at what he saw. “I’m… sorry?”

  I flicked an ear in annoyance (which Casey saw, drawing a slight amused huff from him), took one step towards Casey’s underdressed father, and extended one hand.

  “Naomi Ziegler,” I said. “Casey’s supervising attorney. And may I say, Casey has been an absolute delight to have on my team.”

  “Clark,” he said, failing (or declining) to also introduce his wife as he accepted my hand for the absolute shortest handshake he could manage before practically yanking his hand away. “And you’re… um…?”

  I just looked at Casey, and tilted my ears down in question. Casey, familiar enough with my body language by now, just shrugged one shoulder and shook his head. Which… yeah, no. I wasn’t going to let them out of this faux pas that easily.

  “Did they seriously not ask you anything about your new coworkers and bosses?” I asked, injecting as much incredulity into my tone as I could.

  “Mom did. But Dad? Nope,” he said in a distinctly unamused tone, popping the ‘p’ to inject just that little bit of extra derision into it.

  “W-well, that’s because there was nothing to worry about!” Casey’s father, Clark Allen, was full of bluster as he tried to rally a response to that rather damning accusation. “I’m not about to fret over the boy like Nina here! Casey Anthony is as rock-steady as his old man, and that means he’s—”

  “Right, that explains why you’re not his emergency contact, good to know,” I interrupted. Clark Allen practically swallowed his next words in a slightly offended stammer, but had the good sense to not try and keep talking when I turned my attention to his wife instead. “Well, you don’t seem to be too surprised by me, at least.”

  “Casey mentioned you quite a bit,” Nina Allen said, a soft smile finally pushing past the secondhand embarrassment she’d been showing up until now. “Did you really get a judge’s permission to set a fire in his courtroom?”

  “Well, not a normal fire, no,” I hedged, bringing one hand up.

  A flex of will conjured a small orb of foxfire above my palm, drawing a slightly strangled breath from Clark Allen, and an idle wave of my hand split it into three smaller wisps of flame. I let those little puffs of foxfire drift about my fingertips for a moment longer, then extinguished them with a snap of my fingers.

  “Regardless,” I continued, pulling both of the Allen parents from the slight awe my casual display of superpowers had caused, “Casey has already been a productive member of the team, and I look forward to having him second chair for me once he’s passed the bar! But until then?” I let my soft smile turn somewhat predatory, exposing my sharp canines to give it the slightest air of menace. “Bar prep comes first, no matter how interesting the case!”

  “Y-yes ma’am!” There was a slight tremor in Casey’s response, to which I briefly leveled a Look?, complete with narrowed eyes and lowered ears. I let my ears spring back up and favored him with a soft smile once I felt the message had properly sunk in, and Casey slumped ever so slightly in relief.

  “A-hem.” Clark Allen enunciated the sound of him clearing his throat, which had me peering his way out of the corner of my eye as I swiveled one ear towards him. “As much a, ah, pleasure as it has been to meet you, Miss Ziegler, I believe the occasion calls for some family time with our son.”

  I frowned, and eyed Casey’s expression in search of some kind of cue before I responded.

  “... very well,” I said, giving Clark Allen the barest smidge of attention before turning my focus entirely on his son. “Casey, I’ll expect you back in the office for the round table on Wednesday morning, understood?”

  And rather than wink, I instead briefly tilted both ears back, then forward. More subtle, harder to read for those unacquainted with me, and a much easier way to get poor Casey out from under the clearly stressful company of family.

  “I’ll be there,” he said with a nod. I smiled back, and glanced off to my right, towards the library building.

  Then my body fell apart into amethyst flame and I reappeared on the roof of the library, the faintest echoes of Clark Allen’s exclamation of shock putting a smile on my face as I made my way back home.

  The workday awaited, unfortunately, and not even an employee’s commencement was enough to grant me more than half a day’s reprieve from the wheels of the justice system.