She was only half right.

“Can I help you?” she asked, pulling out the chair.

The older woman looked up with a frustrated scowl before her form flickered and vanished.

“I’m being passively forced to get tested,” I responded. “Alexis Price. An appointment was made for me. Tell me, should I have brought my own straitjacket, or will those be provided?” I laughed a little. “I mean, I feel like I’ve showed up to a black-tie affair in jeans, know what I’m saying? My ensemble does not fit in with the surroundings.”

Her eyes flicked past me before turning to her computer, a smile revealing a small dimple in her cheek. “We get all manner of magical people through these doors, and it’s thought that keeping a blank canvas will allow their imaginations to roam.”

“Uh-huh. And people actually buy that line?”

Her smile widened. “No one usually asks about it, actually. This department sees magical beings with the highest power levels.”

“So they are more interested in themselves than in their surroundings?”

She fought the smile this time and pressed her lips together. In other words, exactly.

The printer whirred to life and she squinted at the screen, her expression slipping. “Oh.” Wariness crossed her features and she darted a look behind her. When her eyes hit mine again, they held fear and a question.

She’d just read what my magic entailed and pieced together what she’d witnessed earlier—how I’d appeared to talk to someone who wasn’t there.

It always tickled me that magical people, who rolled with so many oddities in life, like people changing into animals, causing things to spontaneously combust, or controlling others through mind manipulation, took pause at the fact that the dead walked among them.

“Just…go ahead and fill out this paperwork.” The woman attached the printouts to a clipboard and handed them through the window. “Someone will be with you shortly.”

Ten minutes and a bunch of annoying questions about my mental stability regarding my magic later, the door off to the side of the waiting room opened, emitting a bald man with bushy eyebrows. His dark eyes roamed my body in an analytical way before coming to rest on my paperwork.

“Miss Price.” He took a stiff step into the room. His eyes dipped and his eyebrows rose, telling me this wasn’t a guy who was in the habit of making eye contact. He probably had a big brain and a lot of social awkwardness. “May I call you Alexis?”

“Call me whatever you please. It won’t make this situation any more or less unpleasant.” I stood and tucked my clipboard to my side. They wouldn’t ask for it until I was in the room.

“Of course. Alexis, my name is Mountebank Iams, and I’ll be assisting you today.” A mountebank was the magical equivalent of doctor, a title derived from an old-timey word used to denote a charlatan who sold fake medicine. When the magical community had forced their way out into the open a century ago, they’d had a sense of humor about the way they organized things. “If you will follow me…” Eyes still downcast and brows still raised, he lifted his hand toward the door.

Ignoring my flip-flopping stomach, I lifted my chin and held my shoulders straight as I entered the small sterile hallway.

“You guys don’t employ shock treatment, right? That hasn’t been brought in as a special measure?” I asked as I peeled off to the side so he could regain the lead.

“You have nothing to worry about, Alexis. We are experienced and skilled in determining the power level of someone your age. It will take no time at all.”

Did it count as lying if the person didn’t know they were lying?

“Here we are.” He stopped in front of an open door with a large wooden B nailed to its surface.

Pretending like I was eager to cooperate, I stepped into the room and glanced around. Three empty chairs waited, each one pushed up against a differently colored wall that didn’t house the door. My wall color options were green, red, and yellow. I felt as though I’d been reintroduced to preschool and was about to be asked whether I could fit the differently shaped blocks into the right holes. The chair I chose would be their first clue into something related to my personality or brain that I wasn’t educated enough to understand.

Each corner hosted one of the evaluation machines, the tubes and wires arranged in such a way that it looked almost organized. The knobs and dials were not labeled, and the screens were all black.

“Pick any chair you like,” Mountebank Iams said, gesturing at the chairs.

I’d already been rolling through eeny, meeny, and then counted five more times so they didn’t know what I was doing. It was as random as I could make it. I sat in the red chair, looking on the yellow wall, a color that I wasn’t fond of.

“Perfect. If you’ll excuse me for a moment, the nurse will be in for some preliminary checks, and I’ll continue from there.” Mountebank Iams left the room and closed the door behind him, that wall white. He’d now go write down my selection and the time it took to make it.

A moment later, a red-faced nurse with a can-do expression and a tight bun strolled in.

“Good afternoon, Miss Price,” she said, her smile absent but her tone kind. She clicked a button on the machine next to me, and it whirred to life. I didn’t bother telling her it wouldn’t work. They’d just assume I was an idiot. “Let’s see what we have here.”

She put out her hand, and I relinquished the clipboard.

“You’ve been tested three times before, is that correct?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“And each result was different?”

“Yes. Though the third was in the ballpark of the first.”

“Right, yes.” She traced her finger down the page on the clipboard before folding the sheet in half lengthwise. She traced her finger down the next page. “You can see those who haven’t made the transition to the afterlife?”

“Yes. There was one in the office area of the sterile check-in room.”

To her credit, she didn’t even pause.

“Have you experienced any fluctuations of power?”

“Nope.” Just like I’d answered on the questionnaire.

“Any reason to suspect your power has grown or changed in any way?”

“Nope.” Also like I’d answered on the questionnaire.

“Can you call people back from the Line?”

“Anyone close to a spirit can call them back from the Line. Are you actually asking if I can call them back from beyond the Line?”

Her eyes flicked up. “Can you call people back from beyond the Line?” Her emphasis had been slight, but it was there.

The marathon of annoyance had begun. It would start with her and spread to the other staff.

“Yes, I can,” I answered.

“Can you then send them back within the same session?”

“Yes. God, I hope people don’t call spirits if they don’t have the power to send them home again when they’re done. What turds.”

Her stern brown eyes held a warning about giving my opinion or talking out of turn. A warning I intended to ignore. They weren’t in control here. Nor were they in charge. They needed my cooperation to get what they were after, and I did not plan on giving it. I might as well amuse myself while I was trapped in the chair, waiting for them to exhaust their efforts.

“What percentage of the day are you able to see spirits?” she asked, back on target.

“It is a wonder I bothered filling out that questionnaire at all. A hundred percent of the waking hours.”

Her eyes drifted up from the paper, but I couldn’t read the look in them. Her assessment lasted only a moment, and I suddenly wondered if she thought I was lying.

Why the hell would a person lie about something like that? It wasn’t something to brag about. The opposite, in fact.

“And sleeping?”

“Your mind controls your dreams. Spirits don’t have access to your mind.” When she didn’t immediately continue her line of questioning, I simplified my answer: “None.”

“You don’t dream about spirits?”

“I dream about people who may have died, as I do about the living, but the dreams are controlled by me. They are puppets on the strings of my subconscious, or my conscious mind if I gain control of my dream.”