Three years later
The office was on the tenth floor of the building that smelled like paper and printer ink. Seren knew the smell now. She had memorized it over three visits.
She stood in the corridor outside the frosted glass door that read Amara Piers Vale, CEO, her school bag digging into her shoulder, her heart doing the thing it always did here, that painful, squeezing thing she had no name for yet, though she was almost thirteen and felt certain she was old enough to name most things.
She was not old enough to name this.
The receptionist, a small woman named Ms. Adelaide who wore reading glasses on a beaded chain, looked up from her desk and recognized Seren immediately. Her expression did something complicated. Not unkind. Just complicated.
"She has a client until three-thirty," Ms. Adelaide said, before Seren could open her mouth.
"I know." Seren shifted her bag. "I can wait."
