“You don’t want the penalty.” She points at the kiosk. “Name. Hand.”
I sigh and place my palm on the smooth metal. It’s warm to the touch, tingling against my skin. “Feng Jiahui.”
The screen lights up with more symbols that are surely writing, and then flashes my color pink.
“Good, let’s stand aside while we wait for your adjuster.”
“Adjuster?” I ask as I let her drag me away. “I don’t want anything adjusted, thank you.”
“An adjuster is someone who will document your history as a witch, help determine your power and threat level, those things. They’re notadjustinganything.”
She brings me to a sitting room of sorts. There are chairs of all shapes, to fit many legs, or none, and even some kind of fishbowl. She shows me to a seat that looks comfortable and I take it.
Lei’s eyes move back and forth behind the green prison, but he’s unable to move more than that.
“Can he hear?” I ask Jamie.
She nods.
I stand in front of his glassy coffin and glare at him. “That’s what you get for messing with Feng.”
If eyes could talk, his would be saying, “Fuck you.”
I sit back down, feeling very little sense of victory from the taunt. As the moments turn to minutes, an anxious knot balls up in my gut. I’m in another plane of existence, getting documented as a witch, athreat.
A beam of light spears the atrium and a human man appears from the glow. He’s wearing a casual suit and shoes that clop on the gray stone.
“Feng?” he asks me.
“Yeah.”
He jerks his head. “Come with me.”
A tick of panic jolts through my system and I look up at Jamie.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she says. “You’re still in my custody. I’m responsible for you.”
That doesn’t give me a lot of confidence to follow this dude I don’t know, but everything seems orderly and safe, so…
I blow out a breath and stand to meet the man. He holds out his arm and I grab on to it, knowing what’s next. The light zips us away, and the next second I’m in a small office space that looks very human compared to everything else I’ve seen.
“I’m Laurence, and I handle intake and registration of witches from Earth,” he says as he takes a seat behind the desk.
I take the chair across from him. His fingers dance through the air, and a holographic display appears between us. It’s all in English, but backwards, but four letters stick out to me plainly.
Zhao.
“What’s that about?” I ask, pointing to the name.
His eyes narrow on the words. “You’re related to the Zhao case, a witness. Looks like you’ve been scheduled for registration for a while.” He tsks and his fingers dance over glowing keys. “Bureaucratic nonsense holding it all up.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“It’s really nothing that interesting. Your human interface wanted to delay registration until the Earth trial could conclude—listed you asflightyandsuspicious.” He looks me over with a chuckle. “Yeah, I see it.”
“Myhuman interface?”
“The officer assigned to the…” He draws out the word as his eyes hunt for information. “The Boston case for Zhao.”
