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representing us now.” Her voice was icy.
    “I thought it was rhetorical, that question,” Dante piped up. I almost gasped but caught myself. I shot him a look. Aurelia studied him, a faint smile on her lips.
    “You’ll find that very little of what I ask is rhetorical. I don’t like to waste time. I either give orders or I ask questions with the intention of receiving answers.” Somehow, these words didn’t sound so hostile as they trickled out sweetly and slowly, only lightly laced with bite. Through all of this, the Outfit remained quiet and still, encircling us like a chain of paper dolls. Aurelia set off again.
    “You will each be assigned a mentor, from whom you will receive your assignments. Whenever possible, you will be given projects commensurate with your interests and talents. Lance”— his whole body jolted at the sound of his name—“you’ll be shadowing Lucian, handling day-to-day operations, a good deal of management responsibilities, and various projects with our amen- ities: the nightclub, the gallery, the library.”
    “Thank you,” Lance said shyly to the back of her head. Lucian looked over his shoulder and gave him a nod in acknowledgment.
    “Dante, your mentor is our head chef, Etan. He has some innovative plans for the menu in our restaurant and lounge. He is currently away on business, but he’ll be here in another day or so. In the meantime, he asks that you familiarize yourself with the kitchens—you can start with the one adjacent to the Parlor, which is our more casual restaurant.”
    “Of course. Looking forward to it,” he answered, his voice bright.
    “And, lastly, Haven, you will be with me.” We had reached the far end of the ground floor and stopped before a glass-enclosed elevator.
    “Great, thank you so much.” I waited to hear more. I wanted to know exactly what Aurelia expected from me, so I would then know how to surpass it and impress her. But that was it.
    “Now let’s have a look at our nightclub, the Vault.” She pressed the elevator call button. “It opened last month to great fanfare and we’re doing a tremendous business.” That seemed to be true, according to what I’d read about the club. Everyone had filtered through there: celebrities in town shooting movies; every remotely important athlete the city had; musicians on tour. “We realize that you three aren’t of age . . .” She paused, perhaps finding a way to let us down gently that this wasn’t a place for high school kids. “However—”
    At that, we all looked at her with renewed attention. The elevator opened and she stepped in, Lucian behind her. We followed, tentative, Dante first.
    “—you will be permitted into the club as long as you’re responsible.”
    What? I wasn’t sure I heard right. Beside me, I felt light beams shooting out of Dante’s eyes, ears, fingertips. The Outfit turned and walked down a side hallway, single file, like one long, chic snake, and finally disappeared.
    “Members of the Outfit have specific duties there, and you may, in fact, be asked to work there at times as well.”
    “All right!” Dante, I knew, couldn’t help it. The outburst just escaped his lips, no hope of being held back.
    Aurelia’s eyes zipped in his direction. Lucian leaned in toward Dante, almost conspiratorially, and said, “It’s a pretty fantastic place. You won’t be disappointed.”
    “Onward,” she said. The elevator doors closed and we plummeted to the hotel’s depths.
    Once downstairs though, we were permitted to see only the sealed door of the nightclub—a black-painted slab of steel like the kind you’d find on a bank vault—leaving us to imagine what lay beyond it.
    The rest of the tour felt endless, a blur of elegantly appointed rooms and an onslaught of facts and figures. The Outfit mysteriously met up with us again later when we reached the upper floors, fencing us in, which continued to make me nervous. I wished I could drum up some intelligent questions