Her father dropped to a knee before her and took her into a hug. Her throat closed, and it was as if she were twelve again as he tried to show her all was not lost, that something good would come from it. “Have you made a choice?”

She knew he wanted her to take a position and move forward, but accepting anything other than what she’d worked for felt like failure. His arms still around her, she shook her head.

Slowly his grip eased and fell away. He stood, silently watching as a special crew began to sweep the crystal into shipping boxes for off-site decontamination. “I’ll get us some coffee,” he said softly. “You’ll be okay for a moment?”

She nodded, knowing it wasn’t coffee he was after, but the chance there might be someone who owed him a favor. Her breath rattled as she exhaled. There were no more favors to be had. He had spent them all getting her this far. She could probably be excused for the effrontery of trying to make it in a man’s field if she looked like their ideal, her efforts excused in her probable goal of finding a better husband. But she didn’t even have that.

He was gone when she looked up.

Numb, she sat in her chair as the conference took on its normal patter and flow, everyone seeing her but no one making eye contact. “Let me explain,” a plaintive voice rang out, and she looked up to see the NASA rep walking away, Kal’s mother trailing behind, her steps short and heels clicking. Kal met her gaze with a murderous intent, jumping when his father picked up one of his contracts and shoved it at him.

“Sign it,” the older man demanded. “Before they all withdraw their offers.”

“Father,” Kal complained, clearly not liking that Trisk was seeing this.

“Now!” his father thundered. “Sa’han Ulbrine was right. You showed a disturbing lack of control and common sense over a woman you will never see after tonight. Sign.”

Motions stiff, Kal took the pen and signed it. His father all but jerked it out from under him. “Go wait in your rooms,” the tall man said coldly, then turned and walked off to register the contract before midnight when the gala would be over.

Trisk couldn’t help herself, and she made a mocking face at Kal across the aisle.

Kal’s eyes narrowed. “You cost me my dream job,” he said, his melodious voice clear over the surrounding conversations.

“You went out of your way to hurt me,” she said bitterly.

He stood to go, glancing over his booth as if only now seeing it as the vain display it was. Saying nothing more, he walked away. A cluster of young women nervously flitted behind him, ignored.

Trisk exhaled, tired. She watched him as long as she could, and then he was gone. The final hours passed, and in groups of three and four, smiling parents and happy graduates left the hall on their way to private parties hosted by their new employers, and from there, off to a new life, a new beginning. She slowly realized she was alone. The tables were empty, the family banners drooping unattended amid the stray cups of cold coffee and tea. Still she sat, her attention fixed on a glint of crystal left on the floor.

The click of a shutting door roused her, and Trisk stirred, muscles stiff as she rose and went to pick up the forgotten crystal. It was cool in her hand, smooth but for one rough edge. There was no tingle of magic left—it was just dead crystal. The time to record her contract had come and gone. It didn’t matter. She had no intention of accepting any of the offers. There wasn’t much available for a twenty-six-year-old woman in 1963, but she’d find something. She couldn’t ask her father to continue to support her.

A pang of guilt almost bent her double. He had tried so hard to give her what she wanted, and she had failed. The studying, the practice, the sacrifice—all for nothing.

A soft scuff brought her head up, and her fist closed tight on the shard. A suited official was moving slowly among the discarded chairs and scattered papers. It was the man from the enclave who had chastised her, and a familiar feeling of defiant guilt rose high.

“What a mess,” the man said as he drew close, and she stiffened, feeling stupid in her new dress suit, bought for one day.

“Good evening, Sa’han,” she said, wanting to leave but unable to now that he’d addressed her.

“I think we’re going to lose our cleaning deposit,” he said as he wearily sat against Kal’s table, left for others to break down and pack away. “But we usually do.”

She said nothing, waiting for him to dismiss her, but he only leaned back, balancing precariously as he found a copy of Kal’s transcripts, his bushy eyebrows rising as he looked it over. “Did you know your GPA is higher than his?” he asked, and she blinked in surprise.

“No,” she said, not having cared beyond acquiring a spot under the chandelier. “But it doesn’t matter.”

The man slowly bobbed his head, his thin finger tracing a line down Kal’s last eight years. “My mother had dark eyes,” he said softly. “When I complained to my father that she should get them fixed to be like everyone else’s, he told me they helped her see past the crap most of us drape ourselves with. I was never more embarrassed of myself than that day.”

He pushed off from the table, and Trisk backed up, confused.

“I saw what happened,” he said, coming close. “You never used your magic, though you were ready to. The audio was out. What did he say before you punched him in the nose?”

Trisk flushed. “I made an error in judgment, Sa’han. My apologies.”

The man smiled. “What did he say?”

She lifted her chin defiantly. “He called me a second-rate security grunt, Sa’han.”

Nodding as if not surprised, the man reached into an inner robe pocket and handed her a card embossed with the enclave’s symbol. “If you have not accepted any of your fine offers, I would suggest you put in your application at Global Genetics.”

Trisk took the card, seeing it had his name and a PO Box on it. Sa’han Ulbrine, she thought, confused. “In Sacramento?” she said. Global Genetics was a human-run lab, generations behind what any of her people were doing. The enclave was kicking her out.

But Ulbrine put an arm over her shoulder and turned her to the door. His mood was one of opportunity, not exile, and she didn’t understand. “Occasionally a lab we have no affiliation with makes a breakthrough, and we want to know about it before they publish it.”