and did not return until almost dusk. Normally a woman of few words, she had not been in the house ten minutes when she suggested we go out for dinner. “I was thinking The Moss Room,” she said.
“The Moss Room,” I repeated. “That place is kind of pricey and it can be hard to get a table.”
“Actually, we’ve been invited to dinner,” Elsa said, a bright smile on her face. “The director of the Council, Gabriel Laurent, has invited us to join him.”
“What’s the catch?” I asked. “First he tries to blind me, and now he wants to wine and dine me?”
“No catch,” Elsa said. “He wants to meet you and, if there is time, discuss a job. I think we should go. Your old job is going to seem quite boring now, anyway.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” I said, feeling slightly bullied.
“It’s just dinner,” Elsa said lightly, but I could sense some uneasiness. She needed me to go to this dinner.
“OK,” I said. “What time are we meeting him?”
Elsa looked relieved. “One hour.”
“Great. I will go upstairs and change.”
The Moss Room is named after the moss that grows on one of the subterranean walls of the restaurant. Tucked underground, below the California Academy of Sciences, guests dine inside a snug room adorned on one side with moss and trickling water, and on the other, brick and glass. It is designed as a terrarium for the culinary set, and guests must descend a long glass stairway that terminates at the broad elbow of a majestic wooden bar to enter the dining room. As we came to the last step, a man seated at the bar turned to face us. Instinctively, I knew this was Gabriel Laurent. Impeccably dressed in a gray cashmere sweater, jeans and a black sport coat, he was the picture of casual French elegance.
“Hello, Elsa,” he said, revealing his accent. “This must be Olivia.”
“Hello,” I said, turning to face him, resisting the urge to show off and parler. Eventually, he would come to know that I was fluent. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, monsieur.”
Gabriel stared at me for a moment, but did not speak. He was glowing with a deep blue aura that sparkled like a sapphire.
“You’re so blue,” I blurted out, before I could stop myself.
I could sense his pleasure at my remark, but like Elsa, he too held something back.
“I can see what they say is true,” he said. “You are quite adept…I am anxious to discuss your gifts in greater detail. Alors…Let me tell the hostess we are ready. I have reserved a private room.”
His last word came out as “Oh-stess,” spurring me on to speak in his native language. “Comment allez-vous?”
Gabriel turned around and smiled. “Bien, merci. Vous parlez très bien, mademoiselle.”
“Thank you. I’ve studied French for many years,” I replied. “It was a sort of requirement with my mother.”
Once again, he stifled some emotion, but I felt a drop. It was curiosity.
“You must tell me about your mother, eh, your family sometime,” Gabriel said, as a hostess led us to our private quarters. “I am curious to know about your background. There are not many humans with the kind of powers you seem to have.”
The private room, it turned out, was a clear box off the main dining area. The small glass-walled salon was soundproof, but transparent to the rest of the diners. It made for interesting theater. We could see everyone as they came and went through the dining room, and they could see us, but they could not hear a word we uttered. I didn’t think this was a coincidence at all.
Almost immediately after being seated I began to feel nervous. It took a few moments to realize that the emotions were not my own. Thanks to my training, however preliminary, I knew the difference between my feelings and those of others. They feel too sudden—the emotions—when they belong to someone else. The question now was which one of them was nervous, and why?
Gabriel ordered a bottle of wine and asked that it be decanted as we looked at the menu. Once the wine had been arranged and we’d been sitting for a few moments, Gabriel spoke again.
“You’ve had quite an eye-opening experience in the last few weeks, Olivia,” he said, rotating his wine glass gently between his fingers. “For most of us, the knowledge that the universe is divided between two worlds is introduced gradually by our peers as we grow older. You have had to absorb