KIRA

Elder Counselor Mira was not what I expected.

I'd braced for someone clinical. Someone who would sit across from us with a notepad and ask how things made us feel. Someone who would nod a lot and say very little.

Instead, she was a small woman in her sixties with sharp eyes, silver locs, and the energy of someone who had absolutely no patience for nonsense.

"Sit," she said, gesturing to the two chairs across from her. "Not side by side. Facing each other."

Dante and I exchanged a ...