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I feel my feet come free of the escape chute. Before I can react, I immediately splash knee-deep into water. Something flashes and squirms against my calf, and I nearly fall over recoiling.
Gold flashes beneath the water. It’s a fish the size of my arm.
A koi.
An entire thousand-pound-a-plate rooftop restaurant, and Ayaka’s escape chute dumps into the koi pond.
I swear and, for Deke’s benefit, say “Wet landing. Beware the fish.”
Fortunately, the restaurant is closed. The Thorntree towers eighty-five stories behind me, but the other three sides of this patio are ringed by a four-foot-high wall to keep drunks from stepping straight down to the pavement fifteen floors below. Four-person round tables impaled on closed giant umbrellas pack most of the open space.
Okay, that’s the reas
