Bright sunlight streamed through my new window the next morning, and for a moment I forgot entirely where I was, disoriented by the unfamiliar ceiling above Mara's spare room. Memory returned quickly though, along with a flicker of nervous excitement about the promised introduction at the club on Ninth Street. Today, if everything went well, I might finally have a real answer to the question of how I intended to survive in this enormous city.
Mara was already awake downstairs, arranging shop inventory with the same brisk efficiency I remembered from childhood, though age had clearly sharpened her natural competence into something genuinely impressive. She greeted me warmly, sliding a simple breakfast across the counter while explaining that her contact at the club, a woman named Sable who
