REMI'S POV
His office door was still lit under the frame.
I knocked twice — the way I'd learned was the right number, not tentative enough to be ignored, not urgent enough to alarm — and pushed it open.
He was at his desk. Jacket off, sleeves rolled, the late-night version of him that I'd started to recognize as the truest one: less performance architecture, more just the actual person who lived inside the controlled exterior. He looked up from the monitor the moment I opened the door, which meant he'd heard me coming down the hall and had already put down whatever he was doing.
He read my face.
"Sit down," he said.
"I'm okay standing." I crossed to the desk and set my phone on the surface in front of him, screen up, Dr. Okafor's messages visible.
He read them.
I watched his face d
