Chapter 1

Manon pinned the five-thousand-dollar rent demand to the refrigerator door right below the house rules, then told Phi to read both of them.

On Monday morning, the croissant magnet held up two sheets of paper at once. The top sheet had been written in pink marker a few weeks back, with two signatures beneath the last two lines.

5. Phi asks first.

6. Manon asks first regarding Phi’s body.

The bottom sheet came from building management. Fourteen days starting last Saturday.

Phi stood in front of the refrigerator. Manon had built the one-hundred-fifty-centimeter pink body for her senior project. The voice was still the cashier’s voice that used to live in her MacBook. Phi’s left knee creaked.

On her chest panel, the figure still glowed in red.

Manon’s loss. 41,026.18 dollars.

That was Manon’s entire trust fund, lost the week before inside an office called Teerling after Phi audited their books.

“Can you turn that off?”

“The number has not changed.”

“You’re the reason that number is there.”

“You were the one who told me to send it.”

Manon twisted her copper bracelet around her wrist. On the table sat the card from UNN, the news channel playing on the television where someone was reading out egg prices and smiling.

An opening in front of the camera.

“I’m going to work. My pay will cover the rent.”

“You are going to smile for egg prices?”

“Egg prices do not require a smile.”

Manon’s phone buzzed. She lifted it high enough to angle the refrigerator out of the frame.

“Bonjour, Maman.”

“Your collar is turned under.”

Manon fixed her collar with one hand. Sylvie sat in Paris in a blazer without a single shoulder crease, inside a house that still held Manon’s old bedroom. Her eight-thousand-dollar monthly transfers had stopped, leaving only a single offer on the table.

“That plane ticket home is still open. You do not need to wait until things get worse.”

“I have an interview today.”

“For what?”

“Production. Wardrobe. Somebody needs styling.”

Phi’s knee creaked loud enough to make Sylvie pause.

“Is she still broken?”

“She’s in power-saving mode.”

The call ended after a reminder to send word once it was over. Manon set the phone down, wrote nine hundred fifty along the margin of the rent demand, the last money she had left to spend, and picked up her portfolio and sewing kit.

“You do not have an interview.”

“The card is for you. I’m coming along. Television has clothes. People with clothes need someone who can sew. It’s networking.”

“It is hitching a ride.”

“May I ask you to get into the flight case?”

Phi read rule number six one more time.

“Because you asked, you may.”

Downstairs, Kulani’s van was already waiting. Kulani served as Secretary-General of the United Ghosts, a union for anyone in this world who had to pass for human, and the UNN card had come from her. She eyed the thirty-one-kilogram flight case Manon dragged to the sliding door.

“The viewers have no idea who owns UNN. Everyone who goes on screen has to look human. Ghosts, vampires, you. No exceptions.”

From inside the case, muffled by the foam, came the first question of the day.

“Which humans?”