Killian.

Elena scrunched up her nose when she could not think of an answer to something. I had seen her do it countless times in class, too often for my liking, and several times when she tried to argue with me. She was doing it now, pacing around my living room, looking back and forth between different shades of brown, trying to decide which color to use to color her dove's claws.

“This color, or this color?” she held up the colored pencils in front of her face. I lifted my eyebrows and put down the pen I was using to grade my students’ assignments.

“You should be doing your...