What Anya expects after her and Damian 's morning with Mr. Henderson is smooth sailing for the rest of the semester. What she expects is a chorus of constant praise, daily ritual worship, frequent references to her quick thinking and flawless wit. While she knows better than to expect Damian to voice any of it out loud 'after four years, she 's more than aware that he 's stingy with compliments 'she at least expects her occasional blips into his mind to be pleasant.

But what she gets instead is a distant, more-aloof-than-usual Damian. She tries not to read his mind 'not that she has much control over it 'but even when it happens, there isn 't much to see. There 's usually a vague sense of unease coupled with a few questions floating around, which, without context, are hard to decipher. They seem vaguely related to her.