Sheena and Felicity had closed their eyes, a happy look on their faces that matched the joy in his own chest. His blood pumping, running up his arms, sent a warmth spreading through his head. With the warmth came the knowledge that this was the way it should be. That, from here on out, it would always be like this.

Nothing in Felix’s life had ever felt this wonderful, not even the boat ride. He, Sheena, and Felicity—all the children—they’d be blissful. Fulfilled. One and all.

An electric pulse flowed through him, sent a jolt of physical pleasure like he’d never known through his body. The magical tingle burst through his hips, up his spine, and down to the souls of his feet. He stiffened, gasped for breath, heart pounding as waves of delight rolled through his body.

At the same time, Sheena and Felicity tensed, gasped in delighted response. He could see the surprise in their eyes, and Sheena even blushed pink in her neck.

Talk about zambo!

He had no clue how long they stood there, hands clasped in harmonic bliss. He shared Sheena’s pulse, the excitement trembling up her spine, and Felicity’s electric joy as she took each quivering breath.

In that moment, he suddenly understood the Song: We are one.

Like they were seeping into him as he was seeping right back into them.

Time to go.

Breaking contact caused him to almost cry out.

Sheena was blinking, stared at him as if she’d lost something precious. Felicity reached up, traced the line of his cheek with a blood-darkened green finger. All of their hands had turned a bright blue-green.

“Come on,” Sheena told him in her I’m-impatient voice. “We have to let our friends out.”

And with a frown, Felix understood that yes, they did. The Song said so. Nothing would be right until all of the friends were out. Only then could any of this make sense. Everything was a big question. All that mattered was solving the problem, making sense of the Pod, of the Voice, and the people.

“Soon” Felix told them. He started down the hall and slowed enough to glance into the clinic. Surrounded by broken glass, Anna Gabarron lay on her stomach. Some kind of small ax had been buried in the small of her back. The woman’s hand was stretched out, as if asking for something, the fingers curled in a questing gesture. Her normally hard dark eyes were vacant, oddly dull. The lips were bent, crooked where they’d been pulled across the floor, and a pool of blood was still spreading from a gaping cut under the angle of the jaw.

Neck: Blood vessels, windpipe, spinal cord. Vulnerable and vital.

A bloody scalpel lay discarded in the pooled blood.

Funny, wasn’t it? How fragile a human body was?