“Basically, that you suck. That you screwed everything up. And that it’s too late to fix it.”

Patricia’s posture stiffened and her face grew masklike, too, so it was like she was turning back into a statue. Patricia let out a ragged breath.

“Tell the bird,” she said, “to get in line.”

Roberta woke up.

Chapter 29

29

AFTER THE WORMHOLE generator went up in smoke, Laurence went back to his life. He had the house atop Noe Valley to himself, since Isobel was off doing mysterious errands for Milton. Most of Laurence’s friends had gone to live at Seadonia, an oil rig and cruise ship that Rod Birch had lashed together and turned into an independent nation in the North Pacific. Laurence received cryptic e-mails from burner accounts, telling him exciting things were happening. They were making discoveries. They were concocting plans. “Come to Seadonia,” Anya urged in one e-mail. “We’re still going to save the world.”

Laurence felt as if he’d quit both caffeine and cigarettes. He woke up a few times a night, sweating and even crying. In his fucking sleep. He didn’t have that thing where he forgot for a second how fucked everything was, and then remembered, and then felt his heart break all over again—that would be too easy. Instead, he remembered always. He would feel stricken, doubled over, with grief and misery—and then he would remember how bad it really was and feel worse, as his brain took on a bit more of the weight.

Except sometimes, he read an article or saw a TV report about the latest sign that the world was screwed—a wall of dead babies, piled like stones at the outer boundary of some farmer’s pasture. And he would think, by reflex, Oh, thank goodness we’re building an escape route. And then it would flood back to him, the despair. The one actual good thing he’d done in his life, and it was scrap and ashes. It was more than enough to drive him mad.

Laurence didn’t think of Patricia, except to imagine her listening to the voicemail he’d left her. And laughing at how stupid he was. Maybe playing it for the whole wizard gang, when they were drunk on mystical cocktails together.

The only other time Laurence let himself think of Patricia was when he realized he couldn’t go to Seadonia, or anywhere else. People would ask too many questions about the attack, and it would get weird if Laurence kept refusing to say anything. So not only did Laurence have no girlfriend, he also had no friends, because nobody would ever understand about his vow of silence. Only Laurence had recognized Patricia in Denver, or else he’d be in a lot more trouble.

Other than those two things, Laurence didn’t think about Patricia at all.