“If he’s afraid of losing his time with you, there are way better ways to spend the time he does have.”

“Loneliness can do terrible things to people.”

Jamal wasn’t in any of the rooms on the first floor. Kaylin therefore headed up to the second floor. She tried, twice, to convince Mrs. Erickson that food was more important, but Mrs. Erickson clearly thought Kaylin was just being polite.

They trudged up to the second floor. There were three rooms—a bedroom at either end and a room she referred to as the family room. “But we don’t use it much anymore.” The door was closed, but Mrs. Erickson continued toward the room at the end of the narrow hall that faced the back of the house.

“This used to be my room, when my parents were alive,” she said quietly. “He’s probably in there.”

Kaylin followed the older woman, and waited for her to open the door. The marks of the Chosen were now almost white. Jamal—whatever he was—was here.

Hope lowered his wing, which she hadn’t asked him to do, but he’d probably done it because he realized that his wing was entirely unnecessary.

Kaylin, without Hope’s intervention, could see Jamal clearly.

Jamal didn’t look like Amaldi or Darreno, neither of whom she could see without Hope’s wing. Something about him was familiar, though; she couldn’t place what immediately.

“Corporal?” Mrs. Erickson’s anxious voice came from behind.

“Call me Kaylin. I’m off duty.” She was certain she’d never seen the child before; was certain that his image hadn’t graced the missing persons files she’d perused over her years as a Hawk, or as a Hawk’s mascot. She was missing something.

She set it aside, for now. “Jamal?”

Jamal’s eyes had widened so much they might have fallen out of their sockets had they not been somehow attached.

“Wait. I just want to have a little chat with you.” Not exactly the most comforting of words, but she realized this only after they’d already left her mouth. “I can see you, just like Mrs. Erickson can.

“She can’t touch you, right? She can’t hurt you.”

This caused him to solidify, his expression folding into lines of anger. “She would never hurt me. She wouldn’t even hurt a spider.” He paused and then added, “Flies don’t count.”

At any other time Kaylin would have laughed. “No. She wouldn’t hurt anyone, given the choice. But you’ve been throwing her things around and scaring any possible visitors she might have, and that should stop.”

Anger compressed into a more familiar sullenness. “She doesn’t need them.”

“Do you know what happened a couple of years ago? You were here when she fell, right?”

Silence. Sullenness gave way to something else—fear? Guilt? Helplessness? They were all mixed together.