“I’ll mix Humility, then.”

“Fine.” I turned my back on him.

“Have you eaten anything?” he asked. I didn’t reply.

When Jes arrived, she took my camera, photographed the model frame, and plugged into her laptop. “Hey—” I tried, but she held up her hand.

“I’ll rig up a model in CAD. It’ll help us calculate the exact quantities of resin to mix,” she said.

“Oh.” It wasn’t a bad idea. “Thank you.”

Jes was mixing the second test batch of translucent silver and acid-green resin while I asked for more and more glitter until she rolled her eyes and dumped half a cup into the sample bucket. We poured it into the mold with buckets, spreading it with wooden panels, brushing it up the sides and checking the levels, the Kermit disco pond settling exactly as it ought to.

Marlin walked over with my silver brush-holder. “This is rad,” she said, affixing one of Carey’s old brushes to it—the dagger, the one with the long bristles. “Look at how much distance.”

“I know,” Tyler said, smiling. She handed it to him and he dipped the brush in the glitter, then swept it across the floor, six feet away. A long, draggy line appeared—exactly the same as the one on the body that had been in YOKEFELLOWS—and then I saw it.

I finally saw everything with the right pair of eyes.

Tyler painted.

Jack made molds.

Marlin shaped bodies.

Jes calculated materials.

“We know each other by our lines,” I whispered. “We know each other by our lines.” I went over to the line of glitter on the floor and ran my finger through it. Tyler stopped and watched me, struck silent.

“We know each other by our lines,” I said again, this time nice and loud. Marlin looked over, and then Jes—and then Jack. I said it again. “We know each other by our lines.”

They stared at me like I had lost my mind. I’d never been so clear about anything.

“We know each other by our lines,” I enunciated, pointing to one of them with each word. “I was so impressed. What a crock,” I spat.

“What are you talking about?” Jes asked—what a faker—in a voice so feeble I didn’t know why she bothered. Tyler stood on the other side of Purity, petrified with dread. I took my fingertip of glitter and wiped it across his cheek. His green eyes looked into my clear ones, fear pulsing from his pupils, and then—I knew that I was right.

“You did it,” I said. “You made Carey’s work.”

They looked at each other—one to another and back again—and transformed from a solid, impenetrable foursome to a pile of broken glass. They fell apart in front of my eyes. What had once been a great wall was now a group of ragged people.