“You’re working with them, too?” she gasps. I press the scalpel slightly harder and she winces. I don’t understand how pain translates to her inert body on the gurney, but she’s scared, and that’s enough.

“Working with who?”

“The Ratel.”

“You’re working with them?” I ask, incredulous.

“N-no!” Her wide eyes dart to Tila’s apparition. “Her.”

“You think Tila was working with them? Tell me!” The anger still pulses through me, a roiling, dangerous thing. Have I ever been this furious?

“I didn’t mean to tell him,” Mia whispers. “I didn’t want to.”

“Tell who what?”

“About Tila. It’s my fault.” She begins to gasp, almost choking in the intensity of her sobs. I feel a twinge of pity for her, for who she used to be, but I squash it down as low as it’ll go. I press the scalpel slightly harder.

“Tila found something out, and I got scared and told him. He’d never have known. All for a steady supply of Verve. I fucking hate myself. I can never escape him. Never escape. Never.” After that she can’t say anything more, sobbing so much that she hiccups. The drug is also taking a stronger hold, the lucidity fading. Her back arches and her eyes roll up in her head.

“Stay with me, Mia!” I shake her. “How did they give you Verve?”

Her eyes half-focus, and she laughs maniacally. “God, you don’t get it, do you? This isn’t a Zealscape. Why do you think you could infect my dream and change things so easily? This is Verve.”

I rock back. If her Zeal has been spiked by Verve in this lounge, that means the Ratel have been there. Fuck. Fuck. Do they know? Are they coming for us, even now, for mine and Nazarin’s bodies, prone and helpless as newborns?

“Why did Tila send me to you, Mia?” I ask again. “Did Tila tell you anything? I need to know. If you care even a little for us, please, please tell me, or we’re both good as dead.”

“She found the link,” the figure of Tila says, twisting her torso back and forth, child-like, the green sequins on her dress twinkling. “The link that no one is to know. He is the red one, the fair one, the handsome one. From Earth, and now he goes back to the Earth. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Changing faces like kaleidoscopes.” My false sister laughs, high and insane. It’s almost exactly what Sal said Tila said in Zenith, just after he found her with Vuk’s body.