“It’s only the second job I’ve ever had,” Ava said. “My boss, Tricia, always said that we were a family. I should have realized she meant that I would have to put up with constant bullshit.”

Uzmala nodded, though she winced as she did, and put a hand up to her bandaged shoulder. “Was my tool bag in the closet? Fetch it for me, will you?”

Ava did, laying it gently on Uzmala’s lap. “Give me that thing,” Uzmala said, holding her free hand out for the FINNA. After a brief hesitation, Ava did so.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like you have nothing really holding you here. And one compelling reason to leave,” Uzmala said, popping the back of the FINNA open. “Not to mention a good vehicle out. This thing is old, but hardy.”

“You would know, right?” Ava said weakly. “Being old and hardy yourself?”

There was a hint of steel in Uzmala’s eyes as the woman looked at her, unimpressed. Ava shrank back in her chair.

“Anyway,” Uzmala said. “What’s holding you back?”

“You mean besides the monsters that nearly ate us?” Ava shot back.

Uzmala fished a thin, copper-and-steel screwdriver out of her tool bag. “Every world has its monsters. I’ve been watching the news, and yours is no exception. What’s the real reason?”

Ava shut her eyes. She didn’t want to say it; saying it made it real, instead of just a nebulous, nightmarish fear inside her head. Then she thought of the two lines in an unfinished letter, and all the things that she and Jules might never say to each other.

“What if I tell the FINNA to find Jules,” she said slowly, quietly. “And it says they’re … indisposed? Like Ursula was?”

The look that Uzmala gave her this time was longer, softer, and more thoughtful.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Ava said, “I’m glad that you and Farah are doing okay, but I don’t want an appropriate replacement for Jules.”

“Even if the alternative is never to see them again?” There was no judgment in the question, just a soft understanding. Ava remembered Nouresh’s sad smile, back at the Anahita’s bazaar, when Ava asked the captain if she had a family. Not anymore.

But this wasn’t the same, was it? She didn’t know if Jules was dead. They were Schrödinger’s Cat at this point, alive and dead and all points in between until Ava made a choice to find out. And if they were alive? What then? It was hard to articulate what Ava wanted, even to herself. She didn’t want to find Jules and run straight back into their arms. But she’d felt something new growing between them, something fragile but important. And she wanted to protect that, nourish it, and see it mature.