Blithe was lying on his bed in a floral robe, looking up at the constellations of stains on the ceiling. I wanted to whisper to Aiden, Shit, is he de-transitioning? but I didn’t want Blithe to hear.

The files did not prepare me for Blithe’s actual face. His pained eyes reminded me of floating through time without hope. His hair was fine and light brown, reaching the top of his shoulders. I realized that he would have been one of those effortless and pretty girls.

Would it have been hard to give that up?

“You know, you three could almost be confused for triplets,” Rita said, chuckling with the earth-worn detachment of a farmer.

The three of us were short, with prettily handsome faces and decent builds, although Aiden was definitely the most muscular. And Aiden and I were white, him in an All-American earnest way and me in a cozy, nonthreatening Jewish way. Blithe was Chinese and Californian. I could see him on a rooftop in L.A., wearing the floral robe, dancing in that club-kid way with hands gesticulating as if he were on molly.

“Hi, I’m Pen, and this is Aiden. We were sent by the Rhiz,” I said slowly, leaving out the part about how we had hexed him in the first place.

“You,” he said without turning his head. “You,” he repeated, in a conversational way, as if we understood.

“We’re here to help,” Aiden tried.

“You.”

“Okay, Blithe,” Rita said. “It’s almost time for you to leave the Resting Place.”

She turned to us. “So you both know, he has started shifting linguistic parameters, which is completely normal for someone in distress. Think of it as him regressing in order to evolve. He’s really moving forward, but it might look like he’s moving backward.” She put a hand on his shoulder, right on top of a fat flower.

“We’re going to take you back to Aiden’s in L.A.,” I told him.

In principle, we could have gone anywhere and charged a hotel room to the Rhiz, but an article in a zine (“How to Guide a Loved One Through the Shadowlands: Logistics”) left on our motel bed had clearly stated that intimate spaces were better than sterile ones. It also recommended simplicity: “For further reading, see the archive’s file on PL and JH, who tried to bring RF to PL’s family house in the Maldives to recuperate and the logistical, political, and judiciary issues that ensued given RF’s fragile condition.” Returning to L.A. was the easiest plan.

“No wallpaper.” Blithe was shaking his head left to right, clearly agitated.

“Where would you like us to take you?”

“No wallpaper.”

“Okay, plan B,” I whispered to Aiden.