“Don’t tempt me, Ashley,” said Edd, not backing down. “Because ending life on Earth might be one way to prevent a correction . . . but ending you would be the easier option.”

That just made me smile with defiance. “You’re bluffing,” I said. “You already told me you can’t kill me. It’s not in your nature.”

“That’s true,” Edd said. “But there are eight billion of your own kind out there . . . and it’s certainly in their nature.”

Do you know what it’s like to be manipulated and toyed with? To be given half-truths and outright lies by those who you thought had your best interests at heart, but turned out not to have hearts at all? I was furious at Teddy for deceiving me. And yet as angry as I was, I had to concede that, in a choice between killing the termites or demolishing the house, you kill the termites—and when it comes down to it, that’s all we are as far as the Earth is concerned. I felt crushed by Teddy’s vote of no confidence. He tricked me because he had no faith in me. So how could I have faith in myself?

I stormed out of the old church. I was done with them. But before I got to my car, Ed came after me.

“Ashley, listen to me,” he said.

“Why should I listen to anything any of you say?”

“Because we’ve been through this before. We know how this goes down. The others are either ready to give up, or have lost interest in you and your world, but I think there’s something here worth preserving, if you can bring things back to your starting point.”

“Fine,” I told him. “I’m listening.”

He took a deep breath and looked back toward the old church, to make sure the others hadn’t followed him out, then returned his gaze to me. “This far along, the ultimate sacrifice might be called for.”

“I already know that.”

“I don’t think you do,” Ed said. “You have to be willing to not just die, Ashley, but to not exist. Your self-negation may be the only thing that stops the correction and brings back the world you knew.”

“Why would the universe even care?”

“All I know is that sacrifice is a powerful act. It resonates through all possible yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows.”

But I also knew that sacrifice can be pointless if nobody’s watching. If nobody cares. How could I trust that anyone would, when something deadly was lurking out there, ready to swallow all there is to swallow?

“So one last jump . . . in which I offer myself up as a sacrifice to the multiverse.”

Ed nodded.

“And how will I know when we’re getting close to the correction?”

“The world will lose coherence,” Ed said. “Things will . . . fall apart.”

“How?”