“Julie has a lot less at stake.” For the first time since we’d met, Daniel moved in on me. I stiffened my arms to shove him off, but my strength was spent. He drew me against his chest, wrapped himself around me like a garment, and held me tight. “Lizzy, Lizzy . . . I have so much explaining to do.”

That did it. I burst into tears. Then sobs. Then wails.

More hours or weeks later, when I’d drenched his T-shirt and he was still murmuring mindless comfort in my ear, I finally ran dry and struggled up away from him. He smelled of soap and clean fabric. Somewhere between the last of the Macys and now, he’d grabbed a wash and a change of clothing, luxuries I hadn’t seen in what felt like days. How could he stand to be near me?

“Tell me how it happened,” he said.

Like he must have known, it was oddly calming to tell Rubio’s story, what I knew of it, even though I suspected he’d heard most of it from Rousseau already. By the time I was done, I was sitting up on my own, breathing more evenly, hiccupping now and then but talking like a sane person. Daniel’s steadiness had helped me find some distance.

“Maybe he knew he was at the end,” I mused. “Decided to go out in glory.”

“Could be. Wish I’d got to know him better.”

“He wasn’t always easy to know.”

“I get that. After all, I’ve lived half a lifetime with Hannah Nathan.” Daniel straightened his legs along the floor, working out the kinks. “Exceptional minds in a world not up to their standards. It’s hard on them. But he did a great thing for the dens.”

“You see it that way?”

“Absolutely. Yanked everyone out of their slump. Got them talking for a change.”

“I think the raids had something to do with it.”

The activity in the corridor had thinned a bit, but loads and people were still coming and going, detouring around us as we sat against the wall, like boulders breaking the flow of a river. I took some comfort that, in the end, Rubio’s legacy would be a positive one. But first, we had to get ourselves and all our worldly goods to the stadium in one piece.

I pressed my back against the wall’s granite wainscoting, feeling flat-lined and worn to the core. I looked up, studied Daniel’s profile. The pensive, downcast brow. The crop of his dark hair. The smooth plane of his jaw. He’d even shaved. All conflicts and disagreements aside, I would really miss him. “And now, you’re leaving.”

After a moment, he nodded. “That is the plan.”

“Hannah’s?”

“Hannah’s, mine, Julian’s. Handwriting’s been on the wall for a while now.”