Marcus wore an oversized sweater one of the jokers had given him to replace his tattered, blood- and filth-smeared shirt. Nurassyl had healed Marcus as well, much against his protests. Marcus had refused treatment at first, a sort of punishment to himself. But Nurassyl was insistent, in his quiet, gentle way.

Now, Marcus watched Olena breathe, following each slow rise and fall of her chest. He could almost see the air flowing in and out of her thin lips. She looked marvelously peaceful, but his mind reeled. She looked calm—and Nurassyl’s power had obviously saved her from his poison—but had the boy been able to save her mind? Was she still Olena? If so, would she understand why he’d done what he did? Would she even wake up sane? For all he knew, she might still be that bloody-faced, raging, barely recognizable terror. And if she was all right, what then?

Jyrgal’s wife, Aliya, made Marcus a pot of tea and set it on a table beside him, with some small, sweet-looking cakes. She was a quiet woman, a nat, it seemed like, slim and plain and, Marcus thought, perfectly lovely. Of course she was. Wife to Jyrgal and mother to Nurassyl; how could she not be a lovely person? Marcus was famished, but it was a dull hunger and he didn’t yet want to feed it.

Alone after Aliya left, Marcus wondered if he should try praying. He hadn’t done that since back in his old life, when he was still a nat and his family loved him—or claimed to. He let the only prayer he knew by heart start to form in his mind. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name … That’s as far as he went with it. The words didn’t feel right anymore. It was a prayer from his old life, and that had never felt farther away or completely unattainable. It was a life that had nothing to do with him anymore. Why pray to a god who allowed the things that happened last night? Who had allowed the wild card virus? Who never once proved that he gave a crap about the people he was supposed to have created in his image?

Marcus whispered, “Do you hate us so much?”

Father Squid would’ve said just the opposite. Marcus couldn’t understand how the priest had managed to find God after all the misery he’d seen. He’d been able to pray, to believe, to love, even in the midst of Jokertown’s squalor. He always said that God loved jokers most of all. Those challenged by the virus had a harder lot in life, but they’d be rewarded for it in heaven. Marcus thought that maybe he could pray to that God. He bent his head, closed his eyes, and started again.