‘I know,’ he says softly, because of course he knows. Because he is made of my memories and dreams, and nothing more. Even so, I still find myself breathing a heavy sigh. Apologising.

‘I am sorry,’ I tell him. ‘Truly.’

My father looks at me. He puts his hand on my arm, though it should be impossible. His image flickers.

‘I am not,’ he says, and his voice is flickering too. Distorted. ‘Some things need to die, Ahri. They have to, to ensure the future.’

He looks back at Sofika.

‘And some things don’t.’

I don’t blink or look away, but I miss the moment he vanishes, anyway. Some of the candles go out with him, so I set about relighting them one at a time. It takes a long time with the cane, and the injuries, and how shallow my breathing still is. When it is done, I lower myself slowly into a sitting position in front of Sofika’s machine. Cross-legged, like when I would sit and watch the dawnrise. Like when we would sit and watch the stars.

Evangeline

EVANGELINE

The hospitaller’s ward is a ruin.

Over half of the antechambers are locked down, or sealed behind closed bulkheads. Some are guarded. Those that are still in service are crowded with the wounded and the dying. With those who cannot stop weeping, or pulling at their hair. Sisters Hospitaller pace to and fro unceasingly, healing and soothing. Giving mercy.

‘There are so many,’ Ashava says, looking out across the chamber.

I do the same, but I cannot see Eugenia. I do see a familiar figure, though. One clad in hospitaller’s robes, her long hair bound up with a series of rings. I pick my way through to Sister Lourette with Ashava at my side. The Sister Hospitaller’s gloves and smock are slick with blood. Her face and hair are dashed with it as though she has been anointed. When I speak her name over the noise and she looks up, I see that her pale eyes are circled with shadows.

‘Evangeline,’ she says, and she smiles as you might at the dawn. With relief.

‘I am looking for Sister Eugenia. She was wounded during the incursions,’ I say.

She was wounded to spare me, I think.

Lourette nods, removing her bloodied plastek gloves with a snap. ‘Come with me,’ she says.

As Ashava and I follow Lourette through the chamber, I notice a change in the people around us. A quiet that spreads like fire does, tracking quickly through the chamber in the wake of our passing. And then, a moment later, a chorus of whispers.

‘Evangeline,’ they say. ‘Evangeline.’

Ashava’s limping pace slows, and she looks around the chamber. ‘They speak your name,’ she says, as if I cannot hear it.

I do not slow my pace. I do not look around. I cannot bear to.

‘I know,’ I say.