Thora tilts her head back against the wall. “I don’t know why I thought it would work. It’s literally the same thing I tried before, just in a different direction. If we can’t escape by walking out of the city, why did I think we could escape by making it to the stars?”

Santi hears the bitterness of failure in her voice. Even though he feels it too, he doesn’t want her to blame herself. “We don’t know for sure it wouldn’t have worked,” he points out. “We fell before we actually made it.”

She snorts. “Santi, we can’t catch a train to Düsseldorf. How do you suggest we try and leave the planet? Build a very large ladder?” Her face changes, as if her words have struck against something in her memory. She clutches his arm. “Unless.”

“Unless?”

Thora looks at him, her face alight. “You think everything in here means something. Stands for something.”

“I did,” he admits. His own use of the past tense jolts him. Is he really letting go of his long-held conviction? How could all of this be meaningless, after everything they’ve been through?

Thora’s fingers tighten on his arm. “Here, in the city. What stands for the stars?”

Santi thinks about what the stars mean to him. Elsewhere; transcendence; the hope of discovery, of revelation. “The cathedral?” Thora shakes her head. “The university? The top of the clock tower?”

Thora’s face screws up in amusement. “You’re really overthinking this.”

In a rush, he understands. How could he not have seen it before? “The planetarium.”

A laugh escapes her, bright and joyous: a Thora he hasn’t seen for lifetimes. In seconds, she’s out of bed and on her feet. “Come on then,” she says, pulling on her jeans. “What are we waiting for?”

He dresses quickly. As he follows her to the door, a wave of weakness runs through him. He catches himself on the wall.

Thora frowns. “What’s wrong?”

“The usual,” Santi says with effort. He pinches his forehead until it passes.

Thora bites her lip. “Maybe you need to cut back on the coffee.”

He smiles. They both know his dizziness has nothing to do with what he drinks, any more than food can satisfy Thora’s hunger. She gives him a look of pained understanding. “Let’s go,” she says, taking his arm.

It’s Monday: the Odysseum is closed. The doors are chained shut, held by a simple padlock.

“This is where my skills come in handy,” Santi says, unfolding his knife, as Thora picks up a rock and hurls it at the glass.

Santi braces for a siren that doesn’t sound. “No alarm,” he observes as he ducks through the shattered door.

“Who would break into a children’s museum?” Thora asks, boots crunching on broken glass.

As Santi follows her past the ticket booths, his vision blurs. He stops, rubbing his eyes.