Félicette meows and rubs up against her ankle. Thora leans down absently to pet her, using her free hand to sort through the uncharacteristic mess on the table. A copy of The Last Days of Socrates, annotated in Santi’s neat hand. Sketches for murals in his usual dreamlike style. Other papers, less familiar: diagrams, schematics, logical flowcharts. Visual aids for his attempts to argue with Peregrine.

She looks up at him as he deposits the tea in front of her. “Nice place,” she says. “Anyone would think you actually lived here.”

Santi sits down. “I’ve been here seven years,” he reminds her. “Did you think I’d be sleeping in the gutter just to prove a point?”

“I didn’t think you’d be sleeping at all. I thought you’d be spending every second trying to find a way out.” She stares at him accusingly. “All this talk about waiting for me, about how you’re so sure we’ll figure it out now I’m here. It’s just another way of saying you’ve given up.”

“I haven’t given up,” he protests.

Thora points at Félicette. “You have a cat. Universal symbol for I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’m still trying.” Santi holds up a bundle of drawings and ideas. “I’ve been trying, all this time. I just don’t think we’re going to come up with a solution by constantly staring our deaths in the face.” Thora looks away. He taps her hand gently. “Remember the times we were scientists? The answer wouldn’t always come when we were looking for it. It would come in the gaps, when we were busy doing something else.”

“We’re not for anything else.” Thora gestures at the flat, at Félicette, at his mother’s crochet blanket, so familiar she could remake it from scratch. “We left all this behind, Santi. Everything we knew. Everyone who loved us. Because we cared about being explorers, about touching the unknown, more than we cared about anything else. Maybe that’s selfish, but it’s who we are. It’s what we did. We can’t run away from that.”

“You’re right,” he says. “But there’s another way of looking at it.” He sorts through the papers until he finds the drawing he’s looking for. He turns it toward Thora. It shows the two of them tied back-to-back blindfolded, their hands and feet bound. But where a bright light casts their shadows, they are free, and they run.