“Not the ship.” He takes in a shuddering breath. “Your compartment. The fire—it started to melt the wires that control the outflow valve. It got stuck half-open. Air was leaking out.”

Thora inhales, each breath feeling like it escapes through a hole in her. She’s back in the Odysseum, looking up at an empty spacesuit, at her distorted seven-year-old reflection in the visor. She hears Mr. López’s reassuring voice. If it was a small hole, the suit would decompress slowly. You’d just run out of air and fall asleep. On the beach, after the chime and the smell of smoke faded, she felt light-headed, as if she had been holding her breath. “Okay,” she says. “But Peregrine obviously fixed it before.”

Santi looks at her in anguish. “Because he’d stopped the fire. If he let the fire keep burning long enough to wake us—”

“The valve would stay open longer. I could suffocate before we wake up.” Thora hears the echo of her own voice, as if she is listening to this conversation from somewhere far away. “What are my chances?”

“Six percent,” Santi says. “So we’re not—”

She talks over him. “What about you? What’s the chance you’d survive?” He bites his lip, looking away. “Come on,” Thora says. “If it was low, you’d just tell me.”

He gives her a grimace of a smile. “Ninety-two percent.”

Their lives, reduced to two numbers. Thora bows her head, thinking about the numbers that make up this whole world: the trees, the parakeets, Santi’s murals. A calculation, a gamble. An equation with one solution.

“Can you make him do it?” She sees what he’s about to say and holds up a hand, forestalling him. “I’m not asking right now if you’re willing to. I’m asking if you’re able.”

“He would do it, if I asked. But we both—we’d both need—”

“We both have to agree,” Thora says, feeling light and heavy at the same time. “Of course.” For an instant, she’s angry, so angry she could set the world on fire. Then she laughs, surprising herself as much as Santi. He is looking at her, stricken. “What, you don’t see how funny this is?” She laughs again, throwing her head back to the starry ceiling. “It’s enough to make you believe in a plan.”

“We’re not doing it,” Santi says.

Thora blinks at him. “I’m sorry. Who’s in command again?”

“That doesn’t mean anything. You can’t order me to let you die.”

Thora crosses her arms. “Go on, then. What’s your alternative?”

Santi’s mouth opens. “We stay. We—take our time, we find a safe way for us both to get out.”