After Hennessy had first dreamt June, the second copy, she had padded down the hallway of her father’s new suburban hole in the middle of the night, dragging her fingers across the wall because her mother had told her leaving oil on flat surfaces was a form of rebellion. Then suddenly she saw herself looming at the end of the hall. Impossible, she thought. I left Jordan in the room, and then she remembered June existed. But this was no comfort, because there should have never been another one after Jordan, and what if June wasn’t a direct copy but rather a monster with Hennessy’s face, and what if there was going to be another copy after her, and another one, and then Hennessy began to scream and scream and scream, and June started to scream and scream and scream, until Hennessy’s father shouted from his room what in Heaven’s name, if she had a problem, come into the master and explain it to him, or quit raising the roof and let everyone sleep, for God’s sake.

That feeling?

That was the Lace.

Sometimes, when Hennessy’s mother, J. H. Hennessy, had still been alive, she’d put a mink brush in her daughter’s hand and instruct her on how to move it over a canvas she’d already started work on. Hennessy would be full of the pride and terror that came from knowing she was making marks on a painting meant for high rollers and fancy shows. For minutes or hours, she and her mother would work in soundless partnership on the canvas, until it was difficult to tell which one of them had made which mark. Then her father, Bill Dower, would come home, and as soon as the door closed behind him, Jay would snap at Hennessy and snatch her brush back with enough force to tip palettes and spatter canvases. Mother, gone. Wife, arrived. Jay was two different people, and the changeover was dramatic. Hennessy, too, changed over, from heart-in-mouth joy to confused shame in a moment.

That feeling?

That was the Lace.

Hennessy had spent a decade torn between loving and resenting her clones, fearing they would leave her, wishing they would stop needing her, and then Jordan had told her they’d all been shot in the fucking face by Moderators and she’d never see them again, so it became a moot point.

That feeling?

That was the Lace.

Huge, unavoidable, inevitable.

Exhausting.

“Hennessy,” said Bryde.

Just like that, the Lace was gone.

When Bryde arrived in her dream, the Lace always vanished. It was afraid of him. A neat trick. Hennessy wanted to know why.

“That’s not important,” Bryde said. “What do you feel?”