She turned as she spoke, addressing the whole of Magenta’s palace instead.

“They didn’t make you. Their accident formed your body decades ago, and their injection changed it, but after? Our bodies are biology, but we’re minds, too. If we were only our organs, Yaya wouldn’t have been depressed. We wouldn’t carry the past around. We’re creatures of stardust and that’s fact. Your unique DNA let this happen because there’s no one in the world who’s exactly like anyone else.” Her fingers slid alongside another syringe. “You crossed death to find me. You murdered a city. Not them. You.”

Air swept through the palace as Magenta’s skin swelled. “I taste you. I want to kiss you.”

Muscle descended from the ceiling, but it didn’t wear Yaya’s face. Black horns curled from its front, above an eyeless nub and enormous teeth. She was much like Magenta had appeared in Doc’s bathtub, only one hundred times the size and writhing with her own slender limbs. The air crackled around her,

almost the same storm as when Doc would touch her in bed.

Almost. The air tasted of others, too. Yaya was here. The chimeras who’d been confined to the skyscraper. Newark’s population.

And Camille, the girl from Kentucky. Her dragon breathed fire through Magenta’s blood. Magenta had become a nest of minds. She thought, therefore they were, each and every one making up pieces of the whole’s influence, the sum of universal parts.

Doc, too, if she remained in this palace. “I’m sorry,” she said, drawing the syringe from the case.

“Tell us why,” Magenta said.

“For what I had to do in Kentucky. For what I have to do now.” Doc raised the syringe.

“She’s still here, Doc. She forgives you.”

Doc wasn’t supposed to be listening. There was no one else left in the city to end this. She didn’t have a choice.

Magenta’s voice thrummed through the floor. “My us understands you.

Why don’t you understand our me? Why don’t you understand yourself? Let the stones roll off your mind and see with a clear head.”

“I don’t have stones,” Doc said.

“You do. You’re buried in a cairn, but you’re not dead. You can still crawl out.” This time, the voice didn’t sound like deep Magenta. She sounded like Yaya. “Come to us again.”