Memories of her own transformation, those moments in which her past and the trauma in it fell away like weights from her ankles, flicker in her mind: her departure from the Refugee Intake Facility to the rooming house that held other unaccompanied minors like herself, others who refused to answer the questions about their past that aid workers insisted on asking them; her insistence on speaking English anytime a fellow Nigerian refugee, seeing her tribal scars, tried to converse with her in Hausa or Yoruba; letting her prayer rug collect dust after her first time accompanying Céline to chapel, where Christian refugees from all over Earthland could worship alongside white Alabastrine citizens; taking the medicine prescribed to her by her doctor, medicine that purged her mind of Daren, who had loved her and cared for her and betrayed her, medicine that quieted her mind and helped her focus and kept the nightmares at bay. It had all seemed so easy, remaking herself, as though her course were already set. Why dwell on the horrible things people did to you? Or the horrible things you had done? Who would choose nightmares over freedom from them? Let the bodies stay buried.

No one in Alabast could call Ify a war criminal.

Only on what must be the third or fourth chime does she hear her Whistle. She sees the name flash across the digital retinal display her Whistle calls up before her eyes. She lets out a sigh of relief. Amy.

With her Whistle wirelessly connected to her tablets, she clicks a few buttons on the surface of the closest, and up pops the face of the woman who, over the course of four years, helped raise Ify from the mute, shivering West African refugee she had arrived as into the ninteen-year-old woman she is today. The woman who delivered baked goods to Ify’s dorm, poking her awake whenever she found her asleep at her tiny desk, drooling all over her study materials. The woman who tirelessly coached Ify out of her bush accent and into the proper Colonial English she speaks today.

The display switches from draft to full color, and Amy’s skin turns from holographic blue to the color of old parchment. Gray threads her coarse black hair. Wrinkles line the once-smooth skin by her eyes. But those hazel eyes have that same melting glow they did when Amy first set them on Ify. Like she is always just on the verge of crying.

“Mrs. Reed,” Ify says, instantly at ease.

Amy frowns. “After all this time, Ify, and you still insist on calling me Mrs. Reed. You should know better.” The frown twists into a smile.

“Fine. Dr. Reed.”

Amy’s frown returns, then they both burst into laughter.