“Earth. It’s alive.” It’s a question, but also not really a question, because I can’t bear to frame it as one. Can’t bear to acknowledge the smallest possibility that I might’ve somehow misunderstood—that it might not be true.

Hope. The thing that seeps, and freezes, and floods, and drowns.

Yes, Mirage confirms. The shard’s crash did some damage to coastal areas but the fatalities were limited, from what I can tell.

I close my eyes and let my real question slip out. “Is my brother alive?”

I’m sorry. I don’t know. I barely have enough power to stay in orbit, to keep everyone alive, with my passengers draining so much of my energy for the shared dream. There’s not been enough power left over to try to contact anyone on the planet below, and it’s too far away for me to scan.

My eyes are burning. I open them, desperate to distract myself—to contain my emotions, to contain the terrible hope.

I look down at my arm. The black veins, they reach almost to my elbow now. My skin is marbled with them. I have no idea how long I have left before the venom finishes me off. Maybe a few hours. Maybe a day. Maybe enough time to take one of the escape pods Mirage mentioned to Earth—just in time to die, screaming in agony, a literal victim of my own fears.

Would it be enough time to find Ty?

London is dead. Elliott said that not twenty minutes ago. I’d been desperate for it to be a lie at the time. But the thing is, after that initial shock, knowing for sure that Ty was gone had also brought an awful sort of relief. It had taken so much energy to make myself believe he was okay. That I could see him again if I just worked hard enough, if I just sold enough mirrors, if I just stayed at the bottom of the mayor’s shit list. I was constantly clawing at the edges of that certainty, as if it were a cliff I had to cling to with all my might. Part of that was because of my OCD—we’re the worst with uncertainty—but part of it was also just me, trying to force myself to believe in something I wanted so badly to be true.

And now I’m back to that old desperation. Now I’m back to maybe. And I hate—I hate—maybe. But I have to cling to it anyway. Because if there’s even the smallest chance I can see Ty again, even if it’s only for a few hours before I die, I have to take it.

Some vast, unnamable feeling spins through me. It surges into my system and then centers in my injured palm, tingling like pins and needles.