You got my name wrong, Mirage whispers. I can feel the effort it takes for him to speak. I grit my teeth, trying to think through the pain that’s still gaining strength. He’s trying to distract me. Trying to distract both of us. The least I can do is let him.

“What?” I manage, the word barely a hiss of breath.

I was thinking about it more, going through all the knowledge I’ve gained from watching the humans, from watching you. And I don’t think Mirage is the best translation of my name. It’s more like … Refraction. The way fog scatters the lightning. The way a prism breaks sunshine apart into a rainbow. How a lens can focus light to make things seem bigger, or smaller, or distorted. That’s me. And that’s a better word for my abilities, too.

I think about the mirrors in the shared dream. The way we all thought the Beings were alien weapons coming through some portal when really they were just pieces of ourselves, bits of our own fears bent and reflected back to us. Or—not reflected. Refracted.

The way fog scatters lightning. The way a lens changes a person’s perception, makes things look bigger, warped, both more and less real.

One minute to impact, Mirage reports quietly, strain fraying the words.

The pain in my hand is burning too high for me to respond now, too high for me to think. I curl up on the floor and try to brace myself. Mirage is shaking violently, screaming across the atmosphere and in my head. Scarlet agony is everywhere.

Then, suddenly, it shifts into a startling mix of emerald and cobalt blue. “Mirage?” I gasp.

The colors swirl in my head, tuck themselves around me. Emerald is worry, I remember. But cobalt—cobalt is pleasure. Mirage is glad. Of what?

The floor is cracking now, violent fissures spreading across it. But even though everything around me is burning up, somehow coolness is centering under my palm, calming the pain there. I can’t heal it, Mirage says softly. I don’t have the energy. But I can minimize it. I can make you strong enough to bear it.

The pain eases. I gulp down a breath, confused but glad. A terrible rending noise snarls through the ship around me, reminding me of the way the earth sounded when the dragon-Being punched through it. Something snaps under my hand. The fiery walls around me grow closer, closer. More of Mirage burning up. We’re almost to the ground now. How long can he cocoon me, before I burn too?

Be well, Mirage says. Tell them I meant no harm.

I squint. “What are you—” I say, and then everything around me vanishes.

I’m standing in front of a window. It’s bordered by ugly gray and pink floral curtains. They frame a view of an overgrown front lawn, and above that, Mirage. Crashing.