She’d started to offer me a hand, but now she hesitates, and something like hurt flickers across her face. “Is it really that hard to believe? I wouldn’t abandon you here.”

Briefly I wonder if the other me would have been so surprised. “How long will my memory stay this time?”

“Forever. I gave you the permanent antidote.”

Strange that I feel a sense of loss at her words. It’s almost as if I’d lost a friend. Well, that’s another thing I can mull over when I’m no longer in a dungeon full of Amparan soldiers.

She hands me a dagger. “We need to go.”

“What’s out there?” I ask.

“Most of the guards are asleep. One’s dead.”

“You killed him?”

“Snakebite.” She doesn’t look at me.

I head for the door, then stop. “Wait, there’s Tus. We have to go get him.”

She’s silent for a moment. “Other guards will be coming soon,” she says. But she says this as a warning, not an argument.

The walls press in on me as we go. I grit my teeth and try not to think about suffocating as I run from door to door, peering in the small windows. Finally I see Tus, almost unrecognizable with his hair matted and the rest of him covered in filth. Zivah hands me a key.

At the sound of the door opening, Tus snaps awake. He shrinks away from me, almost animallike in the way he moves, and it feels like a dagger to the gut.

“Tus, it’s me. I’m back,” I say in Shidadi. He looks at me, uncomprehending. I take the key and start working on his shackles. “I’m sorry.” I shake my head at how inadequate the words are. “I’m so sorry.” I repeat the words over and over, though the mantra does nothing to absolve my guilt.

Tus’s bloodshot eye darts frantically to Zivah, and then back to me. “This is the healer who took away your memory?”

“Yes, but it’s back now. And I’m getting you out.”

“I can’t,” he says.

“If I can get out, so can you.” I throw his arm over me and haul him up, suppressing a gag at his smell, but he lets out a sharp cry and collapses. He muffles the rest of his moans against his arm.

“Dineas, his leg,” says Zivah. She reaches out to unwrap a dirty bandage from around his calf. If I thought he smelled bad before, what pours out from under the bandage is ten times worse. Zivah gasps, stricken. Even I know what this means.

“It’s badly infected,” Zivah says quietly. “Very badly. Even with the best treatment, in the best of circumstances…”

I drive my fist into the floor. Curse them. Zenagua strike them all. Tears of frustration build behind my eyes.

“Dineas, we can’t take him with us,” Zivah says softly.