Green said nothing, thinking. After a moment he looked at her again. “And Dr. Morgan?”

“What about her?”

“You started this by saying she’s dangerous.”

“Right,” said Kira. “When I figured this out I left, because I didn’t trust her. She’s more likely to enslave humans than work with them.”

“So you didn’t trust Morgan, and you came out to try to find other groups of Partials who’d be more amenable to the idea of coexistence.”

“Exactly.”

Green paused for a long moment. “You’re sure that this process you’re describing works? That it’s really all this simple?”

“I crossed the entire continent looking for the people who built RM—the same ones who built the Partials—and the only thing I learned for sure is that everything they did was part of a plan. That plan has gone horribly, terribly wrong, and the people who made it have all gone crazy or just . . . given up. But the plan is still there, written on our DNA. And it’s all we’ve got.”

“So Partials cure humans and humans cure Partials.” He looked at her. “Where does that leave you?”

Kira took a breath, feeling a shadow of the same despair she’d felt in Morgan’s operating room, convinced that she was useless. “I can’t cure anything,” she said softly. “And I don’t think I expire. I don’t know where that leaves me.”

Green looked up at the sky, the blue growing lighter as the sun rose. “We need to rest, but I don’t want to stop before we get out of Ivie territory.”

“That’s probably wise.”

“We’ll go west, like I said before—maybe there are lakes over there, but if the Ivies have marked a border around this lake, I’m hopeful that means the others are safe.”

Kira felt leery of the idea, but she had to admit that cutting straight west was the fastest route away from their captors. “Maybe west for now,” she said, “but as soon as we’re out of danger, I have to get back to this mission. With or without you.”

He folded up the map, not saying anything. “Do you know where you’re going next?”

“As much as I want to talk to the other factions, I lost everything in that lake,” said Kira, “all my maps, all my notes, everything. I don’t know where any of the other factions are, and even if I did, I don’t know if I can spare the time to walk to where they are. Some of them are weeks away.”

“That’s not an answer to my question,” said Green.