Tamara pulled out her little campstove and set it down on the platform in the midst of our rough circle, switching it on at the side. The heating unit began to glow.

“Anyone bring any marshmallows?” I asked, deliberately not looking back to see whether that Child had reappeared, several stairs closer, maybe showing a few more teeth.

“They must have been in my other pack,” Tamara said.

“Wouldn’t work anyway. There’s no open flame on the campstove.” I couldn’t resist glancing back anyway, down the stairs. There was no Child standing there, but there was one lying flat on his belly on one of the steps, his fixed unblinking stare on me, like he thought if he lay very still I might not notice him there, and he could creep a little bit closer and tear out my throat with his excess of teeth.

I turned away. “We should play a camp game,” I said. “Like I Spy. I Spy, with my little eye, a lot of evil Children. No, that’s no fun.”

“There are rather a lot of Children here, lieutenant,” Indigo agreed.

“By all means,” Tamara said. “Do something about it.”

Indigo’s head tilted. “I know you’re looking forward to using me as a human shield, but perhaps you could strain yourself to find a better solution.”

“Do you think I want to climb this hellish staircase?” Tamara snapped. From the corner of my eye, I saw some of the Children retreat, skittish. “This is our only chance of getting across the ship fast enough. Are you going to trust me on that, or not?”

Maybe it was the way she described the staircase, or the expression on her face when she did, but the clues I’d missed before all of a sudden connected themselves in my head.

“You don’t like heights much, do you?” I asked, curious. It seemed antithetical to the lieutenant to have something as illogical as a phobia.

She looked at me with a hard expression: the same expression she’d had when we’d been surrounded by manikins, back when Indigo had been chasing us; certain death, no way out, but she’d lifted her club anyway. Her fear was radiative, palpable, but she wasn’t warped by it. As solid as the hood of a car in the hot sun. You might burn your hand touching it, but the car wasn’t changed at all.

“What’s the alternative?” Lantern-Eyes asked.

“Picking a route is supposed to be your department,” I pointed out, but then another idea struck me. “Hey, Indigo. You were born on this ship, right? Maybe? Do you remember anything you saw from inside your test tube?”

Indigo looked at me. I waited, pinned down by the currents in his dark-water eyes, and then he took in a breath… and said nothing. He stood up and headed for the staircase behind me. I think I’d have preferred if he’d told me off. It was like Quint’s indifference; it just made me feel more alone.