“I’m actually not dying; you were right about the nanomachines, they’re repairing me—but wait, if you thought I was dying what the hell were you doing? Talk about throwing your life away—”

“Explain why you’re not dying,” Indigo said.

“The nanomachines aren’t killing me. They’re repairing me; they got rid of the implant, they closed up my throat after Benny.” I made a slicing gesture to demonstrate and something weird happened to Indigo’s expression; he turned his back on me, pacing into the dark of the room we’d retreated to, taking his light with him. “I don’t know what’ll happen when I run out of them, but I’m fine now.”

I could not tell Indigo’s thoughts from his silhouette. That was the thing, though, wasn’t it? I’d never been able to tell what Indigo was thinking, not really. If I had, maybe I would’ve realized who he was far earlier. I didn’t know how the murderer of my people could have hidden himself from me so long. Surely I should have known him on sight, seen him marked, like Cain.

Indigo’s voice was as calm as usual when he spoke again, no sign of whatever thoughts I couldn’t read. “I assume you came here with a plan.”

I took in a breath. I hadn’t told anyone my reason for coming here instead of leaving on the Viper, not even Lantern-Eyes. Honestly, I hadn’t even said it to myself because I was a little worried that the stupidity of my plan might be more obvious when spoken aloud.

Lieutenant Gupta would have tried to stop me, if she’d known. But Indigo had defended me, taken us both away from his own people, and now stood beside me alone.

So I told him the truth: “I’m going to get the data for both the Republic and the Ministers.”

“Both?” he repeated.

You can’t help everyone, Benny had said. You have to pick a goddamn side.

The thing about the Philosopher Stone, I’d realized, kneeling in my own blood while nanomachines repaired the wound Benny had given me, was that everyone wanted it independently. Tamara Gupta’s reasons for needing the Stone didn’t preclude Indigo from getting the Stone, and vice versa. The Republic could still defend themselves with the data if the Ministers used the data to heal themselves. The Ministers could still heal themselves with the data if the Republic used the data as a guard against them. Win-win. The only reason each side didn’t want the other to get the data too was spite.

I have to pick a side? I can’t help everyone? Watch me, Benny. “Yeah,” I said. “Both.”

“Number One was my second teacher,” Indigo said. “I watched my first teacher die before I reached my first century in age. One day I found her staring out the window at the Marian sun, and her eyes and gums were bleeding. She was alive but she was not moving, the blood seeping out of her. She’d lost the ability to speak a week before she began bleeding. At about the same time she’d developed difficulty swallowing. A few months before, she’d lost the ability to sleep. She lost her sanity before she lost consciousness.