I couldn’t see her expression past the wall of her hair. “No,” she said, like I remembered her saying. “I’ll do it myself.”

I was still thirsty, horribly, distractingly thirsty. I took another deep drink from the water glass. The water tasted as weightless and dry as light.

“Let me help you,” I said again, from a dry mouth, but Brigid wasn’t connecting capacitors and resistors anymore. She had a doll head and doll arms and legs that she was wiring all together, and the battery was pulsing like a heartbeat. When she moved her hands—small, child’s hands—her pale fingers were smeared with pulpy red.

Terrible thirst seized me by the throat again, distracting me from the horror under Brigid’s fingertips. I lifted the glass to my mouth for a third time, and for a third time, although I drank, no water slid into my mouth. When I lowered the glass I found it was not full of water, but full of light; I was holding a Minister collar-stone in my hand, glowing faintly.

Under Brigid’s red-stained fingertips, plastic-white limbs took form, a manikin shape brutally rendered in red.

The light in the room had changed from warm gold to chilling silver, as if a cloud had come over the sun. Brigid’s hair concealed her face. I remember pieces of Brigid’s face: the pout on her baby-full cheeks, that her eyes had been blue, like mine. But no matter how I try now I cannot remember how she looked. All I have left of my sister’s face are jumbled, separate pieces I don’t know how to reassemble.

I set the collar-light down on the table beside the crucified cona my sister was building into a manikin-shape, and leaned around to see Brigid’s face, just this one more time. She turned as I bent over. Her hair moved aside, exposing her face.

Blood and bone, cartilage, split skin and brain and teeth—

I woke with a jolt in the dark on the Nameless, shaking, heart pounding, and horribly, horribly thirsty. I’d fallen asleep waiting for pursuit, and in my sleep, I’d dreamt.

Memories lose their vividness, after a while. Like trying to catch a scent off dried flowers. But a dream is always vivid. Sometimes when I dreamt I saw things that had happened, sometimes I saw things that never did. But no matter what I dreamt, it always came back to the same moment in the end.

I found Brigid last of my family, the day the Ministers came. She’d been thrown on the floor, and there was blood leaking out from beneath her head, soaked in her hair. The next thing I remembered was staggering out onto the empty street, and my hands were red. Even in dreams, I couldn’t clearly remember what I saw.

I’ve forgotten my sister’s face. Not just as she looked when she was alive, but how she looked after she had died.

I was gasping on the floor of the Nameless, heavy chest-shaking sobs. The air scraped my throat painfully. I shut my jaw and swallowed, and swallowing hurt just as badly. There was very little spit in my mouth, not nearly enough to moisten my throat.