I look up and see her watching me carefully, fingers fiddling with the end of one of her pink braids. She has a sprinkle of freckles across her nose and gray eyes that seem to notice more than most people’s do.

“But I didn’t take the pill or drink from that fountain or whatever it is I’m supposed to do to make the pain stop,” I say. Not that I’m regretting my choice. If they shot me for trying to escape, what would they have done if I’d stayed?

Theo tilts his head back, offering me half his face. “Neither did any of us. That’s why we’re still here. Those pills shut down your consciousness and turn whatever’s left of you into a mindless drone. They make you a servant to the Rezzies.”

“The what?” I ask.

“The resident virus controlling this place. The AIs.” Theo waves his hand toward the window. “The ones who took over Infinity.”

“Are you telling me those people chasing us were part of a program?” My mouth hangs open, and I feel like I want to vomit.

“They’re an artificially intelligent consciousness,” Ahmet corrects from the front seat. “There’s a difference.”

Shura leans closer to me and whispers, “They basically hacked into the afterlife.”

“How the hell does an AI hack into the afterlife?” I ask, feeling the scratch in my throat.

“We don’t know, exactly. Most of the humans who existed before she got here were wiped out during the First War,” Theo says.

“She?” I repeat.

“Do they still have Ophelia in the year you died?” Ahmet doesn’t take his eyes off the watery path in front of him.

The name makes my chest tighten.

No. It’s impossible.…

My fingers press against my wrist—a habit I’ve yet to break.

Shura notices. “They only had the phones when I was alive. It seems so ridiculous now, to think there was ever a time when Queen Ophelia was a servant to us.”

I think about all the conversations I had with Ophelia in my room, asking her for life advice and sharing secrets with her like she was a friend.

A friend. A villain. A queen.

I shake my head, not wanting to believe it. “This can’t be real.”

Theo’s laughter is muffled. “Just wait until we tell you about the four princes and their seriously messed-up courts.”

Maybe this is hell. Maybe I was a total jerk in real life and never fully realized it. Maybe I’m being punished for not going to church with Nana, and now I’m living out some bizarre nightmare as a way to teach me a lesson before I can “move on to the other side.”