And yet, standing in the moonlight, her face was once more that of the frightened little girl Sam had first encountered. She was still in there somewhere.

With every minute that passed, Sam was feeling more himself. He was still very, very tired. But his head was clear and he could think again. Whatever Nemo had injected him with, it was working. He decided it would be a mistake to show Ghost that the parasite’s control had been broken, so he continued to sit with his head bowed as he quietly tested his Legacies. He first tried to see if he could levitate the chair at all. He succeeded in lifting it a quarter of an inch, then set it back down. The effort exhausted him, but at least he knew he could do it.

“I know how you feel,” he said, keeping his words mumbled.

Ghost turned her face to him. Her cheeks were wet with tears. “What do you mean?”

“I know what it’s like to feel like you don’t belong anywhere,” Sam said slowly. “Remember, I was one of the first humans to develop a Legacy. I had no idea what that made me, or what it meant.”

“But you had Six and Nine and the others,” Ghost said.

“And you have them, too,” said Sam. “And Nemo and Max. They understand you better than anybody.”

Ghost didn’t respond. She looked away. Sam wondered what the Mogs had done to make her so loyal to them, to make her feel like they cared more about her than her real friends did. He wondered if she was beyond saving, if the girl he’d caught a glimpse of earlier was too far gone to come back.

He tried using his telekinesis to work the locking mechanism on the handcuffs. He pushed the pins with his mind, sliding them in different directions until he felt them open up. Carefully, so as not to alert Ghost to what he was doing, he slid a hand free, then used it to pull the cuff from the other wrist. His arms ached from being in the same position for so long, but he forced himself to keep them there so that it looked like he was still attached to the chair.

“You know you’re always welcome at the Academy,” he said, trying to keep Ghost talking.

Ghost made a sound halfway between a laugh and a cry. “They don’t want me,” she said. “It’s too late for that.”

She walked a few steps, until she was standing on the edge of the roof, the tips of her boots hanging over the edge. Seeing her there made Sam’s heart beat faster and his palms sweat. He wanted to call her back, but resisted the impulse.

“I wonder what would happen if I fell,” Ghost said, seeming to speak to herself as much as to him. “Would I be able to let myself fall all the way? Or would my Legacy kick in at the last second and teleport me somewhere safe?”