She was breathing hard, hoarsely, one hand on her chest, like she was trying not to pass out or throw up. Her gaze darted around the room.

“It’s all right now, Alice,” he said softly. “It’s not your fault.”

That seemed to revive her. Alice slapped her palms down on the table. Her expression was angry again.

“It is my fault!” She shrieked it at him, as if he were trying to take away her most precious possession. “I killed him, me! I did that! No one else!”

She put her head down on her arms. Her shoulders were tense.

“I hated him. But I hated everyone. And more than anyone I hated you, Quentin. Hate isn’t like love, it doesn’t end. It goes on forever. You can never get to the bottom of it. And it’s so pure, so unconditional! Do you know what I see when I look at you? I see dull, stupid, ugly creatures full of emotional garbage. Your feelings are corrupt and contaminated, and half the time you don’t even know what you’re feeling. You’re too stupid and too numb. You love and you hate and you grieve and you don’t even feel it.”

Quentin stayed very still. It wasn’t even that she was wrong. It was true, that’s what people were like. But she’d forgotten that he knew that too, and that once upon a time that was part of what brought them together.

But he didn’t say that. Not yet. She stopped and sat up again.

“I’m having weird cravings. Mangos. Marzipan.” She frowned. “And—what’s it called? Fennel? Then it goes away. It’s been so long since I tasted anything.”

Her voice when she said that last was the closest thing to the old Alice that he’d heard since she woke up.

“I had so much power. So much power. After a while I realized I could let myself slip backward in time. It was easy. If you think about it you’re moving through time all the time, one second forward every second, but you don’t have to. You can just let yourself stop. I could almost do it even now—it’s as if you’re on a rope tow, up a ski slope, and you just let your mittens go slack, let the rope slide through your fingers, and you slow down and stop. There goes the present, rolling on without you, it’s gone, and just like that you’re in the past. It’s a wonderful feeling.