“This isn’t funny anymore.” To Maren’s horror, Amos wiped tears from his eyes. “My mom’s probably having a heart attack, looking for me.”

Then it clicked. Maren edged closer. “Amos, do you think I locked you down here?”

Amos swore under his breath, and Maren sagged against the moldy wall. “Obscura has been feeding you whispering dust.”

“Whispering what?”

“Dust. She’s telling you things while you’re asleep. Lying to you.”

Amos shook his head like he wanted to clear it, and Maren sighed. “Think about it. Do you remember me actually putting you in that room?”

“I don’t know. Everything’s all jumbled up in my head.” Amos’s voice broke. “I don’t even know if this is real right now.”

“It is real. But I didn’t put you in here. Obscura did. And then she fed you a kind of mind-control potion and told you it was me.” Maren couldn’t hide the fury in her voice. “You have to trust me, even though you probably don’t want to.”

Amos rubbed his eyes hard and stared at the floor. “I…do trust you. I’m starting to remember. Give me a minute.”

Maren’s foot tapped. She didn’t really have a minute, but Amos needed time to put his thoughts in order. He rubbed his eyes again and took a few slow breaths.

“Okay,” he said. “I think I remember you locking me down here, but I also remember the story you told me on the bus. I’m going to choose what to believe right now, and I choose you.”

Maren swallowed the lump in her throat. “I need to find a way out of here. Will you help me?”

Unsteadily, Amos got to his feet and nodded. “Let’s go.”

* * *

The thought of leaving Lishta in this basement, even just until she could escape and get to the police station, made Maren ill, but she and Amos couldn’t carry her while they searched for an exit. If Obscura returned, they’d have to run, either out of the theater or back to their rooms, and there was no way to do that while lugging a sleeping grandmother. Maren checked down both ends of the hall one more time, and then they slipped out of Amos’s room.

“I’m starving,” he said, and Maren’s stomach grumbled in response. They snuck up the stairs to the stage and dug through the bins for anything edible, but there wasn’t much: a handful of mint leaves, a cinnamon gumdrop, a few broken saltine crackers.

“I think we came in that way.” Maren said, pointing to the back of the auditorium. “Let’s see if the door is still open.”