It’s early evening by the time we arrive at Letisko Airport in Bratislava.

“This won’t work,” Luka murmurs.

“It has to,” I say, combing the bangs of my wig down toward my eyes.

“Audra.” He catches me by the arm. “We can still turn around and leave.”

But that’s the thing. We can’t.

I persuade the ticket agent to bump two other passengers from the last flight to Liverpool, which is as far as we can get on anything tonight. Which is to say, not far enough. I suggest, too, that I actually resemble the photo in my new German passport, which looks nothing like me.

Past the ticket counter, I pause to assess security. The agents who can be persuaded. The cameras that can’t. They’re not my only problem; an entire terminal full of passengers waits beyond the checkpoint.

“This is crazy,” Luka whispers. “There’s too many. You can’t do this alone.”

It is crazy. Jester, Claudia, and Piotrek together wouldn’t take this on. But I don’t have a choice.

I present my ticket and passport to the agent at the front of the line. Ignore Luka as he does the same behind me. Take the envelope out from beneath my sweater. Lay it, along with my shoes, jacket, and phone, on the conveyor belt. That is the hardest part: watching it pass from my possession. So simple and old-fashioned on that moving belt. So much trouble over a stack of papers. So many lives lost, families ruined. So much blood spilled.

Too much.

By the time we get through security, my nose is bleeding again. I retrieve the envelope, hurry to the bathroom, where I tuck it back beneath my sweater once I’ve gotten the bleeding to stop. I also take the opportunity to flush the note from Nikola down the toilet.

I stay there as long as I dare, head tilted back against the stall, eyes turned toward the ceiling. But I know Luka is waiting and I don’t dare let him out of my sight for long.

We move quickly through the terminal, sequester ourselves near a window at our gate. No one in a twenty-foot radius is looking, far too preoccupied with phones, children, conversations. Anything. Anything but me.

I don’t have to try to keep my knee from bouncing; there’s no spare energy for the jitters. I turn my face against Luka’s shoulder, a wad of toilet paper held to my nose.

“How are you doing this?” he murmurs, holding me tightly against him.

I don’t answer. My head has begun to pound.

“Audra, you’re going to give yourself an aneurysm,” he says tightly.

I actually wonder if he’s right.

“It’s worse if you talk about it,” I say.

He pulls me tighter against his chest, holds my head in his arms.

“I was thinking,” he says, “maybe we go from Liverpool to Dubai.”

“Dubai?”