Daniel nods.

Her body thrums with urgency. “Where is she?”

“With some cops in protective services. She’s safe. She’s alive and unharmed.”

Lynell deflates slightly, her body at war with contradictory emotions. Grief, pain, relief, fear, anger, joy.

“We were almost out when I got shot,” Daniel says. “It hit high but the force knocked me down. I was sure they’d shoot again. But I managed to get up and out with Anna. I couldn’t even hold her, just grabbed her hand, and got her to run. We were just far enough away for me to call 911 before I passed out. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have left you. I wish I didn’t have to, but I had to save Anna.”

“Shh,” Lynell says, grabbing Daniel’s face and pulling it to meet hers. She pushes his hair back and shakes her head, kissing him again. “You saved our daughter. Don’t ever be sorry for that.”

A shameless mention of her name convinces the hospital staff to move her into Daniel’s room. She gets her own bed and they have to rest, but Lynell doesn’t care as long as she can look at Daniel’s face whenever she wants.

Ramsey returns with an update on the Elysian house. News spread among the guards that Eric is dead and Lynell is claiming her right to the Registration. Most are taking the change of bosses in stride. The few who showed opposition, Reggie included, were rounded up and fired. Hayes argued they should be put in the dungeons until the next quarter’s Registration, but Lynell disagrees.

While she’s in the hospital, Ramsey is in charge, which the guards seem to be taking well.

“I’m pretty sure I figured out the code,” Lynell says when it’s just them and Hayes in the room. Daniel looks at her, mid-bite of pudding. “‘Know the worth of love, Lynell. Of joy. Of forgiveness. Know the worth and double it. Live it. Hope for more. Do not transpose your values,’” she recites. “The only thing my mom ever really told me about my dad was that he and Gideon loved Scrabble. My guess is we’ll need to calculate the Scrabble value of the words ‘love,’ ‘joy,’ and ‘forgiveness.’ But that’s not all. My dad couldn’t make it easy. We’ve got to decipher it.”

“How?”

“Double it. Transpose. I always thought that was a weird way of wording it. ‘Do not transpose your values.’ Did you know there’s a cipher called the double transposition cipher? That’s it. Has to be. And the keywords are ‘live’ and ‘hope.’ Now, I just have to figure out how to actually decode it.”

“You’re sure?” Daniel asks.

Lynell shrugs and takes a bite of her own pudding. “No.”

“What are you going to do?” Daniel asks, his forehead scrunched in thought.

“I don’t know,” Lynell says. “What do you think I should do?” She glances at Daniel, and he shakes his head.

“I can’t tell you that.”