Hoseyn was walking toward them. She saw he was taller than she’d expected, and thicker, not the reedy scientist in the pictures she’d studied. She was supposed to be reading whether he was friend or foe. He looked bloated to her, and what did that mean? He was not in a hurry—was that a sign he’d turned against them, or did it mean he was here to welcome their offer of escape? She tried to feel wary, and she did, almost instantly, but it dipped just as fast again as the momentousness of his arrival kept hitting her.

Will was immune to it, she could feel it. Her usefulness at this red moment was slack-poor. Why did concentration fail when it did? All she could sense was drama, and that was something to do with her softer self, this basket of happy hopes she’d so recently gotten. She decided to trust Will on this, let it go to his judgment. He was the one who knew this man. He could read him, couldn’t he?

And Will seemed to be deferring, because he wasn’t moving, just watching and waiting, and it wasn’t until Hoseyn was almost confused, not sure what or whom he should be approaching, that Will looked at Mary. He put his fingers in her hand, saying, “This is not okay. Not yet.”

Hoseyn called out his name. He put his hands in the air, as in westerns, and he started turning clockwise, step, step, another step.

Will watched him, letting Hoseyn’s cinema surrender continue. After a while, Hoseyn put his hands down, and then he stopped turning.

For many moments, there was no movement, no sound, nothing but the thinking—all of it Will’s and Hoseyn’s—and then Will pulled his fingers out of Mary’s palm, stood up, his weapon on Hoseyn. He walked out from behind the trailer. Hoseyn’s back was to him. He didn’t see Will.

He crouched at Will’s touch. His hands flicked up, but Will didn’t let that happen, he said something, she couldn’t hear what it was. They went to the ground, an awkward scrambling; Will seemed to pat him down, to half hit him, but she might have imagined that. Baz was breathing so fast she almost put her hand over his mouth.

They rearranged themselves, Will and Hoseyn, sitting on the pavement near the hangar, Will’s hand on the back of Hoseyn’s neck, speaking directly into his ear, as if to avoid lip readers, or to feel with his hands Hoseyn’s reaction to each word he said. They talked like that and talked some more; Mary kept Baz quiet behind the trailer.