“Well, owing to the way you reacted earlier to what Nikola told me about you, I’m reading between the lines a bit, but I think he may have spilled more sensitive information than just . . . that.”

Cora took the remaining piece of sourdough from the bread basket, now stiff and stale. “Someone tell Nikola that loose lips sink ships.”

“Being without lips, I’m not sure he’d appreciate that metaphor.”

“What did he tell you?”

“Well, I’m guessing Obelus was named after the ‘meteor event’ from last year that was almost certainly not a meteor.”

“That’s right.”

“And ‘noble Obelus’ is another one of Ampersand’s secrets that he’s keeping from . . . the other ones.”

“The Fremda group,” said Cora. “They call the ones in custody at ROSA the Fremda group.”

“‘Fremde,’ sehr einzigartig.”

“It’s from Esperanto, not German.”

“Esperanto, jajajaja, es ist das Selbe in beiden Sprachen. Anyway, so Obelus is a secret from the Fremda group, because . . .”

Oh boy, that was a look of guilt if he ever saw one. “There was an incident,” said Cora, ripping her sourdough into tiny, tiny chunks. “I’m not entirely sure, but on the night we . . . ‘met’ Nikola, I found Obelus in that cave, and I . . .” Whatever was going on inside her, she was taking it out on the stale sourdough, ripping it into shreds. “Well, Obelus decided he needed to run away. We don’t know what his goal is exactly other than a vague ‘get off this fucking planet,’ but Ampersand is trying to find him. That’s where he’s been.”

“I see,” he said. “It may not be my place to pry, and you don’t have to tell me the truth if you don’t want to, but . . . what did Obelus do to you?”

She stopped picking at the sourdough carcass, now gazing into nothing. “I . . . don’t think you want to hear it.”

“If you don’t want to tell it, I respect that, but I do want to hear it.”

“Is this off the record?”

“It was never on the record. That’s not why I’m asking.”

She looked at him as if, if she looked hard enough, she might figure out how to read his mind. But no telepathy was forthcoming.

“He tore me in half,” she said, voice small. Then she ripped the piece of bread in her hand violently in two. It almost made him jump.

“Obelus is not a refugee,” she continued. “He hunted the Fremda group here, but they did not want to be found. When Similars are in full-power mode, they’re basically impossible to kill. They have this sort of force field that protects them, but if it goes down, they’re vulnerable like we are. So Ampersand used an electromagnetic pulse to disarm him. It worked, so I tried to kill him, but I failed. Then his power came back, and he defended himself against me.”