I don’t think I’m going to survive this, she thought, not for the first time. Is this my thought or yours?

Same as it always is—it’s ours.

The door opened, and Cora didn’t turn to see who it was. Sol again, she assumed.

“Hey, troublemaker.”

She turned, surprised to see Kaveh there. She’d been so worried about him at first, afraid they were detaining him illegally like they had her family, but by now, she’d almost forgotten about him.

“How’s he doing?” he asked, shutting the door behind him. His normally voluminous hair was flat from days without a shower, and there were dark circles under his jade eyes. Guilt began writhing in her like a squid, reminding her that this was her fault. She had put him in this position, she had asked him to remove Enola, and he had. People were dead because of her. Kaveh being put in danger, Ampersand’s deterioration, the lives of those people, all of it. All of it was her fault.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She sat up. Of course she wasn’t okay. What about this was okay? The scaffolding of her entire being was threatening to collapse. “Yeah.”

He put his hands in his pockets and approached her like she was some contaminated thing. “Really? You don’t look okay.”

“I’m just . . . I’m so sorry.”

“It could have been way, way worse. I could’ve ended up in a cell forever. But it turns out, I’m useful. It’s a good thing that there is a precedent for alien interpreter. Even if being alien interpreter means to be the bearer of . . . existentially bad news,” he added, rolling on the balls of his feet.

How can I make this up to you? she thought. What can I possibly give you that can make this up to you? You have everything. I have nothing.

“How bad?” she asked.

“Pretty bad.” He cocked his head. “Was that your first time getting a gun pointed at you?”

Guns are nothing, she thought. I’ve been on the wrong end of so much worse than guns. “Yeah.”

“Can’t say it was for me.” He laughed uncomfortably. “Not my first, probably won’t be my last. Just remember, if you hear gunshots, that means it hasn’t hit you yet, because bullets travel faster than the speed of sound. So if you hear the shot, that bullet hasn’t killed you.”

“Good to know,” she said, looking at Ampersand. She couldn’t even tell whether or not the wall was thick anymore. She couldn’t feel anything from him. I can’t fix this, she thought, and again, I don’t know if I’ll survive this.