“I have as much right to see him as you do,” she said, unconsciously leaning away.

“AND WHAT WILL YOU SAY TO HIM WHEN YOU SEE HIM?”

It was all she could do not to tell him, You can’t have him, before she thought better of it. If Enola knew she was here to talk Ampersand out of this death pact, there was no way he’d let her in.

“He left me,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “He left me alone without a word. He has to tell me why he did it. Will you let me talk to him alone?”

God, the way he held his head, never level, hands curled up in front of him like dead tree branches, was the very image of terror. “IF IT IS HIS WISH.”

Enola sank back into the darkness like it was a pool of black ink. Cora entered, surveying the hangar as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, her hand gripping the pulse emitter in her jacket, more for reassurance than from any realistic expectation she could defend herself with it. Enola was already deep back in the mire and far too powerful for Ampersand to overpower. And moreover, she doubted Enola would let her catch him unaware with a pulse emitter a second time.

Ampersand lay in the middle of the hangar near the wall of screens, his eyes half-open and dark. His hands were curled up in front of him, his legs splayed out behind him. He looked like a deer that had been hit by a truck and left for dead. Cora turned to see if Enola was there, but saw only darkness.

“Ampersand?”

She lowered herself to her knees behind him, running her right hand under his neck and placing her left over his front, his “chest.” She felt the carapace of his back, on the crest of his head, the tender, vulnerable “skin” of his neck. His shield was down. The shield he always had up, at any cost—he wasn’t even bothering with it anymore.

What was the right thing to say? What had Kaveh told her? You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. He had lost everything, was by his own reasoning too far gone. How to talk someone down from that?

“I need you to come with me,” she said, bowing her head. “Please.”

She felt him resist, almost like she’d offended him by even asking. Offense based in resentment, she sensed, because of a wrong she had done him.

“I’m sympathetic about Obelus, really, but it was the only way. If we didn’t give Obelus to the Similars, they’d still be here. They wanted you, too. It was the only way.”

Eventually, he responded, “You swore you’d never hurt me.”

“What do you mean?”

“You swore you’d never hurt me. Yet you attack yourself. You harm yourself.”