“Who you were,” she reminded him.

“Maybe,” he said quietly. “But you’re right, I don’t know.” He wriggled his hand out of her grasp. She felt a twinge of disappointment as they broke contact, then silently scolded herself for caring.

“Sorry,” she said. “I guess it’s impossible to be completely, one hundred percent sure about something.”

“Not for me it isn’t,” he said. “That’s the point.”

Next to her in the dark, Ambrose froze. She felt his body tense. He found her hand and squeezed it. She was glad to have it back.

“What?”

For a moment he sat coiled like a spring, then relaxed his grip.

“Thought I heard something,” he said.

“There’s nothing—”

A blinding green flash illuminated the floor, and for a brief moment she could see that they were not alone. Darkness returned. Two brilliant green spheres arced toward them, trailing white static.

“Run!” she screamed. She grabbed wildly for his flailing hand. One of the spheres surrounded her face before she could duck. She stood paralyzed, seeing only green. A low, rumbling frequency filled her ears and leveled off into a midrange hum. Her teeth chattered violently. Behind her ribs she felt a tiny internal separation, like a water-dipped finger breaking the surface and pulling away. Then her ears popped and the green sphere vanished. She crumpled to the floor, hoping with her final conscious thought that Ambrose had gotten away.

* * *

Sometime later, Mistletoe woke up on a musty pile of pillows and blankets. Her head was fuzzy, and she was very thirsty. She sat up slowly, blinking back a headache, and looked around. She was in a dim, windowless room cluttered with piles of serpentine cables and antennae. Nelson and Ambrose were gone. Instinctively, she patted herself down.

Body intact. Clothes on. Necklace in place.

She creaked to her feet like an old lady, steadying herself against the coiled guts of some boxy pre-Unison machine. There was a single metal door with a little peephole a few inches above her head. She walked over and jumped up, but the lens was for looking in and she couldn’t see anything. She tried the doorknob.

It swung open.

Ma buh …

She blinked twice, scrunching her whole face up and rubbing her eyes to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.

She was standing at the edge of a subterranean zoo. Far above her head, orange and blue birds darted in and out of strange formations. Ravens perched ominously on trapeze bars suspended from the domed ceiling. Beehives and nests of all different shapes and sizes were slung across thick branches. Beneath them, monkeys and chimpanzees swung lazily back and forth. A few feet in front of her, the gray cement floor gave way to a grassy plain where huge beasts covered in tangles of thick brown fur grazed. Beyond them, two goats locked horns on top of an enormous gray rock. The middle of the room was a pond where ducks and geese rested.