The vision flashed and disintegrated. Miranda woke up coughing loudly, her throat so dry that even swallowing was an irritant, a scratching of raw tissue rubbing together. She tried to stifle the noise, struggling till tears of exertion poured from her eyes and ran past her lips.

A shadow loomed in the doorway of her room, startling her into hiccups. “Nurse Benet!” she said hoarsely as the waking nightmare became a familiar shape in a close-tied cotton night robe.

The nurse came quickly forward, bent over the bed, and held a cool cup of water to Miranda’s mouth. She drank it all in silence and gratitude.

“Why didn’t you ring for me?” the nurse asked.

Miranda was silent.

“It’s what I’m here for. It’s what I’m paid for.” Her tone was kind and firm but slightly exasperated.

“Of course,” mumbled Miranda, feeling embarrassed and not knowing why. “I . . . forgot where I was for a moment. I thought I was at home . . . I mean, in the City.”

“Oh,” said Nurse Benet more gently, embarrassed in turn. “I understand.” She nodded and left quietly.

Such a very little lie, but it was enough to make Miranda feel miserable. How did the undying ones avoid falsehood? Was reality too present for them to even pretend or imagine the existence of anything not real? That thought allowed her to drift away from thinking about her discomfort and return to contemplating her vivid dream.

The senseless crime now had an impossible motive—immortality—and she could hardly tell anyone that without being thought insane. The dream appeared to confirm what she had already decided: that Malveaux was not the type to attempt murder for gain. I have more than I need . . . and so he spent the excess on those who had nothing. Everything dies . . . and so he worked with fatherless sons at the shelter, passing on something of himself in those moments of care and guidance, making an undying legacy of a thoroughly human kind.

From his quick assessment and rejection of the impossible offer, it seemed that he knew something about choosing wisely.

“A man like that—he might be worth talking to,” Miranda murmured to herself, and she slipped gently into a sleep without dreams.

—

“Have you noticed,” Fae said the following morning, “that Grey doesn’t appear on any of these lists?”

Miranda fidgeted uncomfortably in her recliner, not from the topic but from a persistent itch at her side, which was inconveniently covered by the brace. “The lists are recent, and by then the most he did was go to the dining hall for a bite to eat. Grey had a much closer association with the shelter further back. He lived there as one of the child soldiers who came to the City fifteen years ago.”

Fae’s face went somber as she thought this over.