Smitt opened the door, a dark blue glass in his hand, and passed it to Dorian. Dorian clutched the smooth surface desperately. There was a pause while Ellison shot a warning look at Smitt, who backed out of the room again with obvious reluctance. “Dorian. I know this isn’t easy, but you need to make the effort. Who saved you?”

Dorian took a gulp of the water, gagged, and sent it spewing out of his mouth. The glass dropped onto his lap, sending a soaking tide across his knees, then rolled unbroken along the carpeted floor. He heard his own panicked cry. Seawater. The taste of drowning, the taste of squeezing death, thick with salt, weedy, airless—

“That bastard!” It came out in a shriek; even Ellison’s composure seemed shaken.

“Dorian, what—”

“That bastard Smitt! He did that! He— It was salt water . . . just to mess me up.” Even as Dorian yelled, he realized how strange it was: the night before, when Luce was actually trying to drown him, when the Bering Sea had licked between his lips, he hadn’t really been afraid at all. Just cold, and angry, and brilliantly excited.

Apparently he was only afraid of drowning on dry land, in classrooms or office buildings. He almost started laughing from the irony of it all. But hadn’t he heard somewhere that sailors got seasick when they left their ships and tried to walk instead through calm, leafy streets?

Ben Ellison, meanwhile, had gotten up and gone to the door. Of course Smitt was standing right there, Dorian thought; he’d probably been listening.

“Hello, Agent Smitt. Would you mind telling me where you got the water you gave Dorian just now?”

Smitt’s stare looked impudent. “The drinking fountain down the hall, there.”

“And did you add anything to the water?”

“Of course I didn’t.” The voice oozed contempt.

“I see.” Ellison picked up the glass and shook one of the lingering drops out onto his finger, then put it in his mouth. “It tastes fine to me, Dorian.”

Dorian gaped in total disbelief. Salt still hung heavy in his throat. Were they lying, or was he actually losing his mind?

Ellison was nodding again. “Maybe this is another of your symptoms. If anything it just confirms what I already thought.” He sat back down, setting the glass on the wood-grained plastic of the table. “Anyway, Dorian, you were saying?”

“I don’t remember.” The familiar words came back, steady as a rolling wheel.

“You were saying someone saved you after the Dear Melissa crashed.”

“I said someone might have saved me.”

They stared at each other, neither of them breaking, until Ellison grimaced and glanced up irritably at Smitt. “Would you mind not hanging around like that?” Smitt and his bland blue eyes left the room, and Ellison sighed. “Are we really back to this, Dorian?” He sounded genuinely sorrowful.