“Surface level, I’m pretty sure. It’s one more scar added to a hundred.”

“A hundred, huh?” I asked, trying to sound casual, because I felt anything but. Every corridor was interlocking brick in different arrangements, combined with stone to contrast the brick’s red clay hues with dark gray. I was starting to think making this place hard to navigate to trip up anyone trying to escape.

“Is there medical?” Sveta asked. She wasn’t joining the conversation; she was asking a guard. She got no answer.

“Courtesy of Jack and Hookwolf,” Theo said. “I got good treatment, but when they asked, I decided I’d rather have something left behind than have brand spanking new skin. It only really shows when I tan, but if I say it’s only a surface wound and someone asks me if I’m sure, I have plenty of evidence saying I know what it’s like to be cut up.”

“Ah,” I said, words failing me as pain surged, like my brain psychologically heard words like ‘cut up’ and ‘scar’ and fired more neurons and sparked up more nerves to tell me how fucked up my hand was. “Cricket did something similar, I think.”

“Yeah,” Theo said. “Right. I actually kind of forgot about that.”

“Nice, Victoria,” Vista said.

Oh. Right. He’d probably known Cricket. It might have sounded like I was drawing connections or… didn’t matter. Touchy ground.

“Sorry,” I told Theo.

“Nah. You’re not wrong.”

“I don’t think of you as part of that crowd, so it’s hard to connect the thoughts, especially while we’re wandering around and not seeing any frigging medical center.”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Hi,” Sveta tried, addressing a guard. “Medical?”

He pointed.

Okay.

“I did it too,” Vista said. “Collected my scars.”

“Past tense?” Tristan asked.

“I got a new one from March, but I’m not working so hard to collect them. If someone could magically erase them I might take them up on the offer, but it’s hard to find someone to trust.”

“Now who’s being rude?” Theo asked. He elbowed Vista.

“Yeah,” Vista said. “I meant it to sound more sympathetic. Sorry.”

“Nah,” I said. “You’re fine.”

Frick. Fuck. Motherfuck.

I worried about Theo. I worried about Tristan. Both had been slashed.

“I could make a cast,” Tristan said. “Draw something out in red-orange dots and lines and encase your hand. Keep it covered.”

“I’m not sure that’d help,” I said. My voice was a bit raw from having puked, a bit of a burr, like that minute amount of acid had scarred my throat, when it hadn’t. Only a bit of irritation. “I’m more worried about you.”

“I’m a bit worried about me. But I’m tough. Let’s just get some medical attention.”

Medical attention made me instinctively think of Amy.