Puzzled, I watch as she sits on her bed, dragging a pillow to her chest and gripping it tight. I sit on my own bed, careful not to jostle Schrödinger, who is curled up at the end. He opens one eye and gives me a sleepy meow before standing up, arching his back in a feline stretch, toddling over and jumping onto my lap, collapsing in a purring heap.

Oh, to have such a life.

I stroke Dinger’s silky black-and-white coat as I ask Cami, “Angry that we have to wait?”

She gives a sharp shake of her head.

I try again. “Angry that it took us this long to get him?”

Another head shake.

“Angry that …” I trail off, running out of ideas. I think of everything we’ve been through in the last week and tentatively ask, “Angry at me?”

The look of dismay on her face—

“No!” she cries, throwing aside her pillow and leaping to her feet, crossing the room to sit beside me. “Of course not!”

“Then what—”

“Me,” she cuts in. “I’m angry at myself.”

My brow furrows.

“I screwed up today,” she explains. “We knew going into that lab that Landon might still be under Manning’s grip. We knew that. We saw him last night. Even today, you and Arryn both offered warning after warning. But when he stepped through that door, it was like none of that mattered to me. All I saw was my brother.” Her throat bobs. “All I saw was the boy who sang me to sleep after our parents died, who held my hand all night and slept in a chair beside my bed whenever I was scared and alone. The boy who snuck me topside anytime I needed cheering up, and took me to my favorite ice cream store every single year on my birthday. The boy who ate all the meals I attempted in the kitchen and said they were delicious even when they tasted like candle wax. The boy who covered for me when I accidentally broke Aunt Esther’s favorite set of wineglasses and ended up being grounded for a month in my place. The boy who …” She lowers her gaze to stare at Dinger, her voice croaking when she goes on, “The boy who told me over and over how much our parents would be proud of me. The boy who reminded me about them when I stopped seeing their faces and hearing their voices in my dreams. The boy who wouldn’t let me forget, even when my memories of them started to fade.”

She might be looking down at my kitten, but I can still see the shine of a tear trailing along her cheek.

“That’s who I saw in the lab today,” Cami says hoarsely. “Even with you yelling that it wasn’t him, that he was still being controlled by Manning, by Vanik, I refused to believe it. Refused to hear you. Because—Because—”