I expect her to be concerned, but instead, her face is skeptical. “In less than a week? That’s a stretch, don’t you think?”

“Not if he was close before. Not if my cells were unique enough to help him figure out what was missing.”

Cami taps a finger against her chin, considering. “You’re right. And even if you’re not, we still need to know where he is, what he’s doing. We still need to find him so that when the time comes, we can stop him.”

The time is imminent, I want to tell her. But I don’t. Because that would lead to questions I’m not ready to answer yet. For now, I want to keep the truth about what’s happening to me a secret. I feel completely fine—my Speaker ability is working normally. What if Ward was wrong about the serum? What if Vanik hasn’t finished refining it and the effect is only temporary? What if yesterday’s concerns were an unfortunate coincidence and there’s nothing wrong with me, after all? I don’t want to worry anyone unnecessarily. I don’t want to worry me unnecessarily.

… Even if I know better than to put my hope in wishful thinking.

“Actually, I’ve been thinking about Vanik,” Cami continues, her face serious. “What is the plan for when we confront him? As Kael said yesterday, Manning is too powerful to be locked up”—I feel another niggle of guilt at keeping his death from her, but I don’t know how to reveal that without explaining the rest—“and if you’re right about Vanik already having a working serum, the first thing he would have done was give himself your Creator ability.”

According to Ward, that’s exactly what he did.

“You have a strong gift, Lyss,” she goes on, “but there’s only one of you against two of them—”

Just one of them, with Manning gone, but potentially an entire army at his command.

“—and if Vanik has the same power as you, he’ll also have decades of Speaking experience behind him. His control will be unparalleled.”

I feel like I’m back in the holding cell, this conversation mirroring what I experienced only hours ago with her brother. A conversation I’m scared to tell her about, for fear of what it will mean for me.

I’m being selfish, I know I am.

But I’m afraid that the moment I say it, it’ll become real.

“It’s just …” She bites her lip. “I have complete faith in you, of course I do. But when that confrontation happens, even if you can overcome them both … what then?”

What then, indeed.