“She was never nice to my mother, so why bother hosting the retrospective?” I babble, each word hot and loose and bitter-tinged. “She acts like we’re all trash. Why? Because they love us more than her?”

“You don’t understand anything at all,” he says icily, turning to go.

I stop him with both of my hands, pulling him into me by two fistfuls of his linen shirt, my eyes feeling shiny-wet, somehow.

He stiffens. “You say she wasn’t nice to your mother. But she was her friend. So much so, that she spent years paying off parasites like Daria Grendl—only stopping now, when her asks became so egregious it’s outright criminal—so Grendl wouldn’t besmirch our island and bring more … lookie-loos.”

I stifle a sad laugh, too stunned to say anything but echo: “Lookie-loos?”

“Gawkers. Tragedy tourists. Obsessives. Whatever you want to call them.” He pauses, and I think to myself, So it was Antella who paid Daria to stay silent all these years. To keep these secrets. “They don’t belong on my family’s island,” he continues.

“It’s not just your island,” I snap.

His eyes glint at me, sad and sure. “Well, it’s definitely not yours, Thaïs Fleischman Hammick.”

A chill runs up my body, from the soles of my feet on the plush-carpeted ground, to the greasy roots of my hair. “Screw you,” I whisper.

But he’s already gone.

“What just happened?” Saxim asks, as we hurry out of the store buttoning up our own clothes, the manager’s fraught face watching us retreat.

“Linos basically said he refuses to be publicly associated with me because I’m gutter trash,” I say, tears stinging my eyes.

“No, he didn’t,” Saxim whispers quietly.

“I mean, I suspected as much,” I continue, ignoring her. “I tried to convince myself it was … appealing, or something, sneaking around in the shadows with him, but it really just made me feel like utter crap. Oh, and he knows. About Lady. Everyone fucking knows.” I start to wobble, on the verge of erupting, and she pulls me into an alley and wraps her arms around me silently.

“My family would never do that to anyone. Treat them like they’re less than human and something to be ashamed of,” I say into her shoulder, half-muffled, between sobs, and she shifts, almost nudging the rank bag of trash beside her feet.

“Monty?” I ask, pulling away. She’s biting her lip. “What is it?” When she doesn’t answer, I take her slim shoulders in my hands. “For fuck’s sake, tell me!”

“Don’t you remember all the ‘boys’ your parents employed?” She carefully peels my fingers from her frame. “The assistants from the institute?”

I droop in the middle of the damp alley and take a breath, a foul sulfur smell expanding inside me.