“If you were implying I would disobey you,” he finally said, “that is not something that would happen.”

“Perhaps not. But I also know that healing exposes you to your patient’s pain. It’s understandable you might want to look away from it.”

His eyes flashed. “You insult my honor!”

“You would not heal Thorn last week when he burned his hand. You said it was a trivial injury.”

He gestured dismissively. “Some injuries are lessons to be learned. That is what Holy Writ tells us. I cannot heal such and I would not, I would not heal someone of wisdom and make them foolish.”

This is not the time for lessons in Sessile philosophy, Niko thought. She turned back to Arpat, who was trying to sit up. Milly had managed to revive Lolola and was talking earnestly to the critic, urging her back on her feet. Lassite stepped back and rehooded himself but continued to stand close.

“You do not have much longer left,” Niko told Arpat. “We will take you to your ship, but is there anything that we will need to know when we reach it?” She did not want to say, in case you have died by then, but she knew he understood by the way his head sagged.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “And I have backups. It’s just that…” He raised a hand in a gesture Niko found melodramatic. She gritted her teeth. “One never thinks one will actually be in the body that dies, somehow? You think of yourself as the one that continues on.”

“Yes, for those few that have the money for such a thing,” Niko said to him. “Spare me your angst. How do we get aboard your ship?”

His eyes gleamed. “You know that I don’t have to tell you anything, don’t you?”

Niko said, lowering her voice as the rest of the others came closer to see what was happening, “You know that I don’t have to make your dying moments any easier, don’t you? In fact, if I chose to make them a little harder, here in the heart of all this noise and chaos that your backup won’t remember, what do you think would happen? I don’t think anything would.”

“Point taken.” His eyelids drew closed, and for a moment she thought she might not get the answer after all. But then they flickered, and he said, “Tell the ship this: you believe in miracles.”

“I believe in miracles?” she repeated, an eyebrow twitching in perplexity.

He smiled slightly. “An old joke, like the ship’s name. You’ll like the ship. You remind me of it.” He looked up at Lolola, whom Milly had pulled to stand nearby. “Ah, lady, we would have had such meals together! Look me up when you can, and tell me that I owe you dinner.”