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“Only if she stays here,” Amanda said, drawing her knife.

  “She’s not real,” Saskia said, clamping Amanda’s wrist and taking the knife. “There’s someone out here who can help.”

  “We’re playing cards,” Amanda said.

  “Bring them. It’s okay,” Saskia said, gathering the cards from the table and handing them to Amanda.

  In the galley, a ghost of a person poked at Tray’s zero-g vegetable chopper. Her clothes were gleaming white like Sky’s, but her long tunic looked more like a dress. It was a strange, new hallucination.

  “Is this food?” the ghost asked, picking up a slice of orange pepper.

  “Yes. Would you like to try it?” Saskia asked through clenched teeth.

  Amanda looked at Saskia, wondering how she had responded to the ghost.

  “No. I would like to observe Amanda’s living conditions,” the woman said, coming around the kitchen island. Could this ghost be the Cordovan? Amanda looked back to Danny’s quarters. The door appeared both opened and closed to her, with her knife-wielding mother watching through the open door.

  “Have a seat, Ian. We live in the whole ship, not a single room,” Danny said diplomatically, coming from the crew hall. Tray came out behind him with Corin braced against his side. Amanda wanted to help him, but instead, her mom appear beside Corin with a medical scanner in hand.

  “Guess we should have done that buffet,” Tray commented, shifting Corin onto Danny, then going behind the island to gather a plate of food. Tray didn’t talk to Ian and Amanda thought that was weird. He was usually very social.

  “Saskia?” Tray asked, indicating the plate.

  “I’ll eat later,” Saskia replied. She pointed Ian to a seat, then took Amanda’s elbow and guided her to the opposite side of the table. “Come on. Sit down. Amanda, this is Ian Cooper. She’s here to help you.”

  “Benches,” the Cordovan woman said, frowning at the bench seat before sitting. She had sad eyes and spindly fingers.

  Amanda didn’t want to sit with a sad ghost.

  “I’m a neuro-engineer. I understand you have some wires crossed,” Ian snickered. The woman was as cold and flat as a hallucination to Amanda’s eyes. “That was a joke. I was telling a joke.”

  To Amanda’s eyes, Saskia, Danny, and Tray had a familiar aura. Her Occ separated them easily from the hallucination of her mother. Ian did not have that.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Amanda asked, sliding off the bench. She backed away from the table and bumped into Danny, knocking Corin out of his arms. Corin hit the floor with a thud and a chuckle, and Danny left him there. He put his arm around her, sensing that her panic was more urgent than Corin’s pain. Amanda tapped her heel, feeling for her knife. The ghost woman unnerved her.

  “Just talk to her,” Danny said, sitting and forcing Amanda down with him.

  “I don’t want to,” Amanda said. She could tell Danny was muttering prayers, because lightning bolts seemed to emanate from his aura and fill the spirit realm. She hadn’t seen him like that in months.

  “You asked me to bring help. This is it,” Danny said. “We need this.”

  “Do I have a choice?” Amanda asked.

  “No. This whole exchange is pretty much for your ego,” Danny chuckled.

  Amanda closed her eyes and took another breath, fearing her tenuous grip on reality wouldn’t last. “Can my ego request some privacy for this exam?”

  “It’s an interview. She won’t even touch you,” he said. “I’m leaving, but Saskia is staying with you. And before I leave, you’re giving me Henry.”

  Amanda tapped at her heel again, then drew her knife and put it on the table. She fingered the blade, then felt Danny’s hand in her boot, checking that the sheathe was empty. The knife on the table faded.

  “Saskia took it,” Amanda remembered. “Pretty sure. I don’t want to hurt anyone else.”

  “Saskia will keep you safe,” Danny said, planting a brotherly kiss on her temple. He lifted Corin off the floor and left before Amanda had the sense to process his absence.

  “Do you know when your last dissociative episode was?” Ian was asking.

  Amanda blinked and rubbed her eyes, struggling to stay present. Sometimes she could follow ten conversations at once, but ever since the incident, all she heard was her screaming guilt.

  “When I stabbed Morri,” Amanda said, her throat tight with remorse. “Maybe a week ago.”

  “Three days ago,” Saskia said. “And she’s had a few catatonic episodes today. She’s hallucinating something right now.”

  Amanda’s eyes twitched. It felt like more than three days had passed. It felt like her mind had leaked into the other realm where time had no meaning, and she was sucking frantically with a tiny straw trying to reclaim all the pieces of herself.

  “What are you? You look strange in my eyes,” Amanda said, closing her physical eyes and peering out through her spirit ones. “Like you were painted onto the realm. Stamped on without enough ink.”

  “Can you describe how you see me?” Ian asked.

  Amanda squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t like sharing this truth with strangers. “I’m using the wrong eyes. I’m not good at seeing invisible things. Where is Sky?”

  “Sky stayed in the city. Amanda, try to focus,” Saskia said.

  “I’m too hungry,” Amanda complained. Then she noticed the plate of food Tray had prepared for her—a nice grilled steak and a strawberry salad. Setting down her deck of cards, she picked up her fork and brought it to her lips. This was a nice, luxurious meal, no doubt intended to impress their guest… who didn’t appreciate it at all.

  “Does she speak like that often?” Ian asked Saskia. “‘Using the wrong eyes?’”

  “Yeah,” Saskia said, her shoulders tensing. “She’s very spiritual. Do you have religion in your culture?”

  “Yes, very strong. But only the cultists believe they have spirit eyes,” Ian said. “Danny seemed familiar with the Panoptica. He even suggested our city was part of spirit lore on Terrana.”

  “You’re not Panoptica. You’re like… paper. A thin paper. Torn in two. One piece is missing. Sister,” Amanda whispered. Even non-hybrids should have had some kind of dimension.

  Ian’s breath hitched and her chin quivered. Her eyes grew sad, but there wasn’t any visible pain in the spirit realm like Amanda expected.

  “You want to draw on me,” Amanda accused.

  “In a manner of speaking,” Ian said, forcing back her sadness. “With my lab equipment we can reprogram the neurotransmitters that are… essentially causing your brain to short circuit. Dr. Fisher thinks you may prefer it to taking medication the rest of your life.”

  It did sound nice. It sounded reasonable. The past would be in the past, dead and buried, and she could be a different person. There would be no more fear of losing control, because her whole brain would be different. Amanda took a bite of her salad, chewing thoughtfully on the notion. This was the help she needed, she only wished it weren’t Ian sitting here offering it to her.

  “Something’s wrong with you,” Amanda said again.

  Morrigan lay on the infirmary bed—the side bed, so she wouldn’t be under the monitors. Her high was fading and she was getting hungry. After two months resisting, she felt relief. She was still laughing, even though she anticipated a scathing call from her brother later. (Tray would surely tell him.) It was easier to smile and laugh and function in the world when she was high. All she had to do was get through her discussion with Fisher and then she could find her stash for a boost.

  The ceiling swirled in various colors, one of the purples hooking into her guilt and nagging her to stay clean. Not for Amanda, but for the rest of them. Even though Fisher was there and she didn’t have to worry anymore, Morrigan wanted to practice medicine. It was the core of who she was.

  “What a primitive brain scanning device,” Fisher commented, fiddling with a tissue scanner that was decidedly not for brains. “No wonder you’re having so m
uch trouble diagnosing her.”

  Morrigan laughed and rolled onto her side. Fisher had done something to her wounded cheek that made her tongue tingle. They had called up Amanda’s chart on the monitor and Fisher was locating the medications listed in the file.

  “She’s taking these two by injection every evening and those orally twice daily. Why this one?” Fisher asked, holding up the last vial.

  “Nausea,” Morrigan said, tracing a circle on the bed sheet. She needed to bring a set of the soft wool Nolan sheets in here.

  “And in Nola, did she engage in Festival?”

  “Not in a fun way,” Morrigan said. “The fertility enhancers hit hard. She began catamenesis.”

  “She’s fertile, too?” Fisher asked, an intrigued glow lighting her face. “Out of cycle?”

  “First time since… since she Disappeared,” Morrigan said, not sure how to explain Amanda’s medical history. “She was born on Aquia but spent most of her childhood on Terrana. Between age seventeen and twenty-eight, she was held captive somewhere on Terrana. Starved. Her movement restricted.”

  “Yes, I can see that in her bones,” Fisher said, scanning the record projected over the table.

  “Terrana has only one-third of Aquia’s gravity,” Morrigan said. “If you compare her bones to Saskia’s, you can see what the markers look like on a healthy adult. Amanda was several months into recovery when I became her doctor.”

  “Saskia… is infertile,” Fisher said.

  “She’s not without options if she wants kids,” Morrigan said, feeling a little defensive at the comment. “Why does it matter?”

  “Restoring natural fertility is my primary area of research. This record only goes back a few months. What medications was Amanda on before you treated her?”

  “I’m not sure. Possibly antipsychotics before she left Terrana. Then there were several months where she had no medication. By recovery, I mean she had access to food and basic needs.”

  “And she never had a regular cycle?” Fisher asked, leaning on the counter and reading the labels on the medications. “I’m sorry, my people don’t experience cycles. But I’ve read about them, and I understand the fluctuations in hormones can be disruptive to mental health.”

  “In Quin, we have implanted regulators to prevent the cycle outside of family planning.”

  “So, you have one of these regulators?” Fisher asked.

  “Not anymore,” Morrigan said, her throat tightening. Her regulator had degraded due to her drug use and she hadn’t been clean long enough to think about replacing it. “I did experience out of cycle bleeding in Nola. But I also drank a lot of their wine and I know I ingested something in the food. I wasn’t saying no to much. But then Amanda needed me, and I came back here and Detoxed before I did anything I’d regret. Loosely speaking. Have you attended a Nolan Festival?”

  “When I was young, several of us traveled down to attend one,” Fisher said, shaking her head. “The journey is long, but one of those sanctioned acts of rebellion in our culture. We have to keep our numbers small because we’re not generally welcome.”

  “Why? What did you do?”

  “We have a different view of spirits than they do,” Fisher said. “That was the start of it. Our infertility is another part. I have experimented with fertile templates. I’m sure your knowledge of the end-to-end process would help us greatly. I do hope what we offer in trade is sufficient.”

  “You heal Amanda, and I’ll show you everything we know,” Morrigan promised.

  Fisher paused for a moment, reflecting on her work, then shook her head and put the medications back in the cabinet. “I can find nothing wrong with your prescribed treatment. I have a synthetic version of this K26 medicine that will be less toxic to her system in the long run, but the good news is, if we do nothing, this medical solution is sufficient.”

  “Then why did she stab me?” Morrigan asked, her stomach twisting in knots.

  “Neurochemical engineering is a delicate art, and the Nolan drugs are disruptive,” Fisher said. “Even if Ian’s machine can’t repair her schizophrenia, we can lessen her violent tendencies. I would like you both to come to Cordova for treatment.”

  She came beside the bed and reached out to stroke Morrigan’s hair but wound up just fiddling with one of the braids that had fallen loose. “I am sorry for your pain, my dear. Now, can you tell me which medications you took?”

  12

  Oseshen Tower was a spiritual monument at the edge of the city overlooking the cliff. Sky remembered avoiding it last time she was there because she didn’t like the idea of anyone connecting with her spirit. Now that she had Hawk to look after, she wanted to know exactly what these people believed. Had the spirits really left? Were they in hiding? Were there hybrids for Amanda to echo?

  The last question worried her most.

  Unlike other cities, the Cordovan dome didn’t curve. Instead, its long, flat wall took on the ridged shape of the rocky cliff. Lula walked alongside Hawk’s motor-chair, peppering him with questions and showing him a miniature glider she’d made that afternoon. Hawk was losing energy fast, but he explained how she could shape the wings to get better lift.

  “Is she bothering him?” Avery whispered, hanging back and keeping pace with Sky.

  “No, he loves talking machines,” Sky said. “Where he’s from, women aren’t allowed to work with machines. They worry a lot about losing women to injury or accident.”

  “Right. Women are for breeding,” Avery said. When they’d been sitting outside discussing Hawk’s plight, Avery had seemed detached from the story, but she’d immediately asked to join Fisher’s team to help unravel a solution. For a scientist returning from an expedition with a fresh pile of data, that was a big deal.

  “Sounds barbaric. Felt barbaric,” Sky said.

  “But I understand the feeling—the limited destiny.” Avery sighed, aching as she watched her daughter. Sky remembered sitting with Avery when Lula was just days old, still waiting for a name. “Lula feels constrained by it. She’s a Granger with the heart of… something other than a biologist. I keep telling her she can apprentice outside our template, but it’s hard being the only one of your kind in a group.”

  Sky half-nodded, appreciating Avery’s sympathy. “Have you met Tommy Fisher?”

  Avery took a breath as if to speak, then she just nodded and said nothing.

  “Only one of his kind in the group.”

  “Lula’s not an original. It’s not the same.”

  Sky was surprised but didn’t question.

  They stepped into a glass elevator that would take them to the top of the tower. The view over the canyon was breathtaking. Red and gold striped layers of strata presented a geologist’s dream study of the planet’s history before humans terraformed the land. Hawk was more mesmerized by the exposed workings of the elevator, and Lula by Hawk.

  When the lift opened, Lula and Avery stepped out. Sky waited for Hawk, but he didn’t move his chair. Instead, he rose to his feet, sniffed the oil-scented air, and stayed in the elevator.

  “What’s wrong?” Sky asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said, scanning the room. Gas-powered candles line a dark painted wall, and a thin mirror reflected the panoramic view behind.

  “Allergy?”

  “Confluence,” he said, rubbing his forearms anxiously. He stepped into the room, and Lula went back into the elevator to retrieve her chair.

  “You feel it, don’t you?” Lula asked, studying Hawk’s face.

  “I smell something,” Hawk said, moving to the middle of the room and turning slowly to examine all the features. The puffiness in his skin lessened, and the scar on his scalp disappeared under his thickening hair. He was healing before their eyes.

  “The olive oil is just for ambiance. This room is surrounded by healing veins,” Lula said, pointing to a line of inlaid crystal behind the candles. “I know you didn’t like the feel of the device on your skin, but this is… more like a sauna of h
ealing.”

  “Healing veins? How do they work?” Sky asked.

  “We use these crystals,” Lula said. It could have been a vein of pure Confluence by the look of it. “They were injected with a single healing cell two centuries ago, and it still powers the room. As long as we keep the power running through the vein, it seems to recycle almost perfectly.”

  “We estimate it has lost only twenty percent of its original power, but we are healthier than our ancestors,” Avery said.

  “But look at him walking. Look at his strength. It was almost instant for him,” Lula said in amazement. “It’s never instant for us.”

  “We know cloned bodies respond differently to veins,” Avery said, a hint of jealousy in her voice.

  “Is this canyon real, or does your dome fill it?” Hawk asked, moving to the window away from the wall of crystals. He stopped short and his eyes twitched, like he was seeing something bright.

  “We’re hanging over the side,” Lula said. “Can you fly your plane past here tomorrow so I can watch?”

  “No, Lula. He’s not leaving until we have answers for him,” Avery said. “We don’t want him getting ill again.”

  “I will teach you how to make your own. Then you will fly and amaze your people, just as I amazed mine,” Hawk said, sitting on the floor with Lula and picking up their airplane conversation.

  Sky studied the wall behind the candles, and felt Spirit stir in her. It was the first time she’d felt it move since they left Nola. She reached her hand between the candles and touched the vein. A buzz went through her skin, powerful but pleasant. The air changed to that caustic taste that accompanied Spirit, but it didn’t choke her. In her mind, she saw a machine—the same one she saw on Terrana when the Confluence triggered a vision. She’d drawn it for Hawk, hoping he could figure out what it was. This time, she didn’t just see it, she felt it. She felt its gravitational pull, like it was trying to suck her into it. The device was as large as a building, and her feet left the ground, her body pulled horizontal by its force.

  “Bébé!” Hawk hollered, catching her shoulders, and lowering her to the ground.