Milo wakes up gagging. He turns to the side and vomits onto a pair of shoes. The man in the shoes dances back, but the splatter can’t be completely avoided.

“You are… ah… awake. Good. Good.”

The room isn’t much more than a bed, a metal stool, and a night stand. There’s no door, just a curtain drawn across the doorway. The sun shines through an open window, and a breeze wafts in. A soft woolen blanket covers Milo. Beside the bed, an older man with a thin mustache wipes at his shoes with a handkerchief. The place smells like a hospital.

“Hallon,” Milo says, jerking upright..

The older man pats Milo’s arm. “Your friend is alive, but unconscious still.”

Relief floods through Milo and tears leak from his eyes. “Thank the stars. I don’t know what I would’ve done if— I’d like to see her.”

The man shakes his head. “The doctors do not want your friend disturbed.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Milo says, “I want to see her.”

“Soon. I give you my word it will be soon,” the man says, “but you have had a great shock and must rest.”

“I don’t need to rest. I just want—”

A giant reptilian eye peers through the window, the iris a burnished bronze. Good, you’re awake. We need to talk.

Milo leans back in the bed, and all the numbers freeze in surprise. “I—I think you may be right,” he says.

The eye in the window blinks.

“Good, good.” The older man straightens the blanket around Milo’s shoulders. His equations are lean and wiry, and a small rose is embroidered onto his shirt collar. “My name is Abdul Latif Eitwali. Sometimes people call me The General. I ask you not to mind it; a bit of No Town humor, that is all. Young Karam tells me that your name is Milo. That is correct?”

“Ah—yes, that’s right.”

Abdul Latif Eitwali, also called The General, doesn’t seem to be concerned about the giant eye outside the window. “That was a nasty trouble last night,” he says. “Very unfortunate. No Town can be a place of great freedom—it has few rules, but those it does have are strict.”

My name is Eratosthenes. We’ve met once before, but you likely won’t remember. I am the companion--the dragon--that Hallon mentioned.

“I. I see,” Milo says.

Abdul Latif turns around to look at the window. “Is the light too bright? Would you like me to close the curtain?”

“Yes,” Milo says. “Yes, I think that would help.”

There’s an electric lamp in the room. Abdul Latif turns it on before sliding the window curtain closed.

The giant reptile says, Abdul Latif is correct. You need to rest. Your spirit body received a terrible shock when the connection to Hallon was severed. You still depend heavily on the supports she put in place. We strengthened them, but it’ll take time for the changes to be incorporated.

“Did I? Did I hit my head last night?” Milo asks.

Abdul Latif considers the question. “I have not heard it so.”

I can see that I need to give you more time to adjust to the idea of me. We’ll talk later. I’ll be in Hallon’s room if you need me.

Milo is wondering how to respond when the sound of squeaky wheels comes from the corridor. A short round woman with no legs rolls into the room on a metal cart, a square of carpet between her and the metal. She pulls herself along with both hands. A second cart, connected by rope to the first, carries a kettle and cups, and is dragged behind her. “I brought tea,” she says.

“Ah, Milo. Let me introduce my dear friend Noor. We are neighbors at the Standing Goat.” Abdul Latif offers Noor the stool, and she climbs onto it. When she’s settled, he hands her the kettle and cups.

She pours tea into one of the cups. “That was a terrible fight. Just terrible. That Sab is a menace.”

Milo’s hands tremble as he takes the cup from her. “You were there?”

“No, I was at the market working late, but I saw it all this morning.” She shakes her head. “You poor sweetie.”

Abdul Latif steps in to explain. “Noor reads fortunes, but only from the day before. You may think of it as seeing the past. She specializes in finding lost things, as long as you are willing to wait a day.”

“It’s a small skill,” Noor says.

The tea is black, strong, and sweet, a good combination. “And the dragon outside?” Milo asks.

Abdul Latif looks to Noor. There’s meaning there, but he’s exhausted and the equations don’t make sense. Well, truth be told, nothing is making sense to Milo right now. Seeing the past? What?

“Perhaps I should get the doctor,” Abdul Latif says.

The dragon says, I’m a spirit journeying. Only other spirits and those with the sight can see or hear me. Be careful, or they’ll think you’re mad.

Not good. Very not good. Milo closes his eyes and takes a shuddering breath. Them? What about me? I think I’m mad! I’m seeing a character from a ghost story! The probabilities spiral through his thoughts—the odds that he’s suffered a mental breakdown have gotten perilously worse. The dragon has all but confirmed it.

Someone takes the tea cup from his hands.

“You poor sweetie.”

He retreats back into sleep.

###

The room is dark, except for a long triangle of light stretching from the corridor to the foot of Milo’s bed. Someone’s taken off his socks. The equations point to the right, beside the bed, under the nightstand, on a shelf. He finds that his clothes have been cleaned, pressed, and neatly folded. His watch and tools are arrayed on the shelf below. They’re in the wrong order, but at least they’re all present. He organizes them properly before changing clothes. Then he slides the tools into their pockets.

His head aches and his stomach rumbles, but he ignores both. Before leaving the room, he peeks out the window—no dragon. Had it been a dream?

The innkeeper Dr. Rugaam sits in her wheelchair outside the room reading some papers. She wears a white coat with an emblem of four swallows stitched onto it. It’s the same symbol as was inlaid into the wooden boxes in the picnic basket—the symbol of the Barmaki family.

“If you’re looking for your friend, she’s in Ward C,” Dr. Rugaam says. She slides the papers into a slot by the door. “Follow me.”

She leads him through the clinic, past dozens of rooms just like the one he was in. Thirty-two to be specific. There’s also a cafeteria, a pharmacy, and an operating theater. A nurse nods to Dr. Rugaam in passing. Eventually, they arrive.

“She’s in here,” the innkeeper-doctor says.

Hallon’s room is the mirror of his own, including the light from the corridor. She’s only partially lit, but it’s enough to see how small she looks in her plaster shell.

There’s a steady panic rising in Milo’s belly, spreading to his limbs and up into his throat. His breathing ticks faster and faster. He wants to scream, to throw things, but it won’t do him any good. Won’t do Hallon any good. Very likely—with a probability of 83.11%—it will make things worse. Outbursts usually do.

Milo forces himself to sit. He clamps down on the scattering numbers and re-orders them. Only when he’s sure the outburst has been avoided does he let them go, an unintentional sigh escaping.

He’ll have to deal with the numbers later. They’ll want to develop into equations and models for the new world around him and the new people in it; people like Dr. Rugaam, Abdul Latif , Noor, Safi, Karam, Marid, and the giant who hurt Hallon. His name was Sab.

But not now. Now, there is Hallon injured.

Assuming that it is Hallon. Assuming that she is real, and this place and these events too. After all, he’d seen a dragon earlier in the day. Milo swallows and runs a hand through his hair as he tries to think. Hadn’t Hallon said that he can influence the world around him? That whether he’s sane or not—Milo can change his experience of what happens? The thought isn’t much, but it’s a place to start, a handle on which to build leverage on the numbers wanting to riot.

Eventually, the numbers settle enough for Milo to find the words he’s looking for. “Will she be all right?”

“She’s alive, and that’s something.” Dr. Rugaam wheels closer to the bed and brushes Hallon’s hair with her hand. “Not everyone survives an encounter with Sab.”

“He’s done this before.”

“Oh yes.” Dr. Rugaam turns to look at Milo. “Your friend has a strong will to survive. She’ll need it. Her spine’s been broken in three places, and if she wakes up, there’s a good chance she’ll not walk or move her arms again.”

Milo’s heart leaps up into his throat. “If?”

The equations are almost tender. “Sometimes they don’t.”

“She’ll wake up,” Milo says. “You don’t know her like I do.”

“Good. You’ll need that faith in her,” Dr. Rugaam says. “Hold onto it and don’t let go.”

The light in the hall dims as someone stands in the doorway. It’s the waiter Safi, her son. He doesn’t see Milo sitting in the dark. “Mother?”

“I’m here,” Dr. Rugaam says, wheeling into the light.

“I came to take you home,” he says.

“Everything well at the inn?” she asks.

“Sure. No problem. Busier than usual—people wanting to know the story, but Wahid and I handled it.” He looks into the room. “How is she?”

“Alive,” Dr. Rugaam says.

He clenches his fists. “Is there anything we can do? About Sab, I mean.”

“Nothing safe,” Dr. Rugaam says.

“I’m getting awfully tired of safe,” Safi says.

Dr. Rugaam reaches up to lay a hand on her son’s cheek. “Not me.”

She nods to Milo on the way out and lets him sit his silent vigil.

###

The events of last night replay in Milo’s memory—the terrible gravity of Sab’s punches, descending again and again to smash against Hallon’s body. The helplessness he felt all the way down to his gut. Milo covers his face with his hands, and they come away wet. Just goes to show that there’s always something more to lose.

The numbers tremble under his gaze, ready to scatter and describe the phenomena in the room in the minutest detail. He’d be trapped here for hours having to pick his way through them all if he let them. Milo takes a deep breath, and an equation coalesces to measure his lungs’ capacity for air. It’s gone up slightly, probably a result of his recent exertions, although that’s only a hypothesis. The part of him that’s always watching, always wondering, considers how he might test it.

That’s what a scientist does after all. They observe the natural world’s phenomena, develop ideas about them, and then test those ideas to see if they’re accurate. Frequently they’re not. But a good scientist is prepared to revise their ideas if they prove wrong; is even willing to throw them out completely. A good scientist accepts the world as it is and tries to make sense of it. Unless the scientist is mad and can’t tell reality from delusion.

Milo brings up the equations calculating the probability that he’s gone insane, and they spread to consume all the other equations in the room. They are bleak and imperious in their certainty, and leave little room for hope. He tinkers, adjusting the variables and starting assumptions, but it’s useless. The equations refuse to budge, unless he can somehow prove Applegate’s Outer Thesis and fundamentally change humanity’s understanding of—well, everything.

Despair is forever the enemy of the good.

Milo doesn’t know where the thought comes from. It’s not his mind’s voice, but it has weight, a heft that pulls at him and his calculations, drawing them into its orbit. With all that’s happened in my life—the fire, my parents and grandmother gone—I haven’t broken yet. These are extraordinary circumstances, but there’s no reason to think I’ve broken now. Well, that’s not entirely true. There’s one very good reason—the dragon. There’s no room for an invisible dragon in the Outer Thesis.

Unless. Unless one is real, but the other not.

If—it’s a long stretch to if—but if Hallon’s right about different universes having different laws of nature, that could explain the strange weather, the storm walls, and the unusual characteristics of the people. They could all be real, and it’s only the dragon that’s not. The dragon may be the result of a mental breakdown from seeing Hallon brutally beaten.

Milo holds his breath.

Improbable. But not entirely impossible. Not if he can prove the Outer Thesis. In which case, he would be only a little mad, as opposed to completely, and a little is so much more manageable. He already has a lifetime’s experience with his eccentricities—what’s a little hallucination thrown on top? It’s something he can hold onto anyway, and often that’s enough to get one through.

Milo doesn’t know what to think. He’s only known Hallon for a handful of days, but in that time, she’s turned his life upside down. So much has happened, and so much continues to happen—all of it impossible or nonsensical in some way or another. Except that maybe it’s not. Or not completely.

He pinches his wrist. Not a dream.

Milo’s thoughts circle around the calculations, unable to settle on what constants to keep, which variables to change. Maybe that’s as good a place to start as any. From scratch.

So he wipes away everything he knows—the mathematics and physics, the chemistry and cosmology, the biology and natural history—everything except for three things he can’t seem to let go of: the aspiration to make sense of himself and the world, the slim chance that he’s only a little mad, and the sudden and unexplainable love he’d found for Hallon.

During the long dark night, he holds onto these three seeds and holds them tight.