Dear Kamila,

It hasn’t been the same since you left, but the people here are treating me very well. I’ve met a lot of new people and I’m learning a lot every day! There’s been hardly any time for me to set aside to send you a letter, but I’m glad they gave us this evening. My muscles ache so badly, but I think the tattoo’s effects are starting to set in – I don’t feel like I’m going to faint anymore.

Love,

Your sister,

Hilda

P.S. Don’t tell anyone!!!!! But I know somebody who might be able to get you your own bear, if you come back to Kivv to visit me before I leave.

-From the letters of Hilda Zelenko, dated: 240 YT Autumn 12-5.

Etyslund: Night

“Zoe Bari.”

Her eyes snapped open, and, for almost a minute, she struggled to bring the ceiling above her into focus. She was still in the field hospital – her wounds were mostly healed thanks to the herbs they’d fed her to supplement the healing effect of her hypos and to help her body purge the side-effects. But still she needed to stay here for a while, to be wat-

She was being watched.

Marga clung to the ceiling, held up by God-knows-what, some Reaper power. She leered down at Zoe.

Just before the dead woman flashed out of existence, Zoe heard her voice, gurgling, made nearly incomprehensible by the blood filling her throat.

“You killed me. Murderer. Hypocrite.”

Zoe struggled not to scream, knowing what the medics would do if they knew her distress. If they figured out she was suffering hallucinations? She’d be done for. Shipped back to Carakhte to be studied.

“Go away,” she whispered, and willed in vain for her nightmare to end.