“Hi.” What did you say to someone in a coma? “I’m Naledi. Your granddaughter. Umm . . . nice to meet you? Not ‘nice’ nice with the whole coma thing, I guess.”

There was no response. She walked closer and rested her hand on the safety railing.

“I like your blankets. That’s a cool pattern. Mine is designed with gonorrhea because Thabiso thinks he’s funny.”

Their heart monitors beeped in sync, but her grandparents didn’t move. The whole situation was a bit awkward, but if she could talk to her mice without expecting a response, her grandparents certainly merited it.

“I’m a grad student. I study infectious diseases. The workload is awful and it’s super expensive and I spend half my time wondering if I’ve made terrible life choices. But I love it. And I just found out that love of science runs in the family. Funny, huh?”

More silence.

She sighed and glanced at the middle of the beds, and that was when emotion hit her like a rogue wave. Someone had placed a pillow between her grandparents, half on one bed, half on the other. Their hands rested atop each other there, their fingers lightly entwined. Even in this deep sleep, they held on to each other.

She took a sharp breath and looked at the two frail people who had helped create her. Who she had forgotten, and might never have the opportunity to know again.

She cleared her throat. The dry air in the room must have been giving it that scratchy feeling. “I wish I could have met you before. You guys look like you would’ve been great grandparents. Like, you would have snuck me candy even when my parents said no, and given really good hugs. Maybe you’re assholes though, since my parents did run off, but you look nice. Really nice.”

Ledi stopped talking because suddenly she couldn’t. She had filled in her parents’ faces on her mental family tree, and now her grandparents were there. Her imagination had this information, and while she didn’t consider herself particularly creative, there was one area in which it had always excelled before she’d forced it to stop: imagining what might have been.

Birthdays, shared meals, teen hormone-driven arguments followed by forgiveness . . . Ledi now had the base factors to imagine them all. The feeling of unfairness she hadn’t ever allowed to take hold began to get its hooks into her. In that moment, what she wanted more than anything was everything she’d missed out on, good and bad.

How could my parents take this from me?

Her grandmother’s face twitched a few times, and then her eyes fluttered open, focusing on Ledi’s face. A beatific smile lit up her features.

“Libiko.” Her voice was thick, her accent almost masking her single word, but the shock of her mother’s newly learned name went through Ledi like lightning. Her grandmother sighed and said something in Thesoloian that Ledi didn’t understand.

“What?”

Annie smiled and closed her eyes again.

“She said, ‘I knew you would return to us, my heart,’” Likotsi translated, her voice rough.

The beep of the machines keeping the elders alive filled the silence that followed her words, until the sound of Ledi’s sniffles joined in. What was going on? If she didn’t know these people, then why was her hand at her chest to stop the pain? Why were rivulets of tears coursing their way toward her chin? Why did it hurt to see them like this when she didn’t even know what they had been like before?

The tears began to wet through the edges of her face mask, and then a handkerchief was pressed into her palm and she felt Likotsi’s hand on her shoulder. She wiped at her eyes and cleared her throat before speaking. Emotions were a distraction, and she’d come to Thesolo on a mission.

“You said that you’ll assist me with anything I need, right?”

“Of course, my lady.” Likotsi drew herself up straighter, and Ledi thought she might salute. Instead, she pulled out her tablet from what had to be a custom-made pocket in the interior lining of her suit jacket. Her latex-gloved fingers hovered above the screen, ready to do Ledi’s bidding.

“I need to speak with their doctors immediately. I’d also like copies of all of Dr. Bata’s latest findings, and full access to the hospital records and a briefing on past epidemics, illnesses, and abnormalities over the last fifty years—to start.”

Likotsi nodded and looked up at her, and Ledi was surprised to see what looked like pride in the assistant’s eyes. “I will make it so, my lady.”

“Please. Call me Ledi,” she said. She turned and briefly placed her own gloved hand over her grandparents. She didn’t know what compelled her, but when she felt the cool skin of her grandfather’s hand she closed her eyes and made a pact with them.

I’m going to help find out what’s going on here.

Chapter 26

Ledi?”

Thabiso pushed open the door to Ledi’s suite when he got no response, expecting—or hoping—to find her still ensconced in the silk sheets and fluffy down-stuffed duvet. Instead, she was hunched over her desk, her back to him. The blanket he’d had made for her was draped over her shoulders and trailed onto the floor, and the papers spread over the desk were illuminated by an ornate desk lamp and the glow of her tablet screen.

For a moment, he thought she’d fallen asleep there, but then he noticed her right hand was scribbling furiously while her left hand traced a path down the printed page beside her. She shifted the page to another pile and her fingertips traced over the words on the next page.