“You came to find us without knowing whether those things would work?” Flynn’s eyebrows go up, clearly impressed.

“It wasn’t much riskier than staying where I was. Half the trauma center had fallen to those things already, I wasn’t about to stick around and become one of them. I rigged my palm pad in line with the instructions you sent, and I’m not a husk yet, so I’m guessing it works.” Sanjana rubs at her arm, just below the elbow. I’d thought she was wearing some kind of metallic mesh glove, but as she massages the spot where the “glove” begins, I realize what I’m looking at—it’s a cybernetic prosthesis. And the EMP grenade knocked it out just as surely as it knocked out the husks—that explains why she couldn’t afford to test her theory before she found us.

“You gave up the use of your hand to save us?” Sofia’s been quiet during all of this, but her eyes are on the same movement I noticed.

“I owe Tarver a lot,” Sanjana replies quietly. “I’d have lost much more than a hand if it weren’t for him.”

When Tarver doesn’t answer, Jubilee clears her throat. “She’s one of the survivors from the outpost on Patron that Tarver liberated. In a way, she—that outpost—started all of this. Tarver never would’ve been on the Icarus in the first place if that operation hadn’t landed him on a publicity tour to make people feel all warm and fuzzy about the military”

“Full circle,” Sanjana murmurs.

“The EMP, though.” Tarver’s insistent, cutting through the discussion with a grimace, as though they’re discussing his failings rather than his heroism. “It did work. And those people—they’re alive? They’re not hurt?”

“They should be fine,” Sanjana replies. “Theoretically, they’ll wake up with not much more than a bad headache. And whatever injuries they’d already sustained, of course—wait, where are you going?”

Tarver’s moving before Sanjana can finish, reaching out for her satchel. “How many of these things do you have left?” he asks urgently.

“Two more—why?”

“This is how we save Lilac.” Tarver pulls out one of the grenades, a spherical object the size of a tangerine. His eyes flick up toward Sanjana. “The whisper has her, too. She’s the one doing all this—or rather, the whisper’s forcing her to do all this.”

“Tarver—I know. I saw her.” Sanjana reaches out with her good hand, resting it on Tarver’s arm to stop him from getting up. “She’s at LRI Headquarters. Tarver…”

“We use one of them to get through the husks to where she is, then we use the other one on her—free her—then destroy the rift.”

But Sanjana’s shaking her head, pain written clearly across her features. “Tarver, stop—no. Those others, they’re just being controlled. Like puppets, or androids all running on the same programming. Lilac…” She swallows, some of that pain shifting into fear. “Lilac is different. I saw her, just before I got out. She’s not being controlled, some mindless shell.…She is that entity. I saw what she could do. I don’t know how it’s possible, or why it is, but she’s different, and that entity is wearing her like a costume. I don’t think that EMP will have any more effect on her than it would on you or me. That thing’s a part of her.”

Tarver’s eyes stay on her for a long, tense moment, his hand tightening around the grenade. Then he lets it fall back into her satchel, shoulders sagging as he sinks back down onto the cracked floor. “What about the shields? If we got one of those close enough to her, for long enough…?”

I shake my head. “They’re less powerful than the EMP. No chance.”

The silence rings for a heartbeat or two until I find my voice, clearing my throat. “We know why she’s different,” I say quietly. When Tarver says nothing, I relay the story to Sanjana that he told us—of how Lilac died, and came back, and brought with her some connection to the other side of the rift that’s been inexorably drawing her back toward the whispers.

“And now,” Sofia adds when I’ve finished, “LaRoux’s sending representatives back to every planet with plans to build more rifts, like the one on Avon, and the one here. We think that she’s letting him think he’s still running the show, that he’s not the risk. He’s losing his mind, and she can drive him over the edge anytime she wants. Once he’s put everything in place, she’ll be able to spread the whispers like an infection until every person in the galaxy is one of those empty shells. Unless we figure out a way to stop her.”

“On Avon, we destroyed the rift.” Flynn’s voice is troubled. “And that stopped the whispers, too. We were hoping you’d know enough about this rift to tell us how to destroy it.”

“We were hoping,” Sofia adds, “that you’d be willing to help us. Since you were almost willing to help me once before.”

“Help…” Sanjana’s brow furrows deeper, but then her eyes widen. “You’re Alexis? You’re the one I was going to meet, the day of the riots at LRI Headquarters?”

“Yes, except that it’s actually Sofia,” Sofia replies. “I was worried they’d caught you, when they turned up at my apartment.…Thanks for trying to warn me.”

“I’m glad you’re safe, I never knew.…” Sanjana shakes her head. “I don’t know if I can help you, but I’ll try. How did you destroy the other rifts?”

“I don’t think LaRoux had figured out yet how to build shields like the ones we’re using, when we were on Avon.” Jubilee’s quick to answer. “There was a self-destruct mechanism built in, I assume so he could terminate the project if things got out of hand. He wouldn’t need that now, though.”

“No,” Sanjana agrees. “I doubt there’s a self-destruct switch this time. He won’t make the same mistake twice.”

Tarver takes longer to answer. “I don’t entirely know,” he says finally. “I jumped into the rift with Lilac. I thought it would kill me, to be honest, but I thought there was a chance it would save her. I think it was the whispers themselves that destroyed the rift.”

“Any portal between dimensions would have to be highly unstable,” Sanjana says quietly. “Adding your own energy and disrupting the field by leaping into it could have released the whispers contained inside, allowing them to destroy their own prison. But anything that unstable is unpredictable, and we have no way of knowing what changes LaRoux has made. It was the very first rift, after all. He’ll have learned more since it was built. If you were to try that again, you could end up doing exactly what the whisper wants, opening the way for more of its kind to come through.”

“And I don’t think it would be survivable this time,” Tarver says, though there’s an edge to his voice that scares me—an edge that says failing to survive is an option for him, if that’s what it takes. “Whether it was having two of us to dispel the energy, or Lilac’s connection to them protecting me, I don’t know, though.”

Sanjana blinks, then shakes her head. “It’s just a theory. I’m working blind here, without a net. I’ve only been able to work indirectly on the project, so my knowledge is limited.”