Page 104 of Dose

“Those are not the full set of choices.”

“They’re the set that doesn’t require me to decide this is harmless.”

For several seconds, neither of us moves.

Then Ezra picks up his phone.

I’m awake. Wager loop. Not immediate danger. Need company.

He shows me the message before sending it to Raphael.

“Accurate?” he asks.

“Accurate.”

He sends it.

The answer comes less than a minute later.

On my way. Close the file.

Ezra closes it.

“If Marchant is alive,” he says, looking at the blank screen, “she built a contingency around attachment. I can’t determine whether contact activates it or distance allows her to choose the conditions.”

“Do you need to determine that tonight?”

“No.” His throat moves. “That is what terrifies me.”

Not the absence of an answer. The act of stopping before he has one.

I take the chair beside him.

“The bad math happens at night,” I say.

Something flickers across his face. “Apparently.”

We wait without speaking until Raphael arrives.

Theon is asleep when I return to our quarters.

I undress in the dark and slide into bed. His arm comes around me before he wakes, pulling me against his chest with enough force to steal half a breath.

“Where?” he murmurs.

“Archive.”

His hold tightens.

“Ezra?”

Of course he knows.

“Raphael is with him.”

Theon presses his mouth to the back of my neck and settles.

Cassandra still has fourteen tabs. Marchant is still somewhere beyond the reach of Ezra’s models. Seattle still contains forty-two confirmed children and perhaps six more.