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When we bring each other back to center

We remind ourselves:

There is no end

To our capacity

* * *

The red buttons would make her stop.

They would hurt her. But they would make her stop.

Signy looked at Cora, no longer bleeding but still unconscious. Signy wasn’t prone to being reckless in moments like this. You had to do what was right for the patient, you had to act fast, you had to do something.

She reached for the control panel.

She reached, but . . . she couldn’t. She couldn’t do it.

Cora loved Colibri as much as she loved anyone. Cora loved Colibri, and Cora had promised. And that was what was so wonderful about Cora, alongside the countless other things that were wonderful about Cora. What Cora loved, she protected. She’d come to Signy’s shop not for the sake of her own health, but to keep Colibri safe. She’d gone hunting in the rain, knocking down the doors of strangers who might know where Twig went. She’d held Signy tight as they threw out the ashes that had once been plants, saying It’s gonna be okay, you’re gonna grow more one day, we’re gonna make it happen somehow.

Signy didn’t care about Colibri as Cora did. They were barely more than strangers to each other. Shy acquaintances who didn’t speak the same language. But they had one enormous thing in common, and Signy could not imagine what Cora would think if a promise that sincere were broken on her behalf. Would Colibri even know it was Signy hitting the button, and not Cora herself? Would she understand?

“Cora, please,” Signy begged, holding Cora as tight as she could from behind the chair. “Please, tell me this is right.”

There was a twitch—so slight, Signy thought she imagined it. But no, Cora moved. Signy crammed herself into the small gap beside the pilot’s chair, trying to get a proper look at Cora’s face. Her eyes were barely open, and her pupils were huge, her irises nothing but a thin border around the black. She coughed, once. Her head continued to loll.

“I’m so sorry,” she slurred.

“Cora, god—” Signy wanted to kiss her, cradle her, dig a hole and burrow away. But instead, she took Cora’s jaw firmly between her palms, bringing them eye to eye. “What do I do?”

“I’m so sorry,” Cora said weakly. “Please don’t be angry.”

Signy didn’t have the space to be angry, let alone to know what Cora thought she’d be angry about. “What do I do?”

“She’s going,” Cora said. “She’s going now. I shouldn’t have brought you. I shouldn’t have—”

Signy held Cora’s head. “She’s going where?”

Cora didn’t answer. She stared at Signy. Whether she could actually see her was anyone’s guess. She shut her eyes, panting. “Five—kinds of—ngh—chicory. Hop Pop. Black tea.” She tried to reach for the helmet. “I need to—I have to—”

“Cora, you’re bleeding,” Signy said. “I don’t know what’s going on, but you’re hurt.”

Cora looked thrown by that information. She touched the tip of her nose and brought her fingers back, looking at the smears of red. “Fuck—” She shook her head. “I can’t, I can’t—I can’t do this to—I can’t do this to you. I have to go back in. I have to get you—get you—get—home.”

“No,” Signy said. “No. You’re hurt. And you are not going to risk worse, do you understand me?” She met Cora’s addled eyes furiously. “You are not leaving me.”

Cora blinked at her. “I’d never.”

“Cora, please, I know this is hard, but you need to focus on me for just another minute. Where is Colibri going?”

“I don’t know.”

“To the Quarries?”

“I don’t know.” Cora looked past Signy and pointed at a screen on the control panel. “Look.”

“I don’t know what that means.”