Page 110 of Flickerstate

I read as fast as I can through the remaining pages. Maybe ten pages from the end, I find an entry that readsSomething in us broke. We can’t league anymore. How can we announce that we’ve found a cure if we can’t replicate our method?

Several pages after that:KL has an idea for a technological alternative, modeled after her research into flickerbeasts. It would be risky. Like the beasts, which feed on future possibilities, the machine would temporarily but massively augment a navigator’s power by “feeding on” their futures—by using their possibilities as fuel. In effect, any navigator who powered the machine would suffer a kind of “temporary bite”: Their risk of death would spike for days, weeks, or months after the machine used them for fuel. The length of the spike would depend, I suppose, on how much the machine used them. But eventually they would “heal,” their risk of death returning to baseline—unlike those bitten by beasts. So KL hypothesizes, anyway. We’d have to test the theory.

On the second to last page:DM is dead.Below the entry about Miura’s death, the page is blank. No scribbles, no coffee rings or wine stains. Empty.

The last page briefly recounts the usual, without reference to grief: lab time, Sunday swims. The final entry beginsThis morning I met MO in the park to discuss dismantling the Cruciform. She agreed—

And cuts off, notebook filled.

Cruciform? Is that what Highwall and Lucasson named their “technological alternative” to leaguing? If the tech, the machine, actuallyworked, why would Highwall and MO have talked about dismantling it? Was the machine more destructive than Lucasson hypothesized? Did it kill Miura?

Through exhaustion and the tart-apple taste filling my mouth, I try to think.Actionable intel, Norah. What actionable intel have you gained?

Five-person leaguing is possible.

It cured Highwall’s bites.

MO is a woman.

After Miura’s death, Highwall and MO agreed to dismantle the Cruciform.

I press my hands to my skull like, if I apply enough force, I can squeeze from the murk, grit, and coal of guesswork a hard diamond of certainty.

All I do is make my headache worse.

In the common room, Candace sits where I left her, curled on the sofa with pulp science in her lap. I want to blurt out what I’ve found, see what she makes of it. But I’m not entirelysurewhat I’ve found. Maybe Candace’s and Vik’s searches will provide the missing puzzle pieces to make the picture come clear. I should wait for them to finish. So, from my doorway, I just ask, “How much longer will it take you?”

“An hour or so,” Candace says.

“Bree back?”

“No sign of her.”

“Once you’re done, want to text Vik and ask him to meet us here?”

“Will do.”

“Thanks.”

I head back into my room and flop onto my bed for a nap. Sleep drags me down like gray water, infiltrating my clothes, making me heavy, making me sink.

Sometime later, a hand touches my shoulder. Blinking, I turn my head. Vik crouches beside me. “Hey,” I mumble.

“Hey,” he whispers. “Candace sent me to wake you up.”

I sit up and rub my neck. Vik stays crouched, looking up at me with dark eyes.

We have revelations to share, schemes to plot; we don’t have the time to indulge in whatever this is. We should pull ourselves together and go find Candace.

“Do you know,” I say. “You’ve got to know. I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

His mouth tightens. “By what?”

By what.“My bite. What else?”

He stares. “No one knows whether the bitten put bystanders in danger.”

“No one knows. Exactly.”