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There’s a lot I’d like to ask her What is her father like? What color did she hen she was Matched? Why didn’t I find out all of this before? Now there’s not enough tis "You’re not a Society sympathizer," I say instead "I’ve always known that But you weren’t Rising at the beginning"

"I’ or Society," she says The fluid drips into her ar to her

"Why don’t you believe in the Rising?" I ask "Or the Pilot?"

"I don’t know," she says "I wish I could"

"What do you believe?" I ask

"My father also taughtand turning through the sky And we’re all on it together I do believe that"

"Why don’t we fall off?" I ask

"We couldn’t if we tried," she says "There’s so that holds us here"

"So the world is ht now," I say

"Yes"

"But I don’t feel it"

"You will," she says "Someday If you lie down and hold very still"

She looks at me We both realize what she’s said: still

"I was hoping to see hiain before this happened," she says

I aloing to be enough, because I’m not who she wants I’ve seen soh me, exactly, but beyond to so," she says, "that he’d find me"

After she’s still, I find a stretcher left behind by theOne of the head ," he says

"She’s one of ours," I tell hi room"

He has the red mark, too, so he doesn’t hesitate to bend down and look nition crosses his face "Lei," he says "One of the best The two of you worked together even before the Plague, didn’t you?"

"Yes," I tell him

The medic’s face is sympathetic "Feels like that was in a whole different world, doesn’t it?" he says

"Yes," I say It does I feel strangely detached, like I’ myself take care of Lei It’s just the exhaustion, but I wonder if this is what it feels like to be still Their bodies stay in one place, but can their o so around theto all the places she knew She’s in the patients’ roo in the night air She’s at the port, looking at the painting of the girl fishing Or, one to find hi Lei into the room with the others There are a hundred and one of the or off to the sides "You’re due to sleep now," the head physic tells me froet her settled" I call for one of the medics to come over to help ht so far," the ed, and her blood pressure is decent" She reaches out and touches my hand before she leaves "I’-up eyes I’ve talked to lots of other patients, but I’ thefor Lei

Then I get an idea, and before I can talk myself out of it, I take off down the hall for the cafeteria and the port where Lei was looking at the paintings

"Please have paper, please have paper," I say to the port If I’ to patients who can’t anshy not talk to the port, too?

The port listens It prints out all of the Hundred Paintings when I enter the coht and take them with me This is what I did for Cassia when she leftI knew she loved to take with her

Most of the other workers think I’ht help "If nothing else, it’ll givedifferent to look at," she says, and she finds adhesive tape and surgical thread in the supply closet and helps , above the patients

"Port paper deteriorates pretty fast," I say, "so we’ll have to print theh We don’t want the patients getting sick of any one painting" I step back to survey e’ve done "It would be better if we had new pictures I don’t want the patients to think they’re back in the Society"

"We could erly "I’ve always , the e did in First School"

"What would you use?" I ask "We don’t have any paints"

"I’ll think of so," she says "Haven’t you alanted the chance?"

"No," I say I think it surprises her, so I se off I wonder if I’d be a different kind of person, the kind Lei and Cassia could fall in love with, if I had

"The head physic is going to pull you froo to the sleeproom now," the nurse tells me

"I know," I say "I heard him on the port"

But there’s soo "I’m sorry," I tell Lei The words are as inadequate as they were the first tiain "They’ll find a cure, don’t you think?" I point to the painting hanging above her "There’s got to be soht if she hadn’t pointed it out, but once she did, it becanore

On my way to the sleeproom, the door to the courtyard opens and so irl I’ve seen before, but ardless, I know she doesn’t belong here in our locked-doing The head physic didn’t tellin, and even if they did, they’d have to coirl says "There you are I’ve been looking for you"