He’s deteriorating quickly. I’m hit with a pang as I realize he’s using what are probably his final weeks in Tenebra trying to save the kids and reunite them with their families. Maybe Luc and the Spores do have the same goal and just don’t realize they’re on the same side.

“Where are they?” I imagine little Heidi in a cell like mine and feel sick.

“Somewhere safe where the Spores can’t get them. We’re in the process of collecting their information in the hopes of reuniting them with their parents.”

His story has stayed the same since I met him, but my faith in it has dwindled. I can’t pinpoint why. Maybe it’s because he had me followed. How else would they have found the catacombs? Did they see me at the golden wheat field when I found Heidi? I don’t know why, but I hope not. That place brought me joy, and I want to keep thinking of it as my own—as a refuge of sorts that I can go to someday if I need to. It promises safety, even if it doesn’t make sense.

“We got my father,” Luc says. It takes me a moment to realize what he means. “We got him out of the Tunnel.”

Galilei. The cure. “So he’s still alive.” Then why doesn’t Luc look happy?

“I fear we’re too late,” he states.

“No, we’re not. I still have one Sleep left. If the Spores follow through with what they said, then I can get the cure information from Galilei, take it to the Real World—”

“Not too late for him, Cain. Too late for you.”

I try not to let my confusion show. The statement hangs in the air, waiting for me to piece things together. Luc is the only route to a LifeSuPod—to life. I need to salvage this.

“I’m not quitting on this job, Luc.”

He shakes his head. “You’re infected. I can see in your eyes that you don’t trust me. You’re not on my side.”

I almost laugh. “We’ve never trusted each other! We only used each other. And it’s worked so far. You’re trying to save your father, and I’m trying to save myself.” And the rest of the world. “Let’s finish the job.”

For the first time I wonder if Luc doesn’t want us to get the cure from his father. After all, what life would Luc be going back to? A body with Stage IV cancer? Tuberculosis?

“You stink, Cain.”

I glare at him. “Sorry, I haven’t showered enough for you.”

He laughs, but it turns into a wheeze, and his arms tremble as they grip the sides of the chair until the cough passes. “What I mean is that you stink like a Spore.”

I actually sniff the air. “I don’t smell anything different.”

“You wouldn’t. Because it’s coming from you.”

“Are you implying I’m a Spore sympathizer now?” Anger bubbles inside my chest. “I risked my neck to find their base so I could save my own life in order to save your father’s. And now I’m being punished for it? You gave the okay. You sent me out there.”

He sighs. “Look, I’m not against you. Otherwise I’d have had my tirones kill you. Instead, I sent them there to rescue you, Cain.”

The scene clicks together in my mind. The tirones looking through the attacking Spores. Spotting me. Calling me Icarus. Dragging me out, but not killing me.

“We were trying to get you out before you got Spored.”

“I’m not Spored,” I insist.

“Tell me then, what did the catacombs smell like?”

“Dust. Dirt. Stone. What do you expect?”

“How about . . . cinnamon?”

I freeze. He sees the response in my body language, but I don’t care. My mind spins. He’s right. The Spores got to me. Their tunnels did smell like cinnamon when I brought Heidi in. Cinnamon rolls. I thought they were baking when really they had infected me.

I’ve been standing here defensive. Distrusting. Doubting every word from Luc’s mouth. But logic kicks back in. He said the Spores could weasel their way into my mind and change my very thoughts. I lift up my foot to inspect the roots that have been there the past several times I’ve entered the Nightmare. They’re weak and brittle and small.

“I’m trying to help you, Cain. But I need to know the extent of the damage. You need to know.”

“What do I do?” I breathe, a hand inching up toward my head as if I can scrape out this Spore infection. “They didn’t even say anything. But somehow I started thinking they were good.”

Then I picture the kids playing with the basketball. The little beds tucked into catacomb tombs. I think of Stranna reuniting with her sister Olivia and the camaraderie between her and the other Spores.

I think of the golden field surrounded by nightbeasts and how I knew—really knew—Heidi would be safer with the Spores than in the coliseum.

Luc says I’m infected, he says they wormed their way into my mind. But the thoughts and convictions of my heart feel far clearer than any others. I don’t want to be deceived, but if this is deception . . . it feels so much more free and clean than Luc’s truth.

Maybe I’m willing to be deceived.

It’s the first time I feel a little bit of life in this place. I certainly can’t tell Luc that. That I’m okay with being infected. He needs to think I’m still on his side. After I get Galilei and my LifeSuPod, then I can be branded a traitor. For now, though, we need each other to accomplish what he desires. And we both know it.

I expel a long breath. “I can get past this, Luc. Just give me a chance. One more try. When I wake up, I’ll either still be trapped in that landfill or the Spores will have rescued my body, and I’ll be able to help your father.”

“Okay,” he says. “But you need to remain in the cell for now.”

I flare at this, but the reasoning makes sense. “Fair enough.”

“Don’t let me down, Cain. I know you’re trying to do the right thing, but remember that I have Spores in cells just like this and an Arena filled with nightbeasts. If you’re on my side, you won’t care who or what I send to the Arena. If you’re not on my side, well, consider their lives incentive to follow through with your promise to save my father.”

He sees through me. I see through him. But we’re both trapped, the only people in both Tenebra and the Real World who can help each other.

It’s not pretty, but desperation never is.

“I want to see Galilei.” I want proof of what I’m fighting for. For all I know, Luc could be lying about his dad.

“He’s not coherent.”

I look at him. “I thought people couldn’t be unconscious in the Nightmare.”

“He’s conscious but not lucid.”

Meaning Galilei won’t be able to tell me anything about the cure. “I have one more Sleep. If your old man doesn’t share his information now, I’ll never be able to bring the cure to the Real World.”

“We’ll find a way to wake up,” Luc says, and I think of the device he used to try to save my life. It stopped my heart instead. Is that where his hope is?

“I have one chance to get your dad’s LifeSuPod out of that high-rise. I don’t want to take the wrong body. I need to know what he looks like.” I mainly want to know he’s real.

Luc relents. “All right. Crixus will take you there. But keep your distance.” He eyes my hands as though I’m going to create a nightbeast. But what good would that do me? As though coming to the same conclusion, he waves his own hand, and the wheels of his chair spin of their own accord, leaving a trail of nightmist in their wake. He exits the prison area, and I’m not sure the wheels ever fully touch the ground.