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Marka’s voice enters the hallway. “Cy?”

“I’m here with her.”

Her.
They talk behind my back so much, they don’t even need to use my name.

“I know. Can you bring your last formula copy to me? I’m having problems accessing your files.”

“Sure. Zelia and I will be by.”

“No, no. You go ahead,” I say. “Wilbert wanted me to explain my whole DNA clasp thing again, right?” Wilbert tries not to act surprised and confused, but luckily Callie starts squeal/whining, taking everyone’s attention away.

“Okay. I’ll be back soon,” Cy says. He’s gone in a second, but they could be listening, so I keep my voice low.

“Wilbert,” I whisper. “You ready to try some elixir on Callie?”

“You’re done?” His eyes pull together with disbelief. “I thought you had a while to go.”

“I’ve a ton of more cycles to go, but I’ve enough that it’s worth a try now,” I say, keeping a casual tone.

To my relief, he buys it. We bring Callie down the hallway to my lab for the shot. One pig-wrestling hold later, we’re ready to go.

“One small step for pig-kind,” he jokes nervously.

I grab one of her little split-hoofed feet, only a bit bigger than my finger, and inject a syringe filled with the concentrated liquid of enzymes and DNA clasps. It’s not enough for a grown human, but maybe for this little porker. She hardly fights it this time, and afterward Wilbert puts her down and Callie walks away, oblivious to the bioengineered drug inside her.

“She might need several treatments to get to each and every cell,” I caution. We both watch her schlump over with exhaustion, as if the weight of the small-pig world is on her body. “Huh. I wish we could make it work faster.”

Oh. The bio-accelerant. It could work. I know what concentrations they had used on lab animals at my last job.

“Wait here, I have an idea.” I pull open one of the refrigerators and draw up a small syringe of the accelerant that Cy had finished that morning. Wilbert is reluctant to give Callie a second injection until I explain what it is. After it’s all over, we observe her closely.

“I hope it works,” he says. “She’s been acting kind of senile lately.” On cue, Callie starts licking the wall. Well, maybe the accelerant is a dud after all.

I put a hand on Wilbert’s arm. “Listen, don’t tell anyone about Callie. I want it to be a surprise next week. You know? The experiment on Callie will be icing on the cake.”

“Of course. Hey, look.” He points. Callie is trotting around the room with her curly tail up and possessing more energy than I’ve seen in a while. Wow, maybe the combination of treatments is working after all. I wish I could find out, but my internal clock says I don’t have time.

“Wait! Where are you going?” Wilbert yelps. “The doors are all locked, you know.”

“Wilbert.” I force a smile. “I’m going to get dessert.”

“Oh. I’ll go with you.”

Of course you will. The babysitting continues. But not for long.

“I USED TO MAKE THESE FOR MY DAD,”
I say.

Wilbert pokes the cookie with his index finger. “They look like little poo cakes. Like when Callie eats too much roughage.”

“Please don’t associate my cookies with Callie’s bowel movements,” I chide. Callie seems to agree. She’s still trotting around, prancing almost. I’m quietly thrilled. The elixir and bio-accelerant are working, and on the first try. Externally, I’m a nervous wreck, but Wilbert doesn’t notice my shaking fingers as I turn to the ion oven.

“What are these?” Marka sweeps in, following her nose.

“Oatmeal raisin cookies. It’s an heirloom recipe from the mid-1900s.” I punch the ingredients into the oven’s control panel for a second batch. By now, the scent of cinnamon and brown sugar is wafting through the entire kitchen and common room. Vera and Cy find the kitchen pretty fast. Hex’s voice sounds from the walls.

“Don’t eat them all! I’m coming! Save me six! SIX!”

“Of course,” I say. “It’s the least I could do, after ruining the babka.” The last ingredients are in, and I type in the order to mix, separate, and bake the next dozen. They’ll be done in a few minutes. “Someone grab the milk and I’ll bring the next dozen out to the table,” I say.

The cookies cast a strange, forceful spell because everyone immediately obeys me, grabbing glasses and the two pitchers of synthetic milk from the fridge. They file out as I turn my back to them, reach into the ion oven, and take out the steaming, fragrant cookies. I take one from the tray and put it on the countertop. In one quick movement, I pull out a bottle of fentocaine from the band of my pants, flip the plastic cap off, and stab the protective foil across the top with a fork.

I let the clear liquid drizzle over the remaining eleven cookies, disappearing into the landscape of raisins and oats. The bottle disappears into the trash can, and for extra measure, I open up the second bottle, then stop. No, it would be too much. I don’t want to overdose them. I pour the bottle into a mug of milk as a backup, just in case. If I’m lucky, the scent of baking cookies will fool Marka before she even knows what hit her.

That’s a big
if
.

I take one unadulterated cookie off the countertop and jam it between my teeth for effect. It dries out in my mouth, and the cloying sweetness nauseates me. A protective, silicone cooking glove goes over the hand that carries the mug of milk. If I spill this on myself by accident, it would be the worse kind of poetic justice ever. Hex bounds into the kitchen.

“Sweet! I’m not too late.” He takes the cookie-filled plate from the counter and whacks the door open with two hands. Vera, Wilbert, Marka, and Cy are passing around goblets of milk. The other dish of cookies is now a battlefield in ruins, crumbs everywhere.

“Help yourself,” I say, but it comes out as “Helff your felff,” sloppy and innocent-sounding. Everyone reaches for the new plate of cookies. For a moment, I know exactly what Snow White’s evil stepmother felt like, offering that shining ruby apple. Only the evil queen never felt as sick as I do now, knowing what’s about to happen.

The cookies are taken by everyone but Marka. Crap. She’s making sure everyone else gets a portion first. I panic, because if she isn’t drugged, my whole plan is screwed. Hex manages to get one into his mouth, but none of the others make it that far. The fentocaine goes straight through their skin, entering their bloodstream and darkening their vision.

Hex falls backward, crashing onto the carpet. The cookie bounces right out of his mouth. Vera hits the table, her lovely head bouncing on her arm. Even knocked out, she’s exquisite, and her perfect green skin doesn’t fade a bit.

“Oh my god!” Marka shrieks, shaking Vera’s arm, then running to Hex on the floor. She touches Hex’s face. He’s unconscious with his arms splayed out in an X. She whirls around, only to see Cy fall next.

The cookie drops out of his hand, and there is an eternal second in time when his gaze meets mine. Just before blackness takes him, I see terrible things in his eyes. The realization about everything—each lie, why I pushed him away too much. All the trust between us obliterates like a splinter burned to ash. A beat later, his eyes close and his head falls onto his arm.

“What’s going on?” Marka yells, frantic. She crouches by Hex, batting away the cookies still clutched in his hands with her shoe-covered feet. She already knows not to touch them. When she sees me standing there, watching with a calm terror that only the guilty possess, she croaks, “Zelia? What have you done?”

Her accusation is heavy and sharp. It slices into me without resistance. I start to cry. “I’m so sorry.” I hold my mug of poisoned milk, ready to throw it on her, but my arm doesn’t move.

“This isn’t going to get your sister back,” she says hurriedly, checking Hex’s pulse, then moving to Wilbert. Wilbert is sprawled comfortably on the table, snoring peacefully. It could be the first time in his entire life both heads have been asleep.

“I won’t let anyone get hurt because of me. Not again,” I say, letting the tears dribble down my cheek. I take a step closer to her, lifting the mug of milk. Marka sees what I’ve got in my protected hand, and she shakes her head.

“Don’t.” Her hand goes up and she starts to back away from me. “Please, Zelia! You’re throwing yourself away. You have a new family here, one that loves you.” Her perpetually stoic face breaks into a sob. “I’ve already lost your father. I’ve lost your sister. Please. I’m begging you. I can’t lose you too.”

I pause and stop walking toward her. I’ve never seen Marka cry, and it’s killing me. My shoulders start to shake as tears obscure my vision. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I can have this family, and Dyl and Cy . . .

No. I know that’s just a dream, like the fake ones induced by Wilbert’s elixir. I have to give this all away. The tiny chance to get Dyl back rests on me, and me alone. I wipe my tears away and look around at the sleeping forms of Hex, Wilbert, Cy, and Vera.

“They need you, Marka. And Dyl needs me. I’m sorry.”

“No!”

I thrust the mug forward. An arc of pristine, white milk sails into the air. Marka twists around to run as most of the milk splatters far away from me on the ebony floor. A single splash of liquid darkens the fabric of her pearl-gray pants. She takes only three more steps before she collapses on the floor.

I cover my mouth, horrified by my success.

Before I leave, I kiss Cy tenderly on the cheek. My tears dampen his hair where they cling like clear jewels. For the first time in a week, he’s put more tattoos on again. His neck bears a fading image of bodies frozen in concentric rings of a lake. Lower down on his arm, the bodies cry in torment. During one of my middle-of-the-night rambles, I figured out that the rings of Dante’s hell have always been his images of choice. I know this ring of hell, because I saw it in his room yesterday. The ninth ring. Treachery.

Callie trots over to me, the pig incarnation of all things normal and happy. She’s the yin to my yang.

Callie snuffles Wilbert’s inert leg with curiosity, and I run for the door without another glance back.

I can’t see anyway. I’m crying too hard.

• • •

IN THE LAB, I MOP MY SODDEN
eyes and nose with a sleeve.

“Time,” I call.

“Nine thirty p.m.,” the room responds. Prompt to the end, even when I’ve poisoned the owners of these curved walls. I have less than three hours. In the center fridge, hiding behind a wall of phony vials, are two plain bottles that contain my real elixir. I stuff them into a tiny cooler bag programmed to the same temperature as the fridge. Before I leave, I pause before the shelves full of other Carus experiments. Cy’s one vial sits alone on a shelf.

I hold it in my hand, hesitating. It’s not mine to take. Then again, nothing of Cy’s, including his affection, has ever been mine to have. The bottle is so small, weighing only a few ounces. No. I shake my head and put it back, talking out loud to no one.

“I can’t.” As I put it back on the cold shelf, something weightless brushes against my shoulder. A soft voice enters my head.

“Sure you can.”

Behind the giant metal door of the fridge, Ana sways unsteadily on a single foot. Her plum nightgown is hardly more than a wisp of fabric on her lean body. She balances as if walking an invisible tightrope on the floor. Oh no. I didn’t drug Ana. I didn’t even think of it. Ana reads the mistake on my face. And now—

“You forgot about me.” Her lips are closed as usual, but her voice rings clear with the accusation. Her eyes lift and she glares at me, her expression perfectly matching the saw’s edge of her words.

“Oh, Ana.” I don’t know what to say. Where to start. And there isn’t time either. I can’t endanger my elixir. It’s the only thing that might get both me and Dyl out of this whole mess together. I clutch the cold bag full of bottles close to my chest.

Ana doesn’t move, but extends her hand delicately toward my precious cargo. I feel the pressure of her invisible touch as she taps my bag from afar. She comes closer, and I stiffen.

“That’s your treasure?” her voice asks, like a small child.

“Sort of. I’m hoping to get back something . . . someone I lost.” In whatever strange and tilted world she’s in, I could get away with talking riddles, but I cannot lie. Especially not now.

“A trinket for a treasure,” her voice intones, and her hand reaches to pat my cheek. Her corporeal touch is nothing like the whispery ones from afar. She’s so real, so warm. So here. The gentle gesture undoes me. After a minute, I wipe away the mess on my face and adjust my grip on the bottles.

“Oh, Ana! I have to go. It’s time.”

“Here.” She reaches into the fridge and grabs Cy’s brew, the last bottle I almost took. “You need it. Brother doesn’t.”

“But—”

“And this.” She pulls out an entire rack of thimble-sized vials of green liquid.

“What is that?”

“Vera’s skin.”

“I can’t use that,” I say, and push the tray away, but Ana shoves it back at me. She opens the other refrigerator door and waves at the entire Carus supply of traits in their bottles.

“You need your family.”

“How is this going to help?”

“They are too much for you. Caliga will bring darkness, the sickness. Tegg has armor that cannot break, even with a knife. And there are others too. Blink, the one who swims in the black. The strong one, Bill.”

“And green skin is going to help me how?” I shake my head. “It took Callie a week before Vera’s injections worked on her.” I pause, thinking. No, it would never work in time. But maybe it could. I run to a different fridge where the rest of the newly made bio-accelerant is. It seemed to work on Callie. I already know it works within Cy. Why not me?

As Ana removes rack after rack, lining up the bottles, I get a vial of bio-accelerant ready. I load a human-sized dose into a skin-pouch and slap it to my shoulder. Ana picks up a tiny green vial and shows it to me.

“How do you know about this stuff?”

“Cy,” she says.

“And you understand how this all works?” I ask, dumbfounded. Ana stops for a second and holds out the bottle of green liquid.

“Science is easy. It follows rules. This”—she taps her chest—“has no map.”

Oh. While I ponder a universe-sized amount of philosophy in her simple sentence, Ana gathers a pile of syringes.

“You need your family,” she repeats, waiting.

My family. I’m going to take them with me after all. I smile. For the first time in days, I don’t feel alone.

In the next half hour, Ana helps me load up syringe after syringe.

“You’re sure this won’t kill me?” I say, after the first injection goes into my forearm, forming a bleb of green under the skin.

“We’re all going to die sometime,” she says, bringing me another syringe.

Gah. She didn’t really answer my question. Ana delivers the next bee sting of a shot. I wince, waiting for a horrible sign that the green gook is going to kill me, but it doesn’t happen.

I pull up my shirt and see that my stomach is covered in round green patches. So are my arms and my legs. My sleeves and leggings will keep them hidden.

Next is a tray of Hex’s stuff. It didn’t make Callie grow extra limbs, so who knows what this stuff is going to do. Hex has thirty tiny different plastic vials, all labeled with his boy-scrawl. One row is labeled
SUPERFAILS.
I pull one out that catches my eye and peer at the writing on the cap.

Hand-growth formula / Finger-locking good

Typical Hex humor, except I have no idea what he means. I grab two of those, plus another.

Eyelids in triplicate. Screw sunglasses!

I take the leftover accelerant and add it to each of the vials. Then I gather up a collection of them in my hands. Where am I going to hide these? My cold pack only fits the two vials of my elixir, and I’ve no pockets. I peek down the neck of my shirt, eyeing my bra.

Well, this is convenient. What else is going to go in there, after all? It’s just excess real estate. Goosebumps erupt as I tuck each cold vial into my bra. Good thing the vials are tiny. After the last adjustment to the vault of my newly grown chest, Ana pulls my hand toward the door.

“One more.”

She drags me into the hallway, leading me downstairs to Marka’s lab. I nearly trip trying to keep up with her. Despite the maze-like hallways, she finds the lab with faultless accuracy. Inside, the darkness contrasts against the backlit wall of scents. My finger touches a glass door.

“But she said her trait isn’t usable.”

Ana shrugs, and says simply, “It’s Marka. Bring her with you.” She unearths a tiny pillbox from Marka’s desk labeled
HYPEROSMIA, PO BATCH
107. She dumps the three peach-colored tablets into my palm.

“It will open the eyes of your nose,” she says.

“Okay.” I try desperately to refrain from visualizing eyeballs sprouting from the tip of my schnoz. Secretly, though, I doubt I’ll use it. The way Marka freaks out when she smells normal Neian air can’t be helpful. I won’t hurt Ana’s feelings, so I wrap the pills in a folded paper and stuff it next to Hex’s tiny bottles.