He trailed off when he saw August coming. “Hey.”

“Hey,” echoed August.

“What’s with the cat?” asked Harris.

August had stashed the creature inside his FTF jacket; its head was sticking out the top. “I couldn’t just leave it,” he said. “Not after . . .” His gaze went back to the building.

Harris shrugged. “Suit yourself. But just so you know, that’s not what I meant when I said you should expand your parameters.”

August let out a tired laugh.

“Home?”

August nodded. “Home.” He looked up, wishing they could see stars, then heard the sound of Phillip’s boots jogging over.

“We good?”

“All done,” said Harris.

“Then we need to go,” said Phillip. “Just caught word on the comm of a flare-up near the Seam.”

“Should we go help?” asked August, straightening.

“No,” said Phillip, eyes flicking to the cat in August’s coat. He didn’t even ask. “We need to get you back.”

August started to protest, but it was no use. Phillip and Harris had their orders—they’d drag him back to the compound if they had to—so August zipped the jacket up over the cat and fell into step between them.

Henry was in the kitchen when August got home, a blueprint rolled out across the counter, a comm device buzzing in his hand. Leo’s voice crackled on the other end.

“Under control . . .”

Henry lifted the comm to his mouth. “Casualties?”

“Two . . . can’t ignore . . . signs . . .”

“Return home.”

“Henry—”

“Not now.” Henry flipped the switch and tossed the comm aside. He ran a hand through his hair, which was graying at the temples.

August scuffed his shoe, and Henry’s head snapped up. For an instant, his face was a tangle of surprise and anger, frustration and fear. But then his features went smooth, the shadows pushed back under the surface.

“Hey,” he said. “Feeling better?”

“Much,” said August, heading toward his room.

“Then why is your stomach moving?”

August dragged to a stop and looked down at his FTF jacket, which was indeed beginning to shift and twist. “Oh,” he said. “That.”

August unzipped the coat a little, and a small, furry face poked out the top.

Henry’s eyes widened. “What is that?”

“It’s a cat,” said August.

“Yes,” said Henry, rubbing his neck. “I’ve seen them before. But what is it doing in your jacket?”

“He belonged to Osinger,” explained August, freeing the cat from his coat. “I felt responsible—I was responsible—and I couldn’t . . . I tried to leave but . . .”

“August.”

He switched tactics. “You’ve taken in your share of strays,” he said. “Let me have this one.”

That earned him a relenting smile. “Who will take care of it?” asked Henry.

Just then someone made a sound—something between a gasp and a delighted squeak—and Ilsa was there between them, lifting the small creature into her arms. August nodded at Henry as if to say, I can think of someone who would love to. Henry just sighed, shook his head, and left the room.

Ilsa brought the cat an inch from her face and looked it in the eyes. It responded by reaching out a single black paw and bringing it to rest on the bridge of her nose. The cat seemed mesmerized by her. Most things were. “What’s its name?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” said August.

“Everybody needs a name,” she cooed, sinking cross-legged to the kitchen floor. “Everybody deserves one.”

“Then name it,” said August.

Ilsa considered the small black cat. Held him to her ear. “Allegro,” she announced.

August smiled. “I like that,” he said, sitting down across from her. He reached out, and scratched the cat’s ears. Its purr thrummed under his fingers.

“He likes you,” she said. “They can tell the difference, you know, between good and bad. Just like we can.” Allegro tried to climb into her hair, and she dragged him gently back into her lap.

“Will you look after him, while I’m at school?”

Ilsa folded herself around the cat. “Of course,” she whispered. “We will look after each other.”

They were still sitting on the floor with Allegro when Leo returned, a steel guitar strapped to his back, and a streak of blood—not his—across his cheek. He took one look at Allegro and frowned. Allegro took one look at him and put its ears back. Ilsa broke into a laugh, as sweet as chimes, and right then August knew, for sure, that he was keeping the cat.

Kate sat on her bedroom floor until the music stopped.

Her hands were shaking a little as she lit a cigarette; she took a long drag, leaned her head back against the door, and looked around. Her room, like the rest of the penthouse, was sleek and sparse, made of sharp edges and hard lines. There were no traces of her childhood, no height measurements or nicks, no stuffed animals or old clothes, no fashion ads or posters. No field beyond the window.

When she was twelve, it had felt sterile, cold, but now she tried to embrace the room’s austerity. To embody it. The blank walls, the unshakable calm.

One of the few pieces of decoration was a folding frame with a pair of photographs inside. She plucked it from the table. In the first photo, a five-year-old Kate stood with one arm thrown around her father, the other wrapped around her mom. Above her head, Callum kissed his wife’s temple. Alice Harker was beautiful—not just in the way that all children think their parents are—but concretely, undeniably gorgeous, with sun-kissed hair and large hazel eyes that lit up whenever she smiled. The picture had been taken two months before the Phenomenon.

The second photo was a reenactment, taken the day they returned to V-City after the truce. Together again. A family reunited, made whole. She ran her thumb over the faces. An eleven-year-old Kate with her arms around her parents, reunited after six years apart. Six years of chaos and fighting. Six years of quiet and peace.

The changes showed on all of them. Kate was no longer a round-faced child, but a freckled youth. Her mother had tiny wrinkles, the kind you got from laughing. And her father still looked at Alice, his gaze intense, as if afraid that if he looked away, she would vanish again.