The girl’s distress would have been touching if Palamedes had been able to make any sense of it. His ears may not be ringing—he has no ears to ring, not really—but still he remains dazed by the act of self-sabotage that led him to this place. At least half of his prodigious mind must remain dedicated to keeping this little bubble bobbing along on the banks of the River; the rest of his thoughts are crowded with Cam, and Dulcinea, and Cytherea, and God, with you lied to us and a theorem he is on the very cusp of cracking.

She shakes him almost painfully; he blinks rapidly and stares hard at her, increasingly thinking of her as an anomaly that must be sorted out. “Are you a manifestation of my guilt?” he wonders aloud. “Or something snuck in from the River?” Carefully, he peels her grip away from him. “In either instance, I’m afraid I cannot allow you to stay. The stability of the bubble is of upmost importance, you see.” And because even mad revenants and hallucinations deserve kindness, he adds, “I am sorry.”