“Sorry, but could you just... stay there and not move, please?”

  Rafe would never help me communicate with a Resident, and I was running out of time. Fortunately, this thing had all the patience in the world. Not only did it restore the woman’s head to its original shape, as I’d requested, it also summoned the hidden left side of her chest cavity.

  The kid had his face buried in my arms as Rafe pulled a faintly pulsating slab of flesh from the back of his T-shirt. He bought the weak excuse that it was “a cushion meant to help the kid feel safe”—at least I hoped he did. With luck, he’d forget the whole thing along with most of his childhood memories. In my opinion, that made him one of the lucky ones. At least he was still at an age where forgetting was possible.

  As for how the boy’s father might process all of this—I trusted that Hunters were equipped to handle situations like this.

  "Of course. I thought it would take far longer for you to accept my presence. You have no idea how delighted I am!"

  Perched atop the small tray table, the left chest cavity supported a charred, wrinkled human head using a thin, balloon-like stalk of meat. It let out a giddy giggle. My stomach twisted in sync with the corners of my mouth—that was the best composure I could manage. Rafe tapped my wristwatch, signaling that time was running out.

  “Thank you. I’m... honored to speak with you. May I ask—what are you? Where did you come from? How did you get on this plane? And why did you enter her body?”

  I started the recording app and pulled out my notebook, just in case this thing turned out to be like a ghost or hallucination—something that couldn’t be captured by technology. That’s how it always goes in horror films: the protagonist confidently plays back the recording only to find the crucial moment missing, branded insane by everyone else.

  The charred head nodded approvingly. “I’m a Resident, of course. Being born at sea is such a hassle. It took me... I don't even remember how long to finally meet Orl. What a kind soul he was, willing to help me realize my grand vision—”

  “For fuck’s sake, who the hell would believe this crap?” Rafe pressed the muzzle of his gun to the Resident’s forehead. I hadn’t even seen him pull it out—bringing a gun onto a commercial flight was something I hadn’t accounted for at all.

  “Wait, wait—we still have a few minutes. You can decide then.” I didn’t try to get Rafe to lower the gun; I didn’t want to push his already fraying nerves. “Who is Orl? And what’s your so-called vision?”

  The head claimed it had been born from a marine biologist who had accidentally opened a Path. The moment it entered Nowhere, it fell into a dinosaur graveyard and was torn to shreds by something it couldn't even identify.

  Fortunately, Residents born in that region could grow inside fossils. The owner of the ashes—Orl, as it called him—had died on a beach. Part of his body was devoured by marine creatures, cycling through the food chain until the remains eventually reached this unique mineralized residue on the seafloor. With its last ounce of strength, the Resident slipped into the corpse of this Hunter named Orl.

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  The fact that it managed to tell such a coherent story in just three minutes was honestly a relief—it saved me some precious time.

  “You don’t actually believe this, do you? Do you realize how astronomically unlikely all of that is?” Rafe gripped my wrist tightly. “No one knows what the Nowhere at sea is really like. You can ask any Hunter—this is common knowledge.”

  Rafe knew what I was capable of. That was what made this moment—his willingness to risk everything—a kind of honesty in itself.

  “Exactly. The unknowns of the sea just mean I can’t verify what it said. That doesn’t make it all false. But none of that is the point right now. I’m proposing a deal. I assume it’s one you won’t object to.”

  I didn’t let go of Rafe’s hand—instead, I pulled him behind me and pressed his hand onto the tray table, while I continued my persuasion.

  “You said you couldn’t wait for the plane to land before seeing me—probably because you couldn’t hold on inside those ashes any longer, right? After all that dramatic buildup, you’re making it sound like you actually like me or something. If you leave this woman’s body and restore her to normal, I’ll take you off this plane—with me. In the urn. Not in anyone’s body. I’ll carry you back to Nowhere. From there, it’s on you whether you can make it back to my world again. Sound fair?”

  The head let out a sigh, followed by that same giggling sound—like fingernails scraping glass. It made my scalp crawl.

  “If that’s your answer—”

  I took out a brow razor, lifted my skirt, and pressed the blade into the skin of my thigh, letting beads of blood slowly rise to the surface.

  “I’ll carve the words ‘go back where you come from’ into my skin. If you made it back from the ocean to human territory, then surely the sky isn’t harder than the sea. If there’s even a chance I can send you back that way—”

  The thought of this thing having to wait for some Hunter to drag fossils out of the ocean again made me want to laugh. Even carving out the word “go” didn’t hurt much by comparison.

  The head gurgled something—let’s assume it was in the language of sea-dwelling Residents or maybe even dinosaurs. I just kept writing “b” while watching Rafe’s finger tighten on the trigger.

  “All right, all right—no idea if I’m lucky or just cursed. Ugh, eating a person used to be such a minor thing. Why is it so damn hard for me?”

  Its clouded eyes looked pitiful, almost like an old lady being scolded. “Bring back my body and drip your blood into the ashes.”

  Rafe suddenly crouched down and looked under the tray table.

  There, in faint brow-pencil strokes, were the words I’d written: Truth Only.

  “Not bad. We’re finally starting to sync up.”

  By the time Rafe had dragged five large suitcases over to the head, I was already sprawled out on the fully reclined seat, dizzy and fading.

  “Don’t touch the ashes directly, no matter what. Give this lady my phone number. Tell her if she experiences any physical problems, she can contact me. We just dealt with something that can control human bodies—a Coll…”

  Turns out, extreme exhaustion and unconsciousness feel exactly the same.

  If Rafe could be trusted—and with a bit of luck—we just might get what we wanted.