glassware without poisoning themselves. (They keep a separate set of beakers and dishes for culinary purposes, and regularly upset visitors by eating out of them.) She should be able to find at least one person there who can help her.
As she runs, she hears footsteps behind her. They aren’t hurried; they don’t need to be.
The stairwell door is always unlocked this late at night. She bursts out into a hall identical to the one she just left, still running. There’s a lab door ahead of her. It’s open, and she can hear voices coming from inside. Smita finds speed where she would have sworn none existed, racing down the hall and grabbing the doorframe of the lab, hanging there, shuddering and panting, taking a moment to catch her breath and remember how to form words.
There are three chemistry students inside. Two of them are seated, eating pizza out of the box; the third is making margaritas in one of the lab blenders. None of them turns to look at her.
Smita pulls in a vast, sucking breath, and wheezes, “Please help me.”
Not one of them stops what they are doing to turn around. The pizza-eaters keep eating, one laughing as the other draws a line of melted cheese from her lip all the way to the box. The margarita-maker continues to mix, calling something unintelligible to the others.
“Please!” Smita’s voice is a shout this time; it echoes in the confines of the lab, inescapable, impossible to overlook.
And not one of them turns around.
A hand lands on her shoulder, squeezing until she feels her clavicle bend under the pressure. Like the chemistry students she still watches with helpless, hopeless eyes, Smita does not turn around.
Erin’s lips brush her ear as she says, in a conversational tone, “I warned you. I told you that you were already a ghost. You could have stayed upstairs, and never realized how much I meant that. Now you get to make a choice.”
“Please let me go,” Smita whispers.
“It’s too late for that. It’s far, far too late for that. But if I kill you here, they’ll see the blood. I can’t sterilize their whole lab while they’re in it, not even with the Hand of Glory protecting me. If I kill you here, I have to kill them too. Do you want that?”
Yes, thinks Smita fiercely, looking at the chemistry majors as they laugh, flicking pizza toppings at each other, unaware that the laws of science are being violated only feet away. What’s happening is impossible. But she feels Erin’s fingers grinding on her shoulder, and she knows no amount of denial will change the reality of her situation. She’s going to die here. All that’s left to her is to remember how to die with dignity.
Dignity means not condemning three innocent bystanders simply because she can’t stand the idea that they will continue after she has stopped. “Please don’t hurt them,” she says.
“Good girl,” says Erin. “Let’s go back to your lab. We can take the elevator this time. You must be tired.”
Smita doesn’t protest, doesn’t argue; she’s already run once, and it got her no farther than a room full of people who couldn’t hear when she begged for help. She isn’t broken yet, but she’s breaking, and when Erin pulls her away from the doorway, she goes willingly, allowing herself to be led back to the elevator. It is somehow utterly reasonable that the woman is carrying the burning hand again. That’s the reason for the isolation, she knows it, and yet she also knows she can’t get the hand away before the knife makes another appearance.
The elevator comes at the press of a button. The sorcery that’s wiped them from the eyes of the world doesn’t affect everything. There should be an escape route hidden in that fact. Smita can’t see it. She’s tired and afraid, and her lungs are burning. There are no escapes left.
Erin guides her into the elevator and presses the button for the top floor. The doors close. They start to move. “I really am sorry about this,” she says, once it’s clear that Smita isn’t going to break the silence. “I like you a lot. You’re good people. If I had another option, I’d take it.”
“Don’t kill me.”
“That’s not on the table this time around, I’m afraid. This is how it ends. The only question left is how badly it’s going to hurt.” There’s a tightness in Erin’s voice. Smita glances toward her. She looks pained, like this