Mouse shrugged again. Our situations are diff. I am a criminal. U are a name. Besides, they are stupid here & they might not figure it out & then u will owe me anyway. I will bet on u, if u will bet on me. Around 2 a.m., right?

“Yes. Go see my lawyer Simon Green when you’re free. He will help you with whatever you need.”

She made an “okay” sign. “Thank you, Kate,” I said.

She bowed, then slipped out of the room. No one had seen her come in, and no one had seen her leave. I wondered if I could count on a girl so quiet to make enough of a distraction.

Saturday morning, Natty and Imogen came to see me. They knew nothing of my plans, and so I tried to keep the mood light. I did hug Natty extra tight. Who knew when I’d be able to see her again.

Simon Green and I had decided that I shouldn’t have any visitors in the afternoon. I needed to rest for the long night ahead.

Still, I couldn’t sleep. I was anxious and I couldn’t even walk around to calm myself. I was starting to wish we hadn’t told everyone not to come.

I looked at the clock. It was 5:00. Visitors weren’t allowed after 6:00 anyway. I closed my eyes.

I had fallen into a sort of half sleep when someone came into the room.

I rolled over. A tall boy with longish blond dreadlocks and thick black glasses. I didn’t recognize him until he spoke. “Annie,” Win said.

“You look ridiculous,” I told him, but I couldn’t help smiling. “Where’s your cane?” He walked over to me, and I struggled to sit up in bed and tugged at his ropy wig.

“I didn’t want anyone to figure out who I was.”

“You didn’t want to make things worse for your father.”

“I didn’t want to make things worse for you!” He lowered his voice. “Dad said you were being transferred from the hospital tomorrow. That if I insisted on seeing you, today would be the best day. And that if I needed to behave so foolishly, I should at least wear a disguise. Thus, the wig.”

I shook my head and wondered how many of my plans Charles Delacroix had guessed. “Why would he do that?”

“My father is a mystery.”

He pulled a stool over to the bed. He rubbed at his hip. “Arsley was the one who took the picture,” I told him.

“I know,” Win said, bowing his head. “I shouldn’t have done that. Taken your hand, I mean. Not in such a public place.” As he said this, he stroked my fingertips with his own.

“You couldn’t have known how it would all turn out.”

“I did know, Annie. I did. I had been warned. By my father. By my father’s campaign manager. By Alison Wheeler. By you, even. I didn’t care.”

“What do you mean, ‘by Alison Wheeler’?” Win looked at me. “Anya, haven’t you guessed?” I shook my head.

“I was the one who asked Alison to go to you in the library.” “Why would she do that?”

“Well, she didn’t want to but she knew I wanted to be near you. And I convinced her that lunch would be safe enough since Arsley and Scarlet and Alison would be there, too.”

I was still confused. “Why would your girlfriend do that?” “Anya! Don’t tell me you didn’t suspect!”

“Suspect what?”

“Alison is my friend but she also works for my father’s campaign. They asked her if she would pretend to be my girlfriend during the campaign season so it would appear that I had put my relationship with Anya Balanchine—you—behind me. It was July—we weren’t together—and, despite everything, I wanted to help my father. How could I say no? He is my father, Anya. I love him. As I love you.”

Had Anya Balanchine—me—not been handcuffed to the bed, she would have run out of the room.

I felt like my brain was exploding and my heart, too. He reached over the bed rail and wiped my cheek with his sleeve. I suppose I was crying.

“You really didn’t suspect?”

I shook my head. My throat was thick and useless. “I thought you had tired of me,” I said in a voice about as intelligible as my uncle Yuri’s.

“Annie,” he said. “Annie, that could never happen.”

“We won’t see each other for a really long time,” I whispered.

“I know,” Win whispered back. “Dad told me that might be the case.” “It could be years.”

“I’ll wait,” he said.

“I don’t want you to,” I told him.

“There’s never been anyone else for me but you.” He looked over his shoulder to see if anyone was watching us. He leaned over the bed and put his hand on the back of my head. “I love your hair,” he said.

“I’m cutting it all off.” Simon Green and I had thought I would be less recognizable when I was traveling without my mane. Shears would be waiting for me on Ellis Island.

“That’s a shame. I’m glad I don’t have to see that.” He pulled my head closer to him and then he kissed me, and even though it was probably pressing my luck, I kissed him again.

“How can I stay in touch with you?” he asked.

I thought about this. E-mail wasn’t safe. I couldn’t give him the address of the cacao farm, even if I knew it. Maybe Yuji Ono could deliver a letter to me. “In a month or two, go to Simon Green. He’ll know how to get to me. Don’t go through Mr. Kipling.”

Win nodded. “Will you write me?” “I’ll try,” I told him.

He reached over the bed rail and set his hand on my heart. “The news said this almost stopped.” “Sometimes I wish it would. What good is it, you know?”

Win shook his head. “Don’t say that.”

“Of all the boyfriends in the world, you are the least suitable one I could have picked.” “Same to you. Only girlfriend, I mean.”

He rested his head on my chest and we were quiet until the time for visiting was over. As Win walked to the door, he adjusted his absurd wig.

“If you meet someone, I’ll understand,” I told him. We were seventeen years old, for God’s sake, and our future was uncertain. “We shouldn’t make any promises that are too hard to keep.”

“Do you really believe that?” “I’m trying to,” I said.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked.

I thought about this. “Maybe check in on Natty every now and again. She adores you and I know she’ll be lonely without me.”

“I can do that.”

And then he was gone.

All I had left to do was wait.

Around 1:55 a.m., I heard nurses and guards running down the hallway. I called out to one of the nurses. “What’s happened?” I asked.

“There’s been a fight in the girls’ dormitory,” she told me. “They’re bringing over a half dozen badly injured girls. I have to go!”

I nodded. Thank you, Mouse. I prayed she wasn’t too hurt.

It was time. I slipped the key out of the mattress and unlocked the handcuff. My wrist was sore, but there was no time for that. Shoeless and still dressed in an open-backed hospital gown, I walked down the hallway and slipped through the door marked Fire Stairs. I ran down the stairs with legs stiff from the prior week’s inactivity. On the ground floor, I poked my head out into the hallway. A guard was directing gurneys down the corridor. It was now or never but I didn’t know how to get past the exit without being observed by the guards or the girls on the gurneys. From one of the gurneys, Mouse poked her head up. She had two black eyes, a gash on her forehead, and her nose looked like it might be broken. With her less swollen eye, she looked at me. I waved. She nodded and mouthed something that looked like “Now.” A second later, she screamed. I had never even heard Mouse’s voice before and here she was screaming for me. Mouse’s body began to writhe and convulse. Her arms flailed in a seemingly random pattern, but from my vantage point I could see her design. Mouse was managing to strike the other girls and anyone else who happened to be in the vicinity.

“This girl is having a seizure!” a guard called.

As all attention turned to Mouse, I was able to slip past everyone.

I ran outside on bare feet. It was late October now and maybe 50° out but I barely noticed the cold. I had to get to the gate. Simon Green had promised to bribe the guard who watched the gate, but just in case, he had given me a syringe with one dose of tranquilizer at the same time as he’d given me the handcuff key. I hoped I wouldn’t have to use the syringe, but if I did, I knew to aim for the neck.