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Marya had taken Lukas back to Cephas’s apartment after Jesse’s body had been carted away without ceremony and without being released to his students. What the Consortium planned to do with the man’s body, Lukas did not know, though the announcer’s voice echoed the sentencing in his head—recycled and used as a resource.
That night, he’d fallen asleep before he reached the top of the narrow staircase, before he turned the handle on the door to his bedroom here, before he sank onto the pallet on the floor and finally let himself weep. He only saw Cephas again the following day when, still asleep, Lukas had moved slowly back down the stairs because he’d been summoned; when he sat on the pillows and stared at the fake grain of the plastic table; when Marya had offered him a steaming cup of
