Eva sits down heavily on the concrete steps. She takes a cigarette out of her lab coat pocket – herbal, suffused with synthetic nicotine – and taps it, filter down, against the concrete.
Only Eva doesn’t smoke. Not even herbs.
“My dad’s probably freaking out right about now,” she says. “What, a mile up in the air, without these.” Eva grins.
She looks like a female Buddha sitting cross-legged on the step. One hand, palm up, is curled in meditation. The other holds a lit cigarette. Eva drags the ash of her cigarette across the step, honing the ember to a point. The smell of burning cloves envelopes them. Eva doesn’t actually inhale from the thing. She just watches it burn down to nothing, like Jasper’s life. As Dany watches, a little frown mark forms between Eva’s eyebrows.
“Are you
