"Good," Ben said with a nod, his voice still sounding far away. It was good, having a good healer for something like this. It was objectively good, and his saying so was not a sign that he was worried or that he thought he was going to die tomorrow, or anything. Even so, he felt he ought to add: "Macmillan might need him. Not me." Just — in case either of them still needed to be convinced. At least one of them did, he knew, because that feeling was in the air in the garden, crackling in the empty space between their words like lightning, and Ben honestly didn't know if it was coming from him or from Art anymore. At least one of them was worried that Ben was going to die tomorrow, and maybe it was both of them, and Ben couldn't stop to figure out whether it was him or not because he was busy holding back this constant wave of white noise in his brain.

There was one thought that drifted into his mind, floating atop the wave of muddled panic that had subsumed everything else. He tried to push it away, but it rolled right back as though it was being pushed in by the tide. Trying to get rid of it was like fighting the ocean, so he had to do something else with it, and the only thing he could think to do with these intrusive thoughts if he couldn't force himself to ignore them was to externalize them.

"Hey, Art," he said, without looking at him. "I don't have to tell Melody about this, right?"