"It doesn't matter if Iniss hasn't done anything horrible yet. His very presence in Tom's head is damaging. He's a child, like you. But he's a child who hasn't known in years what it's like to have privacy or independence or to explore the world. Even the actions that are his own are granted to him by the higher power in his head. He's spent the last few years afraid or controlled or angry or hopeless. I'm not blaming Iniss for any crime besides being in Tom's head."

She takes a long, deep breath. None of this is information she especially likes to disclose. "I was lucky. I was thirty-five when I was infested. I already knew who I was and did my self-discovery and made my own mistakes. And even then, being an adult, knowing who I was, it's still taken years to learn who I was and who I've become."

It took a long time to accept that her matter-of-factness had turned to harshness, pragmatism into ruthlessness, pride into a defensive shell. There are days she still doesn't accept it. She still doesn't know if it was her or Edriss who liked Prokofiev, or orange-scented shampoo, or sleeping with one ankle looped behind the other. She doesn't know why she still uses bookmarks when before Edriss she dog-eared pages. The boundaries between Yeerks and hosts get blurrier the longer they stay together.

"It's nice that he left Tom for some time to recover. But are you going to be able to put him back into Tom's head? Knowing that he cares too much about you to inflict that on you? You'll inflict that on a boy barely older than you?"