This Is How You Lose the Time War

Blue’s time in a slow, married life is coming to an end. She reflects that she hadn’t noticed her own hands before but notes how they function as a strand in themselves, affecting events just by weaving them. Blue receives her next letter from Red in a falling star. In the letter, Red confesses she loves Blue and always has. She opens up about seeking loneliness too, but she wants to be alone with Blue and find out what love means with her.

The Agency is stationed near the main braid on the Russian front where the Nazis are developing ways of raising the dead. Red is summoned to the Commandant’s tent where she is torturing a soldier with blue eyes. Commandant shows Red a picture of Blue and asks if Red recognizes her. Red is honest and recalls the first time they met in battle. Commandant flips the paper over and shows all the time their threads have crossed. Commandant thinks Blue has purposefully been targeting Red and that Red is being groomed by Blue to defect and change sides. They believe Blue is waiting for Red to initiate contact with a message, so the Agency has a plan to counter Blue: They’ll use genetic steganography—the process of hiding worded messages in the world around them—to weave poison into a letter that will neutralize Blue.