Hope can be spent to ignore Stress. Each Hope spent ignores 1 Stress. You can only spend Hope for yourself. 

Spending Hope is optional, unless you suffer more Stress than you have cards in hand. Then, you must spend Hope until all excess Stress is ignored or you have no Hope left. See Focus for details.

Hope placed on the Surveillance card ignores Surveillance. When Surveillance is triggered, instead discard 1 Hope from the Surveillance card for each point of Surveillance. This is mandatory. 

Hope placed on a retreated card prevents it from flipping face up. When this card would flip back, instead discard 1 Hope from it. This is mandatory.

Clarifications:

• You may spend Hope to ignore only part of the Stress and discard cards for the remaining part.
• Effects that directly discard cards from your hand (not via Stress) cannot be ignored by spending Hope.
• If 2 or more Hope are placed on a retreated card, discard 1 Hope when the card would flip back, and leave the remaining Hope on the card. 
• Hope markers are unlimited components. If you run out of them, use regular dice or coins to represent them temporarily.
• There is no limit for how many Hope you can have.