Reached

She’s very good at this. Her voice is warm but strong, and she takes in our measure as she looks at us. She’d make a good physic. “What can they do for us?” she asks the Pilot, addressing him not as her leader but as her equal.

“I’m a body,” Ky says. “I’ve got the mutation. I just haven’t gone down yet.”

Leyna raises her eyebrows. “We haven’t seen anyone standing,” she says to the Pilot. “All the other patients were already still.”

“Ky is a pilot,” Cassia says. I can tell she doesn’t like the way Leyna is talking about Ky. “One of the best.”

Leyna nods, but she keeps watching Ky. Her eyes are shrewd.

“Xander’s a medic,” Cassia says, “and I can sort.”

“A medic and a sorter,” Leyna says. “Excellent.”

“I’m not actually a medic anymore,” I say. “I’ve been working in administration. But I’ve seen a lot of the sick and I’ve been assisting with their care.”

“That will be useful,” Leyna says. “It’s always good to speak to someone who has seen the virus and how it works in the Cities and Boroughs.”

“I’ll return as soon as I can,” the Pilot says. “Is there anything new to report?”

“No,” Leyna says, “but there will be soon.” She gestures to one of the stretchers. “We can carry you if you need it.” She’s speaking to Ky.

“No,” Ky says. “I’ll keep going until I drop.”

“You trust the Pilot very much,” I say to Leyna as we climb up the path to the village. Cassia and Ky walk ahead of us, keeping a steady but slow pace. I know Leyna and I are both watching them. Others in the group keep looking at Ky, too. Everyone’s waiting for the moment when he goes still.

“The Pilot isn’t our leader,” she says, “but we trust him enough to work with him, and he feels the same way about us.”

“And you’re really immune?” I ask. “Even to the mutation?”

“Yes,” she says. “But we don’t have a mark. The Pilot told us that some of you do.”

I nod. “I wonder why there’s a discrepancy,” I say. In spite of what I’ve seen it do to people, the workings of the Plague and its mutation fascinate me.

“We’re not sure,” Leyna says. “Our expert in the village says that viruses and immunity are incredibly complex. His best explanation is that whatever causes our immunity simply prevents infection from ever being established at all, which means we don’t get the mark.”

“And it also means that you’d better not change your diet or environment too much before you find out what makes you immune, or you could get sick,” I say.

She nods.

“That must have taken courage to volunteer for exposure to the mutation,” I say.

“It did.”

“How many people live in the village?” I ask.

“More than you would think,” Leyna says. “The stones are rolling.”

What does she mean?

“When the Society began rounding up the Aberrations and Anomalies to send to the decoy camps,” Leyna explains, “more and more of them started escaping to these places, the stone villages. Have you heard of them?”

“Yes,” I say, remembering Lei.

“Now we’re all gathering together in one village, the last one,” Leyna says. “It’s called Endstone. We’re pooling our resources to try to turn our immunity into your cure.”

“Why?” I ask. “What have those of us who live in the Provinces ever done for you?”

Leyna laughs. “Not much,” she says. “But the Pilot has promised us something in return if we succeed.”

“What is it?” I ask.

“If we find a cure,” she says, “he’ll use his ships to take us to the Otherlands. It’s what we want most, and the cure is what he wants most, so the trade is fair. And if it turns out that our immunity changes when we leave, we will certainly want cures to take with us to the Otherlands as a precaution.”

“So the Otherlands do exist,” I say.

“Of course,” she says.

“If you let everyone in the Provinces die, you could take the Pilot’s ships yourselves,” I say. “Or you could wait until everyone was gone and then go in and take their Cities and houses for your own.”

For the first time, her easy, charming mask slips a little and I see the contempt underneath. “You’re like rats,” she says, her voice still pleasant. “Even if most of you die, there are too many of you for us to overcome. We’re ready to leave you all behind and go someplace you haven’t touched.”

“Why are you telling me all of this?” I ask her. We’ve just met, so it can’t be that she trusts me yet.

“It’s good for you to understand how much we have to lose,” she says.

And I do understand. With so much at stake, she can’t and won’t tolerate anything that might compromise her goal. We’ll need to watch our step here. “We have the same objective,” I say. “To find a cure.”

“Good,” Leyna tells me. She lowers her voice and looks at Ky. “So tell me,” she says, “when is he going to go down?”

Ky’s pace has picked up a little. “It won’t be long now,” I say. Cassia is electric, lit up simply because Ky is near her, even though she’s worried that he might be ill. Would it be worth it to have the mutation if I knew she loved me? I wonder. If I could trade places with him right now, would I do it?

CHAPTER 25

CASSIA

When it happens, everything feels sudden and slow at the same time.

We’re walking along the narrow path when Ky goes down to his knees.

I crouch beside him, put my hands on his shoulders.

His eyes, unfocused at first, find me. “No,” he says. “Don’t want you to see this.”

But I don’t look away. I hold on and I ease him down until he’s lying on the spring grass and I keep my hands underneath his head. His hair is soft and warm; the grass is cool and new.

“Indie,” Ky says. “She kissed me.” I see the pain in his eyes.

I should feel shock, I know. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is here, now, his eyes looking at me, my fingers holding on to him and touching earth. I almost tell Ky this, that it doesn’t matter, but then I realize that it does to him or he wouldn’t be telling me. “It’s all right,” I say.

Ky sighs out in relief and exhaustion. “Like the canyons,” he says.

“Yes,” I say. “We’ll come through them.”

Xander kneels down too. The three of us look at one another; my eyes meet Xander’s briefly, then Ky’s.

Can we trust one another? Can we keep one another safe?

Near the edge of the path, the grass gives way to wildflowers, some pink, some blue, some red. The wind stirs the grass around our feet, sending a clean smell of blossoms and dirt into the air.

Ky follows my gaze. I reach over and snap off one of the buds and roll it around in my hand. It’s so ripe in tint and texture that I half expect to look down and see my palm turned red, but it isn’t. The bud keeps its color.

“You told me once,” I say to Ky, holding up the bud for him to see and then pressing it into his hand, “that red was the color of beginning.”

He smiles.

The color of beginning. For a moment, a memory flickers in and out. It is a rare moment in spring when both buds on the trees and flowers on the ground are red. The air is cool and at the same time warm. Grandfather watches me, his eyes bright and determined.

Spring, then. The red garden day Grandfather mentioned on the microcard was in the spring, to have both red tree buds and red flowers at the same time, to feel the way it did. I’m certain of this. But what did Grandfather and I talk about?

I don’t know that, yet. But as I feel Ky’s fingers tighten around mine, I think how this is always the way he is, giving me something even when most would think there was nothing left to do but let go.

CHAPTER 26

KY

Ky,” Cassia says. I wonder if this will be one of the last times the sound of her voice reaches me. Can the still hear anything at all?

I knew I was sick when I couldn’t keep my balance on the ship. My body didn’t move when instinct said it should. My muscles feel loose and my bones feel tight.

Xander kneels next to me. I catch a glimpse of his face. He thinks he’s going to find a cure. Xander’s not blind. Just believing. It’s so damn painful to see.

I look back to Cassia. Her eyes are cool and green. When I look into them I feel better. For just a second the pain is muted.

Then it’s back.

I know now why people might not try to fight very long.

If I stopped fighting the pain, fatigue would win, and that seems preferable. I’d rather be asleep than feel this. The Plague was much kinder than the mutation, I realize. The Plague didn’t have the sores that I can feel forming around my torso and curving across my back.

Small red-and-white flashes of light appear in my vision as the villagers lift me onto a stretcher. I have another thought. What if you give in to the exhaustion, let yourself go still, and then the pain comes back?

Cassia touches my arm.

We were free in the canyon. Not for long, but we were. She had sand on her skin and the smell of water and stone in her hair. I think I smell rain coming. When it arrives, will I be too far gone to remember?

It’s good to know that Xander’s here. So that when I go down, she won’t be alone.

“You walked through the Carving to find me,” I tell Cassia softly. “I’m going to walk through this to reach you.”

Cassia holds on to one of my hands. In the other, I can feel the flower she gave me. The air in the mountains is cool. I can tell when we pass underneath the trees. Light. Dark. Light. It’s almost nice to have someone else carrying my body. This damn thing is so heavy.

And then the pain gets worse. It turns red all through me and that’s the only thing I can see—bright red in front of my eyelids.

Cassia’s hand disappears from mine.

No, I want to shout. Don’t go.

Xander’s voice is here instead. “The important thing,” he tells me, “is that you remember to breathe. If you don’t clear your lungs, that’s when pneumonia can settle in.” A pause. Then he says, “I’m sorry, Ky. We’ll find a cure. I promise.”

Then he’s gone and Cassia’s back, her hand a softer pressure now on mine. “What the Pilot was saying on the ship,” she tells me, “was a poem I wrote for you. I finally finished it.”

She speaks to me gently, almost singing. I breathe.

Newrose, oldrose, Queen Anne’s lace.

Water, river, stone, and sun.

Wind over hill, under tree.

Past the border none can see.

Climbing into dark for you

Will you wait in stars for me?

I will.

And no matter what, she’ll remember me. No one, not Society or Rising or anyone else, can take that from her. Too much has happened. And too much time has passed.