for an instant—
but it is not enough
it is never enough
one human holds
so little heat
and it is cold again—
hungry again—
its edges
blurring
back into darkness
the way edges
always do
it wants
more
searches
the night
and finds—
a woman, a pistol, a bed
a couple, a kitchen, a cutting block
a man, a pink slip, an office
the whole city
a book of
matches
just waiting
to be struck.
VERITY
The steel violin shone beneath his fingers.
Its metal body caught the sun, turning the instrument to light as August ran his thumb along the strings, checking them one last time.
“Hey, Alpha, you ready?”
August shut the case and swung it up onto his shoulder. “Yes.”
His team stood waiting, huddled in a patch of sun on the north side of the Seam—a three-story barricade that stretched like a dark horizon line between North and South City. Ani was drinking from a canteen, while Jackson studied the magazine on his gun, and Harris, was, well, he was being Harris, chewing gum and throwing knives at a wooden crate on which he’d drawn a very crude, very rude picture of a Malchai. He’d even named it Sloan.
It was a cool day, and they were dressed in full gear, but August wore only combat slacks and a black polo, his arms bare save for the rows of short black lines that circled his wrist like a cuff.
“Checkpoint One,” said a voice over the comm, “five minutes.”
August cringed at the volume, even though he’d pulled the comm piece out of his ear and let it hang around his neck. The voice belonged to Phillip, back at the Compound.
“Hey, Phil,” said Harris. “Tell me a joke.”
“That’s not what the comms are for.”
“How about this one?” offered Harris. “A Corsai, a Malchai, and a Sunai walk into a bar—”
Everyone groaned, including August. He didn’t really understand most of the FTF’s jokes, but he knew enough to recognize that Harris’s were awful.
“I hate waiting,” muttered Jackson, checking his watch. “Have I mentioned how much I hate waiting?”
“So much whining,” radioed their sniper, Rez, from a nearby roof.
“How’s it looking up there?” asked Ani.
“Perimeter’s clear. No trouble.”
“Too bad,” said Harris.
“Idiot,” radioed Phillip.
August ignored them all, staring across the street at the target.
The Porter Road Symphony Hall.
The building itself was embedded in the Seam, or rather, the Seam had been built up around the building. August squinted at the soldiers patrolling the barricade, and thought he spotted Soro’s lean form before remembering that Soro would be at the second checkpoint by now, half a mile east.
At his back, the usual argument was kicking off like clockwork.
“—don’t know why we bother, these people wouldn’t do the same for—”
“—not the point—”
“Isn’t it, though?”
“We do it, Jackson, because compassion must be louder than pride.”
The voice came through the comm set crisp and clear, and August instantly pictured the man it belonged to: Tall and slim with surgeon’s hands and tired eyes. Henry Flynn. The head of the FTF. August’s adopted father.
“Yes, sir,” said Jackson, sounding suitably chastised.
Ani stuck out her tongue. Jackson gave her the finger. Harris chuckled and began dislodging his knives.
A watch chirped.
“Showtime,” said Harris brightly.
There had always been two kinds of people in the FTF—those who fought because they believed in Flynn’s cause (Ani) and those for whom Flynn’s cause was a good excuse to fight (Harris).
Of course, these days there was a third kind: Conscripts. Refugees who’d crossed the Seam, not because they necessarily wanted to fight, but because the alternative of staying in North City was worse.
Jackson was one of those, a recruit who’d bartered service for safety and ended up as the squad’s medic.
He met August’s gaze. “After you, Alpha.”
The team had taken up their formal positions on either side, and August realized they were looking at him, looking to him, the way they must have looked to his older brother once. Before Leo was killed.
They didn’t know, of course, that August had been the one to kill him, that he had reached into Leo’s chest, wrapped his fingers around the dark fire of his brother’s heart, and snuffed it out, didn’t know that sometimes when he closed his eyes the cold heat still ached in his veins, Leo’s voice echoing steady and hollow in his head, and he wondered if gone was gone, if energy was ever lost, if—
“August?” It was Ani speaking now, her eyebrows arched, waiting. “It’s time.”
He dragged his spiraling mind back into order, allowed himself a single, slow blink before he straightened, and said in the voice of a leader, “Fall in line.”
They crossed the street with quick, sure steps, August at the front, Jackson and Ani flanking him on either side, and Harris at the rear.
The FTF had stripped the plated copper from inside the hall and nailed it to the doors, creating solid sheets of burnished light. The presence of so much pure metal would burn a lesser monster—even August cringed, the copper turning his stomach—but he didn’t slow.
The sun was already past its peak, the shadows beginning to lengthen along the street.
An inscription had been etched into the copper plating on the northern doors.
SOUTH CITY CHECKPOINT ONE
BY THE WILL OF THE FTF,
ACCESS WILL BE GRANTED
TO ALL HUMANS FROM 8AM TO 5PM.
NO WEAPONS ALLOWED BEYOND THIS POINT.
PROCEED TO THE SYMPHONY HALL.
NOTE: BY ENTERING THIS FACILITY,
YOU ARE CONSENTING TO BE SCREENED.
August brought his palm to the door, and the other FTFs twisted out of the way as he pushed it open. Once, early on, he’d come face-to-face with an ambush, taken a round of heavy fire to the chest.
The bullets had done nothing to August—a well-fed Sunai was impervious to harm—but a glancing shot had taken Harris in the arm and, ever since, the team was more than willing to let him serve as a shield.
But as August stepped inside, he was greeted only by silence.
According to a plaque on the wall, the Porter Road Symphony Hall had “been a center of culture in the capital for more than seventy-five years.” There was even an image beneath the writing, an etching of the main lobby in all its wood and stone and stained-glass glory, filled with elegant couples in evening attire.
As August moved through the room, he tried to bridge the gap between what it had once been, and what it was now.
The air was stale, the stained glass gone, the windows boarded up and covered over with more stripped copper, the polished stone floor littered with debris, and the warm light traded for Ultraviolet Reinforced bulbs burning high enough for him to hear, loud and clear as a comm signal.
The lobby itself was empty, and for a single, hopeful, foolish second August thought that no one had come, that he wouldn’t have to do this, not today. But then he heard the shuffle of feet, the muffled voices of those waiting in the symphony hall, just as they’d been told.
His fingers tightened on the violin strap.
Ani and Jackson branched off to do a quick sweep, and he drifted forward, stopping before the depiction of a woman set into the floor. She was made of glass: hundreds, maybe thousands of small glass squares, something more than the sum of its parts—a mosaic, that was the word.
“Left hall, clear.�
��
The figure’s arms were stretched out and her head was thrown back as music spilled in gold squares from her lips.
“Right hall, clear.”
August knelt and ran his fingers over the tiles at the edge of the mosaic, tracing the purples and blues that formed the night around her, letting his hand rest on a single golden note. She was a siren.
He’d read about sirens, or, rather, Ilsa had read about them. August had always been more interested in reality than myth—reality, existence, that fickle state of being between a whimper and a bang—but his sister had a fondness for fairy tales and legends. She was the one who had told him about the women of the sea, their voices beautiful and dangerous enough to send sailors crashing onto rocks.
Sing you a song, and steal your—
“Ready when you are,” said Ani at his side.
His fingers fell away from the cool glass tiles, and he straightened, turning toward the inner doors, the ones that led into the symphony hall itself. The violin hung heavy on his shoulder, every step creating a faint hum of strings only he could hear.
August stopped before the doors and touched his comm. “Count?”
Phillip’s voice buzzed across the line. “On camera, it looks like about forty.”
August’s heart sank.
But this was why he was here.
This, he reminded himself, was what he was for.
Once, the symphony hall might have been stunning, but time—the Phenomenon, the territory wars, the creation of the Seam—had clearly taken its toll.
August’s gaze trailed across the hall—the copperless ceiling, the walls scraped bare, the rows devoid of seats—before landing inevitably on the people huddled in the center of the floor.
Forty-three men, women, and children who’d crossed the Seam in search of shelter and safety, their eyes wide from too little sleep and too much terror.
They looked bedraggled, their once-fine clothes beginning to fray, bones showing beneath their skin. It was hard to believe these were the same people August had passed in the streets and on the subways of North City, people who could afford to pretend that the Phenomenon had never happened, who’d scorned South City for so many years and purchased their safety instead of fighting for it, who’d closed their eyes and covered their ears and paid their tithes to Callum Harker.
But Callum Harker was dead. August had reaped that soul himself.
He hung back now, letting Harris take the lead. The soldier marched down the center aisle, leaped up onto the stage and spread his arms with the flare of a natural performer.
“Hello!” he said cheerfully, “and welcome to Checkpoint One. I’m Captain Harris Fordam, here on behalf of the Flynn Task Force . . .”
August had heard Harris give this speech a hundred times.
“You came here of your own choice, so you’ve clearly got some sense. You also waited six months to make that choice, so you haven’t got much.”
He was right; these were the dregs, the ones convinced they could get by without South City’s help, too stubborn to admit—or too foolish to realize—what they were in for.
In those first few weeks, when it was obvious that Callum’s death rendered his promise of protection void, there had been a massive influx, hundreds of people streaming through the Seam every day (Jackson and Rez had been among them).
But some of them chose to stay, locked themselves in their homes, hunkered down, and waited for help to come to them.
And when it didn’t, they were left with three options: stay put, brave the Waste—that dangerous place beyond the city where order gave way to anarchy and everyone was out for themselves—or cross the Seam and surrender.
“You made it here,” continued Harris, “so you know how to follow directions, but you’re also a sorry-looking bunch, so I’m going to make this nice and simple . . .”
Somewhere in the crowd, a man muttered, “Don’t have to take this,” and turned to go. Jackson blocked his path.
“You can’t keep me here,” snarled the man.
“Actually,” said Jackson, “you should have acquainted yourself with the fine print. Entering a screening facility serves as consent to be screened. You haven’t been screened yet, so you’re not free to go. Consider it a precaution.”
Jackson gave the man a good hard nudge toward the stage as Harris’s face turned from cheerful to somber. “Listen to me. Your governor is dead. His monsters see you as food. We are offering you a fighting chance, but safety isn’t free. You know that, because you all chose to pay for it with cash. Well, bad news.” He shot a dark glance at a woman clutching a roll of paper bills in her ringed hands. “That’s not how it works in South City. You want food? You want shelter? You want safety? You have to work for them.” He jabbed a finger at the FTF badge on his uniform. “Every day and every night we’re out there fighting to take this city back. The FTF used to be optional. Now it’s mandatory. And every citizen in South City serves.”
Ani gestured for him to wrap it up, and just like that, Harris’s demeanor flipped back to friendly.
“Now, maybe you’re here because you’ve seen the light. Maybe you’re here because you’re desperate. Whatever the reason, you’ve taken the first step, and for that, we commend you. But before you can take the next, we’ve got to screen you.”
That was August’s cue.
He pushed off the wall and began the long walk down the center aisle, his boots beating out a steady rhythm amplified by the hall’s acoustics. Someone started to cry. The acoustics amplified that, too. He scanned the crowd, searching for the telltale twitch of a person’s shadow that only Sunai could see, the movement that marked a sinner, but the light in the hall and the nervous shifting made it difficult to spot.
Whispers moved through the room as he passed.
Even if they hadn’t yet realized what he was, they seemed to sense he wasn’t one of them. He’d worked so hard for so long to blend in, but it didn’t matter now.
A little girl, maybe three or four—he’d never been good at telling age—clutched at a woman in green. Her mother, he guessed, based on the steel in those tired eyes. August caught the little girl’s gaze and offered what he hoped was a gentle smile, but the girl just buried her face in her mother’s leg.
She was afraid.
They were all afraid.
Of him.
The urge to retreat rose like bile in his throat, competing with the urge to speak, to assure them that there was no reason to be afraid, that he wasn’t there to hurt them.
But monsters couldn’t tell lies.
This is your place, said a voice in his head, smooth and hard as stone. A voice that sounded like his dead brother, Leo. This is your purpose.
August swallowed.
“This part’s simple,” Harris was saying. “Spread out, arm’s distance apart, there we go. . . .”
As August stepped onto the stage, the room went quiet—so quiet he could hear their held breaths, their frightened hearts. He knelt, opening the clasps on his case—the snap as loud as a gunshot in his ears—and withdrew his violin.
Sunai, Sunai, eyes like coal . . .
The sight of the instrument and the sudden understanding of what the FTF meant when they said screening, sent a ripple of shock through the room.
Sing you a song and steal your soul.
A man in his midthirties lost his nerve and took off at a full sprint toward the doors. He made it three or four strides before Ani and Jackson caught up and forced him to his knees.
“Let me go,” begged the man. “Please, let me go.”
“Why?” chided Jackson. “Got something to hide?”
Harris clapped his hands to draw the crowd’s attention back to the stage. “The screening is about to begin.”
August straightened and brought the violin to rest beneath his chin. He stared out at the audience, a sea of faces all marked by emotions so intense they made him realize how his own attempts had paled. He’d spent four years tryin
g to learn—to mimic—these human expressions, as if that would make him human.
That was all he’d wanted, and he’d wanted it so much he would have given anything, would have sold his very soul. He’d done everything he could, even starved himself to the edge—and gone over.
But August could never be human.
He knew that now.
It wasn’t about what he was, but why, his purpose, his part. They all had parts to play.
And this was his.
August set his bow against the strings and drew the first note.
It hung on the air for a long moment, a single, solitary thread, beautiful and harmless, and only when it began to weaken, waver, did August close his eyes and plunge into the song.
Out it poured, taking shape in the air and twining through the bodies in the room, drawing their souls to surface.
If August’s eyes had been open, he would have seen their shoulders slump and their heads bow. Would have seen the fight bleed out of the man on the ground and every other body in the room, the fear and anger and uncertainty washed away as they listened. Would have seen his soldiers go slack and empty eyed, lost in the rapture of the song.
But August kept his eyes closed, relishing the way his own muscles loosened with every note, the pressure in his head and chest easing even as his longing deepened into need, hollow and aching.
He imagined himself in a field beyond the Waste, tall grass moving in rhythm with the music, imagined himself in a soundproof studio at Colton, the notes rippling and refracting against the crisp white walls, imagined himself alone. Not lonely. Just . . . free.
And then the song was done, and for a final moment, while the chords trailed off through the room, he kept his eyes closed, unready to return.
In the end, it was the whisper that drew him back.
It could only mean one thing.
His skin tightened, and his heart sank, and the need rose in him, simple and visceral, the hollow center at his core, that unfillable place, yawning wide.
When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was light. Not the harsh UVRs that lined the lobby, but the simple auras of human souls. Forty-two of them were white.
And one was red.
A soul stained by an act of violence, one that had given rise to something monstrous.
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