by Everly Frost
But Rift was quick to shake his head. “Hold on. Even if the moss is corrupted, we don’t know for sure what the outcome will be. It could boost the defense mechanism, not weaken it.”
“We can’t sit on this knowledge,” Snowboy said. “But we also need to be careful who we tell. We can’t say anything for sure right now. But the sooner we know, the better.” He turned to me. “Ava needs to rest today and I’ll admit I could use some rest myself. Let’s head out tomorrow for a climb.”
In contrast to Snowboy, Rift looked ready to burst. I understood his need to know what was happening—I felt it too despite my equally great need to take time to settle in.
He opened his mouth to argue, but Snowboy jumped in first. “There’s more,” he said. “The bears didn’t just follow us north. We saw one of them south of the belt.”
Whatever Rift was about to say turned into a wide-eyed stare. “They never go south.”
“Well, this one did.”
“But the marsh plant…”
“Isn’t working anymore. It’s infected too.” Snowboy pulled a leaf from his pocket and handed it to Pip. “Pip, I need to know what you smell. The bears associate this scent with danger. But has the smell changed?”
Pip scrunched up his nose, holding the leaf at arm’s length.
“Has the smell changed, Pip? Only you can tell us.”
Pip took a deep breath, his eyes watering, and I couldn’t imagine how bad the already pungent plant must smell to someone whose sense of smell was magnified a hundred times. He scrunched his eyes closed as he drew the leaf closer to his nose.
A small inhale and he gagged but kept it close. Another inhale and his desperate expression faded. “It’s different. It’s still disgusting, but there’s a sweet scent in there too.”
He shoved it back to Snowboy, who slapped it down on the table. “The bears don’t fear this anymore. And you can bet anything they don’t fear the marsh near our tower either. That’s why they’re straying from the snow belt and that’s why they followed us. Of course … now that Ava scared them, they’ll associate her scent with danger instead.”
I gulped. “I’m the predator now. Aren’t I?”
“You are.” Snowboy didn’t look happy about it. “I think it’s safe to say that Ava’s the only thing keeping them away right now.”
The full meaning of that sunk in to me then. Without me, the bears would attack my new family. The thought made me shudder.
Pip hung his head. “The bears smell the same as snow and when they’re resting, their heartbeats slow so much, I can’t hear them.”
“They were designed that way, Pip. You had no reason to think they’d leave the snow belt. But we won’t be taken unawares again.”
Snowboy pushed his chair back and I carried my dishes to the kitchen with him. Quake followed and told me not to worry about washing up—they took turns each meal. He gestured to a roster on the wall. “Don’t worry; we’ll add your name. We share the workload.”
“Thanks.”
“Come with me,” Snowboy said. “I’ll show you where you’ll sleep. Hopefully the guys cleaned it up while I was gone.”
Down a corridor to the left were what looked like old offices, each one with a bed and a set of drawers inside. Halfway along, there was a bigger room with a handful of lounge chairs inside it—a kind of recreational space.
“We were really happy when we found this level,” Snowboy said. “For the first month we slept two levels up. There are a bunch of labs and a basic kitchen up there and we pretty much found whatever soft stuff we could to sleep on. It was pretty rough back then.” He smiled. “We think these used to be private rooms where the scientists stayed. There’s a working bathroom down the hall—getting the water running took a bit of effort but we finally made it happen a few years ago.” He smiled and wrinkled his nose. “We went without showers for a long time. Glad you weren’t here then.”
I laughed. “I’m sure it wasn’t so bad.”
“That’s nice of you to say.”
“But I have to ask. Michael’s dad—and the Councilors—they left you here on your own. How could they do that?”
“That wasn’t quite how it happened. I mean, yes, the Councilors took Michael’s dad away, but they didn’t leave us alone at first. Councilor Naomi stayed. She said she never should have agreed to let me leave the data storage area. Apparently, he’d told her he would try to cure my mortality. But I don’t think that was ever his intention. I was angry with her—for thinking that I needed to be cured. For treating me like I was some kind of…” He stopped, resting his palm on the wall. “I screamed at her to leave us alone.
“Michael’s father had dropped his satchel when they took him away and I grabbed it and threw it at her and all its contents came bursting out. I still remember the papers floating in the wind. And the tubes of nectar. I’d seen him extract it from the branch. She asked me what it was and I told her. She said I must never touch the tree or the black liquid because I might hurt myself. I told her I didn’t care, that if she thought I was so wrong, then I’d be better off dead.”
He exhaled, staring at his palm pressed against the wall. “I took a vial and drank it right in front of her. I saw scorpions made of ice turn into daggers and rain down on her. I saw them cut through her. I told Naomi never to come back again or I would freeze her heart. She was afraid of me then.”
“So she left?”
“She did. That was why we were left on our own. And how we found out about nectar.”
He shook off the memories and stopped outside a room a few doors up from the bathroom. “This is yours.”
I peered into the room. There was a bed with a small table beside it and a chest of drawers opposite. Someone had put a jug on the table and filled it with white roses like the ones growing on the vine outside the tower. There was clothing folded on the bed. Snowboy gave an approving smile when he saw it all. “I guess they did clean it up.”
There was a sudden knot in my throat as I wondered which of the boys had thought to bring flowers—if not all of them. I gulped against the burn of tears behind my eyes. “It’s really nice, thank you.”
“You’ll need to try on the clothes to see which fit best. There’s a whole storage room filled with snowsuits, so don’t worry if you can’t find your size in these ones. Boots too. Don’t go out into the snow without all the gear—facemask, goggles, everything—no matter how warm you feel. You need to be prepared for anything.”
He pointed back the way we’d come. “There’s nobody next door or opposite your room because we thought you’d want privacy. But I’m two doors up on this side. Pip’s opposite me. Quake’s next to Pip, and Blaze and Rift are farthest up the hall on the same side as us.”
“Thanks. I appreciate the space.”
“I’ll let you settle in.” He was gone before I could thank him again.
I crossed to the roses, inhaled their sweet scent, and perched on the edge of the bed, slipping off my boots. It felt comfortable, much more than I’d expected, and I curled up on it, bringing my knees to my chest and burying my face against them. I pulled the covers over me and stayed there in a cocoon of my own for a while, digesting everything I’d found out, piecing it all together.
Michael’s father had been at the center of everything. Michal’s mom was Seversandian and must have heard the songs about the tree. She was bound to have told her husband, so when their slow healer son, Jason, was born and threatened by the Bashers, Robert Bradley must have used his connections to travel to Seversand, desperate for a cure, willing to try anything. But he’d found more than that. He’d found three mortal boys and stolen them away. Perhaps he’d thought to bring them back to Evereach and weaponize them. Or perhaps he just couldn’t leave them there. He’d traveled back through Starsgard, but the Council found out what he’d done and came after him. He escaped. The fact that he had nectar back in Evereach told me that he’d managed to take a sample back with him, along with marsh plant and b
ugs, which meant he’d traveled back past this tower after escaping the Council.
But questions remained. Like how he’d got past the moss, which wasn’t yet contaminated back then.
Venturing from the blanket cocoon, I tried on a number of snowsuits, finding my size and bundling the others up in a pile. Luckily, there were some lightweight pairs of long pants among the pile because I was still way more comfortable with just my singlet.
When I emerged, I met Snowboy coming out of his room. He had a small leather bag in his hand.
I nodded to it. “What’s that?”
He smiled and tucked it under his arm. “It can wait a moment. There’s something I want to show you first.”
Chapter Eleven
SNOWBOY USHERED me along the corridor, through the dining area, and toward a door at the opposite side that I hadn’t noticed before. It opened into a stairwell of cracked but solid-looking steps. He stepped in first and I followed him down two flights to another door.
He held it open for me and we entered a foyer with doors opposite. One had a bright red “X” painted on it. The other had a black one.
“See the red X? That room’s unstable. Blaze is doing what he can. But the black X is our best room.”
The open door revealed the tree’s roots coiled across and around each other.
“Come and see.”
The roots were dotted with small, pearly knobs. “The nectar seeps out all on its own, so you can work these off.” He twisted the nearest one and it came away like chewing gum. “We can also extract it directly using these syringes and it stays liquid until it’s exposed to air. We don’t do that very often. As you know, I took a couple of vials south with me, and we have some stashed in places in the forest and around the tower in case of emergencies. I’ll show you all those places, but not today. Here.” He handed me the ball of nectar, as well as a small pouch. “Carry a few of these everywhere. It’s your choice, but better to have them just in case.”
Once I pocketed the pouch, he said, “There’s something else I want to show you.”
Exiting the room, Snowboy turned to the hallway on the right and led me down a long corridor. By the time we stopped, I guessed we were directly below the sleeping quarters. The corridor opened up on the left into a large room filled with screens.
“This is our telecommunications center. We salvaged it and brought as many other screens as we could in here. Rift’s as good with technology as Blaze is with building things.”
As good as Quake is at cooking and as good as Pip is with animals. I wondered where my own niche would lie—bear deterrent perhaps?
“This is how we knew about you,” Snowboy said. “It’s how we knew about Pip too. He’s Starsgardian born.”
I leaned in closer to see the screens. They flickered from one picture to another—towers, pathways, hallways, rooms. There were random people in each shot going about their day. “You’ve hacked into Starsgard’s security system. Arachne would be impressed.”
He gave me a questioning look and I explained, “Arachne was a hacker in Evereach. She and my brother were in love.” I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat. “He got her across the border when things turned bad. I’m surprised you haven’t seen her on the footage somewhere. She has black hair with a red streak and weird violet eyes.” I studied the screens again, realizing that, other than meeting Arachne at the art gallery in Tower Sixteen, I had no idea where she lived. It wasn’t evening yet, so there was no point searching the art gallery surveillance to see her.
I paused, my heart skipping a beat, my thoughts jumping forward. “Can you see everyone? All the towers and people’s workplaces and homes?”
“Pretty much.” He placed the leather bag onto the table beside a keyboard. “We’ve got the system set up to tap into the surveillance in each room in every tower. You just have to choose. Like this.”
He tapped a series of numbers into the console that corresponded to Tower 159.
The image of Councilor Naomi in her home flickered to life on the screen.
Snowboy quickly shut it down. “Watching the people from your past isn’t a good idea.”
There was a warning in his voice, but I had to try. If I could see Michael for a moment, make sure he was okay… I leaned over the console and called up Tower Seventeen, Level 177 for Ruth’s apartment. Each room of her home lined up side by side across the screen. They were all empty and silent. I tried to bury my disappointment.
I saw my old bedroom and glared at Snowboy. “Did you ever watch me sleep?”
He shook his head. “Nope, absolutely not. We learned that any room number above ‘4’ refers to a bedroom. And in case you’re wondering, the surveillance doesn’t include bathrooms. We know what it’s like to be watched, so we made it a rule to keep our intrusion to a minimum. But we did see you eat. Sorry.”
“I guess that’s not so bad.” I leaned forward to delete the search.
Just as I did so, there was movement at the side of the screen. Someone stepped out of the elevator into the foyer.
My heart stopped. It was Michael. He bumped the security panel outside the apartment and moved inside. I followed him from one view to the other, drinking in his image, the first time I’d seen him since I “died.” His head was down, shoulders slumped. He lumbered straight across the room to the balcony, sweeping open the doors. The sound of cold air whistled through the speakers from the balcony.
Michael didn’t look up. Head tilted for a whole minute, he did nothing more than stare at the two chairs and the little table where we’d eaten dinner under the night sky. He’d drawn me inside his jacket, pulling me close, keeping me warm, and I hadn’t wanted to leave that moment. Ever.
Now his hand swept under his jacket to the inner pocket and he withdrew something glinting and sharp—a knife that he turned over and over in his hands. He’d looked at me with the same intensity, like I was the only reason anything made sense. As though I was the only reason he could forgive himself for my brother’s death.
At the last moment, he threw the knife against the wall, where it stuck and quivered. With a roar, he slammed both his hands onto the balcony railing, gripping it, white-knuckled. His roar turned into a scream of rage, ripping out of him.
“Why can’t I die?”
His chest heaved. He curled his hand into a fist and rammed it against the hilt of the knife, driving it into the wall as deep as it would go. Tears of rage dripped down his cheeks.
Ruth rushed into view, her dress a swirl of colors, eyes wide, distraught. “Michael! What are you doing?”
She tried to grab him, but he shoved her away.
“It hurts! It hurts too much. Why can’t I die?” Then he advanced on her, his face a mask of rage. “Why can’t I die even for a second? Why can’t I stop feeling?”
A sob tore out of me. I planted my hands on the table, trying to breathe.
Snowboy rubbed my back in slow, calm circles. “It’s okay, Ava,” he said over and over again. “It’s okay.”
On screen, tears streamed down Ruth’s cheeks. She bit her lip and I knew she could end Michael’s pain with two simple words: Ava’s alive.
But she wouldn’t.
I hated that she wouldn’t. I wanted to scream at her.
She glanced at the camera and for a moment, I wondered if she knew I was watching, that I was hurtling my anguish through space and time at her, begging her with everything inside me to tell him the truth.
Michael dropped to his knees.
I understood his pain—it cracked my own heart—but I didn’t want him to give up.
I didn’t want him to stop living his life. I would never accept his wish to die. I wanted to yell at the screen, “Get up! Be strong! Live!” It wasn’t okay that he wanted to throw it all away, that he wanted to forget what it was to love and be loved. I wasn’t okay with that. I would never be okay with it.
The circles of Snowboy’s hands slowed as my breathing evened out. Despite the soothing sounds
he cast in my direction, I sensed the tension in his body and the wariness in his expression as he threw glances at the screen. His concern was enough to bring me out of myself.
“What is it?”
Snowboy stopped smoothing my back to point at the screen. “He looks so much like his dad. I didn’t tell the others yet because I wanted to be certain. But there’s no doubt in my mind anymore.”
On the screen, Michael stared at the knife again, but this time his expression changed.
I leaned forward, trying to see what he was thinking as his face set into hard lines.
He said, “There’s only one weapon that will work.”
Dread rose up inside me.
The mortality weapon back in Evereach.
No, Michael.
Ruth’s alarm mirrored my own. Her hand moved, pointed to the camera and then to the room. Within seconds, five gray-clad men entered, each of them with a slumber plant twined around their arms.
I exhaled. When she’d looked at the camera before, it hadn’t been because she thought I was watching. Those men were waiting for her signal.
Snowboy froze beside me. “Those are the Protectors.”
Ruth knelt in front of Michael, but her expression was anything but placating. Her voice was sharp and stern. “Michael, you have a choice. You can choose to stop living if you wish. But if you make that choice, then I suggest you find a cave somewhere to bury yourself in. There are many such places in the northern wilds past the snow belt.” Did her eyes flicker then? Was this her way of trying to send him in my direction?
She continued. “You can wander the mountains for the rest of your life. But if you stop and think for even a second about what Ava would want you to do … What would she tell you right now?” She snatched him by the chin, forcing him to meet her eyes, her voice low and angry. “You know what she’d tell you.”
“She’d tell me to live. She’d want me to care.”
“Can you do that?”
He shook his head, but it was only a small motion, unconvincing.
Ruth powered on. “Because if you can do that, I have a proposal for you. Olander is becoming a greater threat with every passing day. Before President Scott resigned, he destroyed the drone footage of you and Ava reaching Starsgard. But a hundred Bashers saw you get off the ferry in the north of Evereach and we know that Olander is secretly their leader. Still, he had no confirmation that you made it all the way to Starsgard and until now he’s been looking in northern Evereach for you. Today we intercepted communications that he’s now interrogated the drone operators and they’ve revealed that you crossed the border. He will do everything he can to get her back.”
