by Ally Condie
“Of an air ship,” I clarify. “Nothing more.”
Indie looks at me for a moment. “Well,” she says, and I think I hear a teasing note in her voice. “Anyone can fly an air ship. You point them in the right direction and push a button. It’s not like running a river. Even someone as young as Eli could—” She stops, the playful tone in her voice gone, and she puts down her fork.
“I miss him too,” I say quietly. I put my hand on top of hers and hold tight for a moment.
“I never told them about him,” Indie whispers. “Or Hunter.”
“Neither did I,” I say.
I stand up. I’m hungry, but there’s something else I have to do. “Do you know when you leave tonight?” I ask Indie.
She shakes her head.
“I’ll try to come back in time to say good-bye,” I tell her.
“Cassia didn’t want to leave here without saying good-bye to you,” Indie says. “You know that.”
I nod.
“She told me to tell you she knows she’ll see you again,” Indie says. “And that she loves you.”
“Thank you,” I say to Indie.
I keep waiting for the Society to fly in low and black over the lake but they haven’t yet. Though I know it wasn’t what Cassia wanted, part of me can’t help but be glad that she is out of the thick of the Rising.
To blend in here, it’s all right to show urgency and purpose. Others walk to board air ships and pack tents. I don’t have to keep my eyes down. I nod to others as we pass.
One thing I can’t show, however, is despair. So even as the night comes and I still haven’t found what I want, I don’t allow any of the worry to show on my face.
And then at last I see someone who looks right.
Cassia doesn’t like to sort people. I’m all too good at it and I worry I’ll grow to like it too much. It’s a talent I share with my father. And all it takes is a misstep or two for that talent to become a liability instead of an asset.
Still, I have to chance it. I want Cassia to have those papers to trade back in the Society. She might need them.
“Hello,” I say. The man isn’t packed yet — someone who has to stay to the end, but low-ranking enough that he’s not in attendance at the late-night meetings with those deciding strategy. Someone who manages to be useful and under the radar and competent but not excellent. It’s the perfect position for someone who is — or used to be — an Archivist.
“Hello,” he answers, his expression blank and polite, his voice pleasant.
“I’d like to hear the Glorious History of the Rising,” I say.
He’s quick to hide his surprise, but not quick enough. And he’s smart. He knows that I saw. “I’m no longer an Archivist,” he says. “I’m with the Rising. I don’t trade anymore.”
“You do now,” I say.
He’s not quite strong enough to resist. “What do you have?” he asks, glancing around almost imperceptibly.
“Papers from within the Carving,” I tell him. I think I see a gleam in his eyes. “They’re near here. I’ll tell you how to find them, and then I need you to get them to a girl named Cassia Reyes who was just sent to Central.”
“And my fee?”
“You choose,” I say. It’s the payment no real trader or Archivist can resist. “Any selection you want is yours. But I know what’s there and I’ll find out if you take more than one. I’ll turn you in to the Rising.”
“Archivists are honest in trade,” he says. “It’s part of our code.”
“I know,” I say. “But you told me you weren’t an Archivist anymore.”
He smiles then. “It never leaves you.”
Meeting with the Archivist made me late, and I don’t get to say good-bye to Indie. The air ship she’s on begins to pull away in the last of the sun’s light and as it does, I see that it’s been burned and damaged along the bottom. As though it tried to land somewhere that people didn’t want it to be and was fired upon. The decoys’ guns couldn’t do this.
I think I’m looking at one of the air ships the farmers tried to take down.
“What happened to that ship?” I ask someone standing next to me.
“I don’t know,” he says. “It went out a few nights ago and came back like that.” He shrugs. “You’re new, aren’t you? You’ll learn that you only know your own assignments. It’s safer that way if we get caught.”
That’s true enough. And even if I’m right about how that ship got burned, it could be something other than what I think. Maybe the Rising came down to try to help the farmers, but they thought the ships were Society.
Maybe not.
The only way I can figure out how this works is by living on the inside.
The Archivist finds me a few hours later, just as I’m about to leave. I step away from my group to talk to him for a moment. “It’s confirmed,” he says. “She’s back in Central. I’ll effect the trade immediately.”
“Good,” I say. She’s safe. They said they’d take her back and they did. One point for the Rising. “Did you have any trouble?”
“None at all,” he says. Then he hands me the stone I carved with scales. “It seemed like a pity to leave this behind, even though I know you can’t take it with you,” he says. The Rising has similar rules to the Society: No unnecessary possessions. “It’s a beautiful piece of work.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“Not many people know how to make letters like this,” he says.
“Letters?’ I ask. Then I see what he means. I thought I carved ripples. Or waves. Or scales. But what it really looks like is the letter C, over and over again. I put the rock on the ground to mark another place where we’ve both been.
“Do you ever teach anyone?” he asks.
“Only once,” I say.
CHAPTER 54
CASSIA
It’s early spring now, and the ice at the edge of the lake in Central has begun to melt. Sometimes, while I walk to work, I look out over the railing at the air-train stop to see the gray water in the distance and the red branches of bushes along the shore. I like stopping here. Seeing the wind wave the water and brush the branches reminds me that, before I returned to the Society, I crossed over rivers and canyons.
But the view isn’t the only reason I pause. The Archivist I deal with sends someone to watch me and to see how long I wait. It’s how she knows whether or not I’ve agreed to the terms for our next trade. If I stop here until the next train comes in — a few more seconds now — it means that I accept. Over the past few months, the Archivists have come to know me as someone who doesn’t trade often, but who does have items of value.
I turn from the lake and see the city, its white buildings and masses of dark-clothed people moving through. It reminds me of going into the Carving, and again I remember that time long ago in the Borough when I saw the diagram of my body, those rivers of blood and those strong white bones.
Just before the next train slides in, I start down the steps.
The price is too low. I don’t accept. Yet.
I didn’t know I had this inside of me.
I didn’t know all that was inside of him, either. I thought I did, but people run deep and complicated like rivers, hold their shape and are carved upon like stone.
He sent me a message. Such a thing is difficult to do, but he is in the Rising, and he has managed the impossible before. The message tells me where I can meet him. After I’ve finished work, I will go to see him.
Tonight. I will see him tonight.
A pattern of frost blooms along the cement wall at the bottom of the stairs. It looks, I imagine, as if someone painted stars or flowers at exactly the right time; a momentary capture of beauty that will too soon vanish.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would not exist without the kindness and support of: Scott, my husband, and our three wonderful boys (Cal, E, and True); my parents, Robert and Arlene Braithwaite; my brother, Nic; my sisters, Elaine and Hope; and my grandmother Alic
e Todd Braithwaite; my cousins Caitlin Jolley, Lizzie Jolley, Andrea Hatch, and my aunt Elaine Jolley; writer and reader friends Ann Dee Ellis, Josie Lee, Lisa Mangum, Rob Wells, Becca Wilhite, Brook Andreoli, Emily Dunford, Jana Hay, Lindsay and Justin Hepworth, Brooke Hoopes, Kayla Nelson, Abby Parcell, Libby Parr, and Heather Smith;
Jodi Reamer and the wonderful team at Writers House — Alec Shane, Cecilia de la Campa, and Chelsey Heller;
Julie Strauss-Gabel and the fantastic group at Dutton/Penguin — Theresa Evangelista, Anna Jarzab, Liza Kaplan, Rosanne Lauer, Casey McIntyre, Shanta Newlin, Irene Vandervoort, and Don Weisberg; and all the readers, always.
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