Echo City
Page 52
Peer looked at the people around them, and most of them were stopping as well. He didn’t want it, but they’ve been following him all along. There were thousands of them, still determined, fading, and dying, because Penler had told them there was hope.
Peer tried to ask Gorham what the Baker had done to them all, but she found that her throat was too dry to speak, her tongue too swollen. She rested her cheek on top of Penler’s head, and Gorham sat beside her. It was too hot and painful to touch, but his hand in hers was all that mattered.
Virtually blinded by the heat, unable to speak, she squeezed his hand to show that she could love him. He squeezed back. And that made it easy to close her eyes.
In their dreams, a voice said, The Heart and Mind has seen you, and you are welcome. And later, perhaps only hours before they would have died, shadows fell across them.