Page 55

FORTY-FOUR

K el rushed back to avoid the swinging door. The guard in front of them rubbed his face. “Ten minutes,” he said wearily. “Then you need to leave.”

From behind the guard, a voice said, softly, “Thanks, Lucian. I’ll be quick.”

Kel rose to her feet as Dira barreled into the room, launching herself at Kel. She coughed from the force, but quickly wrapped her arms around her friend.

Behind Dira, Kel spotted Bekn locking Coup in a similar, viselike embrace. Another figure moved slowly through the door, around the guard.

Rahn.

The guard exited the room and slammed the door shut. Rahn stayed by the door, her head ducked and dark hair hiding her face.

“What’s going on?” Kel asked, voice muffled through Dira’s hair. “How did you get here?”

“These guards grabbed us from our rooms this morning. Rahn was there and told us everything. I’m sorry, Kel,” Dira mumbled, burrowing herself deeper into Kel’s arms. “I screwed up . I trusted her.”

Kel tightened her hold on Dira and shifted to face Rahn. Slowly, the technician lifted her head, eyes filled with a silver sheen.

“You knew this whole time , ” Coup spat at Rahn. He moved closer, though Rahn didn’t back away.

“I’m sorry,” Rahn whispered. “I just can’t let anything go wrong. I don’t expect you to forgive me—but I never wanted to hurt any of you.” Her gaze darted to Dira. A tear trickled down her left cheek. “You deserve to know the truth. Canen is just trying to save everyone.”

Kel moved past Dira. “Everyone but Savita.”

Rahn’s jaw clenched. “You’re asking me to choose between a phoenix and a human. If it was us or Savita, which would you choose?”

Kel’s throat went dry. She couldn’t— wouldn’t —even imagine that.

“That’s what I thought,” Rahn muttered. She shook her head and held something out toward Kel.

“Here,” she mumbled, eyes on the floor. “That gown can’t be very warm.”

Kel snatched the clothes—a sweater and brown trousers—and folded them against her chest, silent. She didn’t want anything from Rahn and she certainly wasn’t cold. But whatever came next, she didn’t want to face it in an open-backed hospital gown.

When no one spoke, Rahn sighed. “I didn’t know Savita was nearing a rebirth until the CAPR race with the sprites. Phoenix rebirths don’t come around often, and Cristo thinks that he’s finally found a cure. This is… this is his only chance. I am sorry—but not for refusing to choose.”

“You are choosing,” Dira cut in, nostrils flared.

“This is not nature running its course. Cristo is murdering the creatures that created this island. What happens when there are no more phoenixes to bleed dry for his experiments? They’re gone, and a handful of people—chosen by Cristo—are allowed to escape their fates.

You’re not helping people, or Salta, or Estra. You’re only helping Cristo.”

Kel frowned. She hadn’t mentioned Estra’s name. She hadn’t even thought about it since Cristo had spoken it. It was as if the name was too fragile to grasp.

Dira spoke it as if she knew the girl. But Kel had never even heard of her before Cristo mentioned her name. Kel felt like she was trying to jam the wrong puzzle pieces together.

Rahn’s throat bobbed. “Before I joined your team, I’d never spent much time with phoenixes.

I helped develop tech, but this was my first time on a real CAPR team.

” Rahn hung her head. “Ebrait made us worship phoenixes. They force us to worship all magic. I had no control over any of it. Tech gave me some control. And Canen… he didn’t just bring me here to work on tech. ”

Rahn’s voice broke. Dira drifted a step closer to her, almost instinctively, before stopping herself.

Rahn went on, “Like I said, my mom’s an important figure in Ebrait. She has a lot of power in our temples. She… she’s worked with Fume delegates before. Trying to find a compromise. Trying to understand the best way to preserve Salta’s magical populations.”

Shock flooded through Kel, even as Dira spat, “You’ve told me all of this. What does it have to do with you locking us in a cell?”

Another tear trailed down Rahn’s cheek. “Canen knew my mom wanted me to take her place, eventually. I think he knew she’d passed on what she knew about Salta’s magic, the research Ebrait has done on its own.

After a while, I trusted him enough to share what she’d taught me.

About how AB flares up the most in places cleared of magic.

It made him think to look to phoenixes for a cure. ”

Kel froze. She thought back to the annotated map she’d seen in Cristo’s files.

The red dots clustered over Fieror—where most of Cendor’s AB cases stemmed from—and the black dots hovering over Vohre Forest—where Cendor’s remaining wild phoenixes thrived.

There had been hardly any overlap of the two, hardly any red dots appearing in Vohre, particularly the border near the forest.

A startling laugh bubbled up Kel’s throat. “He thinks phoenixes can cure AB because there’s no cases near where they live. AB is thriving where wildlife populations have become extinct!”

Rahn merely nodded. “There are hundreds more cases in Fieror than Vohre, because Vohre backs onto the forest. And there are thousands more cases in Cendor and Ascira, because Ebrait and Dresva protect their animals. They don’t exploit them.”

Ebrait worshipped its sea monsters through religion.

Dresva protected its serpents because magic bonds between snakes and humans helped their agriculture industries.

But Ascira had no qualms about clearing sprites for new attractions.

Cendor didn’t hesitate to kill phoenixes for entertainment or city expansions.

Could it really be so simple? Could AB really be the product of extinction? Of Salta’s magic withering away?

Answers slammed together in Kel’s mind. Cristo hadn’t just recruited Rahn for her tech aspirations.

He’d known she might have knowledge of Salta’s magic that he wouldn’t otherwise have access to.

Vaguely, Kel wondered if that was why Rahn had asked Kel so many questions about the Fume while she recovered in hospital.

She was already connected to them, in some small way.

Bekn stepped forward, in front of Dira, Coup and Kel. “That can’t be right. Someone would have figured it out.”

“Not if he’s paid off anyone who realizes,” Dira muttered.

Adrenaline chased away the edges of Kel’s fatigue. “But this means there’s another way—no one needs to die.” Not Savita, or any other phoenix. “Salta is telling you how to fix this. Cristo doesn’t need to do any of this. He can just—”

“He can’t just wait for Salta’s creatures to repopulate the islands,” Rahn said, her voice hardening. “It would take centuries. Estra barely has days left.”

“We know you see Estra like a sister,” Bekn said. “But killing phoenixes ? Cendor won’t survive it.”

Confusion coiled tight in Kel. If Rahn saw this girl as a sister, wouldn’t Kel have heard of her before?

Bekn cursed under his breath. “Let me speak to Cristo. He can still stop all of this.”

“I’m sorry,” Rahn croaked. “You deserve answers—but I can’t let you out.”

“Estra can talk to him,” Dira pleaded. “She’ll help us.”

Kel’s frown deepened. She went to speak—but Coup beat her to it.

“I spoke to Estra a few days ago,” he said. “She still has enough strength to give us a chance. We just need to try to convince her to talk to her father.”

“ What? ” Kel burst out. “Cristo has a daughter ?”

Too many emotions—confusion, anger, shock—whirled through her. If Cristo had a daughter living in the compound surely Kel would have met her.

Yet… it made sense. The way he’d spoken about grief, how he’d understood what it was to love the dead and dying. But why would he have kept Estra a secret?

Slowly, the four other Howlers turned to Kel. Each of their expressions mirrored the next, brows raised, lips parted.

Eventually Dira broke the silence. “Kel, what are you talking about?”

“Me?” Kel threw back. “How do you all know this girl?”

“This girl ?” Bekn repeated. “Kel, you know Estra. You’ve told me that you like her more than me.”

Kel’s stomach dropped. “I’ve never met Estra, and a few minutes ago I thought none of you had either.”

The room, flooded with white light, seemed to flicker.

Kel met Coup’s eyes; she saw nothing but fear.

“Kel,” Dira said. “You remember Estra, right?”

Dira’s words were slow, enunciated. As if she was speaking to a child. Kel didn’t know what was going on, but they didn’t have the time to play games.

“Of course I remember her,” Kel lied, clutching the clothes tighter as dread pooled in her gut. “But that doesn’t change what we—”

“She’s lying,” Coup muttered. He stared at Kel. “You don’t remember her, do you?”

Kel struggled to breathe. Why were they all staring at her like that? They didn’t have time for this.

Coup exchanged a sharp look with his brother.

Slowly, Bekn said, “We met Estra in the dining hall, the first day we arrived. Though we didn’t know she was ill, then. She told us after a few weeks.”

Kel inched back. Something barbed fluttered in her stomach.

What was going on?

“She’s watched us practice on the training track,” Dira continued, her voice uncharacteristically shaky. “She fought with her dad to stop you from competing in the last race. She likes the same weird, old music that you do. She’s come to our weekly movie nights for the last month.”

They had weekly movie nights ? Kel flicked through the dusty tabs in her memory. Some words sent a soft wave of d é j à vu through her, but most were alien, spoken in a language they’d created behind her back.

“You’re lying,” Kel spat. The trembling in her hands spread up her arms, wracking her body. “This is some cruel joke and you all—”

“She doesn’t remember her mother’s postcards, either,” Coup said in a low voice. “She thinks her mother hasn’t contacted her since she left Fieror.”

Dira let out a dry, humorless chuckle. “Kel, you complained about your mom every night that we spent in Savita’s aviary. Come on, you must remember.”

Kel backed away. The walls of the cell were so much smaller than they’d been minutes ago.

“Stop,” Kel barked. “Just stop .”

She wanted to hurt them. She wanted to cry. She hated how her friends—her family—were staring at her. Like she was a ghost brought to life.

“Kel,” Coup whispered.

She never thought her own name could break her heart.

“Short-term memory loss,” Coup went on, eyes glazed. “Tremors. Insomnia. Confusion. Paranoia. A short temper.”

All at once, Kel understood. She’d heard those words a thousand times. On the news, in hospital ads.

They weren’t just words.

They were symptoms.