Page 2 of The Infinite Glade (The Maze Cutter #3)

CHAPTER ONE

Fire and Fuel

B rutal, trying to keep up with Ximena. Hot and muggy, too.

As they hiked the tree-lined path leading away from the Villa, Isaac imagined it must be even harder for Old Man Frypan and Jackie—who still looked pale from her run-in with Lil Newt.

Isaac tripped over tiny rocks, ridiculous and embarrassing, but his feet couldn’t keep up with his brain.

Nothing made sense. They walked farther and farther from the Villa, leaving poor Ms. Cowan behind .

. . and Isaac didn’t have a clue where they were going.

He looked at Frypan and Jackie before asking Ximena again, “Hey . . . slow down. What did you mean about the Godhead being its own disease?”

Despite his exhaustion as they headed north, he’d walk a thousand more days if it meant finding Sadina and the others safe. He needed her and everyone else to be safe with the Godhead. He needed that and there was nothing else to think or say.

“You want me to spell it out for you?” Ximena turned around, her hand on her knife. “They’re not good people, Isaac.” She came to a full stop and Isaac, Jackie, and Frypan finally had a chance to catch up, catch their breath. “The Godhead will do anything in their power to stay in power.”

Her eyes cut through to Isaac’s core. Fire filled his belly and he imagined the inside of his body as a forge. Heat and flame.

She continued. “The Godhead isn’t a cure, and they have no cure—I told you what happened to my village—it’ll be completely wiped off the map in twenty-five years. Your island, too.”

“B.S.,” Jackie said between a couple of heavy breaths. “How could you say that? Our island is safe, in the middle of nowhere, and plenty of people to defend it, anyway.” She turned to Frypan, who placed a well-worn comforting arm around her shoulders.

“Safest Safe Haven there is . . .” the former Glader assured her.

Isaac wanted to protest, but as the heat traveled up his throat he wasn’t sure what to say.

He wanted to agree with Jackie, insist that it was impossible for anyone to get hurt back home, but he also used to think the same of anyone ever finding their island.

The impossible kept changing . . . and it made Isaac unsure what to believe.

“It’ll be okay, Jackie,” was all he could get out.

Isaac didn’t have a family back on the island to miss him, but Jackie did. Who knew how many days it had been since the group of islanders left in the middle of the night with Kletter, and how much Jackie’s poor family and the others’ parents were freaking out.

“Everyone back home is safe and they always will be.”

The emptiness of the words almost sucked the oxygen from the air around them.

He imagined how those back on the island were reacting to the missing kids and how the island as a whole was coping with some of their Senators being gone, too.

He wanted to make them all proud by helping the Godhead find a Cure and put some good out into the world.

He hated to think about Ximena being right—there not being a cure, the Godhead being bad people.

Jackie shook her head..

Trish’s parents were probably keeping the council and Senate busy with demands to find their daughter.

Dominic’s parents were probably sending feathers into the ocean like toy boats, to ask the waves for good luck in bringing him home.

And the others . . . probably just re-reading the good Book of Newt , hoping things would end much better for their lost children than it did for the famous Glader of the old days . . .

Old Man Frypan nodded as if he knew what Isaac was thinking.

Jackie rubbed sweat from her forehead. “Kletter told us that when we got to the Godhead we’d?—”

Isaac touched her shoulder. “I know she did. Don’t stress. We’ll find the Godhead and the others.”

Ximena laughed, firing up his inner forge even hotter.

“What’s so funny?” He squinted at Ximena as she stood in front of the setting sun. An outline of soft light surrounded her.

“She thinks we’re stupid, Isaac,” Jackie said. “Just ignore her.”

Ximena huffed. “The Godhead isn’t going to help you . . .” She picked up a rock and pitched it to the side with a grunt, sending the thing all the way over the broken cliff. She mumbled something Isaac couldn’t understand.

“Huh?” he asked.

“The Villas, the Godhead, it all has to burn to the ground . . .” She could’ve been talking about a bonfire on the beach, she said it so nonchalantly.

“Alright . . .” Old Man Frypan sat on a tree stump along the trail they’d been walking. “We’re far enough from the Villa, and this looks like a good place to camp for the night.” He drew a circle in the dirt just in front of him with his walking stick. “Jackie?”

She didn’t waste time before gathering kindling for a fire, probably glad for a distraction. “I’ll find some beach greens and berries.” She completely ignored Ximena.

Ximena definitely noticed. “I’m not saying this to hurt you. I’m just telling you the truth. The Godhead is a big lie they tell themselves and others.” But it was clear that everyone had chosen to ignore her negativity for now.

Jackie dropped a pile of sticks, and Isaac started sparking them.

“No, wait.” Ximena waved her hands over Isaac and Jackie. “A fire will only bring trouble.”

“We’ve fires every night, no trouble.” Isaac blew softly on the kindling to spark a bigger flame. The sticks cracked as they shared the blossoming fire.

“That’s the best sound I’ve heard all day,” Frypan said.

Isaac certainly knew what he meant. There were nights back on the island—after Isaac’s mom and dad had died—that he clung to the last glowing remnants of a fire.

He’d stay awake at night, unable to sleep, and watch the small flickers of light fade until the darkest of nights were over.

The forge had been Isaac’s saving grace .

. . a force to ignite the light back into things by burning them completely.

Fire was Isaac’s friend. A way to burn up what wasn’t needed and make things feel new again.

Jackie fed the small flames with dry brush.

Then Ximena kicked dirt on top of it all, putting it out.

“Hey!” Jackie stood up.

“No. I’m not risking anyone from the Villa finding us.” Ximena rested her hand on the knife against her hip, looking crazier than a half-Crank. “I’ll never go back with Carlos or the others. Worst of all Professor Morgan.” She paced a few steps from the trail, toward the edge of the cliff.

“It’s fine. Everything’s going to be fine .

. .” Isaac whispered to anyone who cared to hear, trying to make his voice sound as calm as possible.

Whatever Ximena had been through at the Villa before, it was bad.

Very bad. They wouldn’t let anyone take her back.

“We’re far enough from the Villa that no one will find us.

We’re safe here. They’re too busy worrying about all those machines you destroyed, anyway.

” He tried to especially lighten that last part.

Old Man Frypan, unfazed, extended his walking stick to draw another circle, outline for a new fire spot. “No sense in being paranoid . . . we’re here together and they’d have to take all of us if they take you.”

Jackie didn’t waste any time moving the best pieces of wood to the new circle.

“You don’t understand . . .” Ximena looked so frustrated she could bust open. “You may not think they’ll come after you, and they probably won’t. But they’ll be looking for me.” Her frustration turned into defeat, shoulders slumping.

“Because of how they studied you?” Isaac asked, trying hard to understand the extent of her fear.

“No . . .” She slowly took off her pack and unzipped the front pocket. “Because of what I took before I left . . .”

“What . . . ?” Jackie looked up from the sticks in her hands.

There remained just enough sunlight for Isaac to see the small object Ximena pulled from her bag. A glass vial, filled with a dark liquid, something handwritten on its label. But she didn’t let them stare too long before she shoved it back in her pack.

“What’s that?” Jackie asked.

Isaac felt a pang in his gut. “You stole something?”

Frypan just shook his head at the nonsense and tapped his walking stick against his shoe.

“You think I’d be able to get into the master Villa without leverage or something to offer them?” Ximena zipped up her bag with a ferocious swipe. “It’s the Cure.”

Silence. A very, very long silence.

“I thought you said there was no Cure?” Isaac asked.

Another moment of quiet, except for the buzzing insects.

Jackie reached for some question to make it all make sense. “If that’s the Cure then why is Cowan still in a coma?”

Ximena repositioned the bag on her back. “You really don’t get it, do you?” She looked directly at Frypan, but apparently he didn’t get it either. “I shouldn’t have shown you.” She walked back toward the edge of the cliff.

“Just tell us more. So . . . so we can understand.” Isaac walked on Ximena’s heels.

“Because Cowan doesn’t have the Flare. What about that don’t you all understand? She’s having some kind of genetic reaction to something they haven’t seen before. Probably from all the inbreeding on your island.”

Jackie fumed at that nonsense. “We’re not inbred!” She dropped her sticks and charged at Ximena before Isaac could get between them. Ximena slipped the bag off her shoulder and shoved it into Isaac’s chest.

“Jackie, stop!” Isaac shouted. She pushed Ximena and Ximena pushed back, even harder. Isaac looked down at the pocket that supposedly held the Cure as the women continued to tussle.

Ximena spat her next words. “How are you so stupid to not realize that a fire makes smoke—signals for any doctor, Crank, or degenerate to find where we are? Huh?” This didn’t make Jackie feel better. They went at it, another round of pushing and shoving.