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

“Hey, stop! Stop it!” Isaac cradled the bag with one arm while he put the other in between the two. He’d only seen Jackie fight one person before this, a half-Crank that ended up dead. He didn’t want to wait and see what she might do to Ximena.

Frypan sat and spoke calmly as he watched on. “Eh, let them get it all out, Isaac. It’s like runners fighting in the Glade . . . they just need to be heard. They need to vent. Who Ximena is truly mad at . . . isn’t Jackie, anyhow.”

“None of this makes sense!” Jackie took a step back from Ximena but her voice got louder. “There’s no Cure, but you have the Cure?” She threw her arms into the air. “Which is it?”

Ximena shook her head. “Just because they call it a Cure, doesn’t mean it actually is one.

” She grabbed her bag from Isaac, her eyes accusatory, as if she wasn’t the one who just shoved it into his chest. The more time he spent with this girl, the less he understood her. But he wanted to, for all their sakes.

The Cure is what brought the Maze Cutter to the islanders and wreaked havoc and mayhem on their lives ever since.

Maybe what the Cure meant wasn’t the same as they assumed from Kletter.

That woman didn’t exactly expound on what to expect from the Cure or the Godhead.

“I believe you . . .” Isaac said softly.

Ximena looked at him, eyebrows raised. “You do?”

He nodded. “If this isn’t a Cure for us, maybe it’s a Cure for the Godhead and their people, I don’t know. But what’s in this vial is obviously more important than life to them, and Professor Morgan would crawl on her hands and knees to get it back. I do know that.”

Jackie scoffed and turned away from him, for some reason reminding him of Sadina whenever he’d take Trish’s side. But he didn’t want to pick sides in all this. He just wanted to be honest and get honesty back.

“Come on . . . Jackie . . .” Isaac needed her to know that he understood her, too. He wanted peace more than anything right then.

“Isaac . . .” Jackie said, but kept her back turned to the group.

He walked up to her and braced himself for anger or tears . . . but Jackie’s face didn’t show any emotion. It was completely blank.

“What?” Isaac asked. “What’s wrong?” But no words came in reply.

She only pointed northeast. Isaac looked, then squinted.

Just above the tree line floated puffs and whirls of faint smoke, trailing higher and higher into the sky.

Someone else, not very far from them at all, had started their own fire for the night.

The smell of burnt flesh rose into the Alaskan air along with the ashes of St. Petersburg.

Madness. Death. Ashes. One of the only smells that had seared itself into Goddess Alexandra Romanov’s permanent memory was the burning of bodies from all those years ago in Crank Palace.

A smell she could conjure at any moment in time, although she never wanted to, of course.

She tried to focus on the sacred digits, but charred death made it difficult.

Death and rebirth. Birth and death. The cycle continued, but now the Goddess had something the Evolution could have only ever dreamed of.

Dearest Sadina, Grandniece of Newt.

“I’m sorry about your city, Goddess,” dear Sadina said. So sweet. So innocent. So simple. So easily converted.

“Oh, the city will be rebuilt.” Alexandra looked over her shoulder at the charnel as they walked south with the rest of the group. “You will help with that.” She lifted Sadina’s small hand into her own and patted the top of it three times.

The girl named Trish spoke. Sadina’s girlfriend. “We came to help, but I don’t know if we can rebuild a whole city. There’s a special group on our island who do the building, and let’s just say we didn’t qualify.”

“I meant metaphorically . . .” The Goddess paused, trying to think of how she could possibly explain everything that needed to be explained. “You’ll help more than you know.”

She faked a smile at Trish. The world would soon return to its rightful Evolution. Sometimes moving forward meant needing to first take a few steps back. That was all the war was. A death before a fiery rebirth of sacred Evolution more powerful and advanced than even the Godhead knew it could be.

Red flashed in Alexandra’s vision so bright that she stumbled and winced.

“Goddess?” the boy without a weapon asked. “Do you need to stop for a minute?” The others turned around.

Sadina grabbed Alexandra’s arm, helping her balance. “Thank you,” Alexandra said as she looked at Sadina, but a red static covered the girl. Alexandra pinched the bridge of her nose, hard. “I think I’m just a little dizzy from everything.”

“We can stop and give you a minute to collect yourself,” the one with Orange hair said.

“No, no. On with it. We must go.” Alexandra ignored their stares and continued walking.

“Yes. On with it.” She felt an unrecognizable sadness come over her.

No war could ruin the fact that Alaska was home to the Maze, and it would still be the home of the Cure.

Her vision of Evolution would continue because it must.

“Are we sure we put down the anchor when we landed?” the older woman asked. “I think it might have floated away . . .”

Alexandra didn’t care much for the one they called Roxy. She reminded her of the withered Pilgrim who’d turned on her. Although closer to Alexandra’s age than the younger ones, she looked ancient. Not everyone had the Godhead’s DNA.

“We’re close. It’s right up here, around the curve of this coast.” The boy with the gun spoke. He wore the same uniform as the soldiers who’d shot arrows at Flint, the ones who’d killed her precious servant. “We’re not going to miss it.”

Alexandra couldn’t rid herself of the scenes of horror from her mind and the taste of crumbling buildings from her throat.

She coughed just thinking about the city of Gods turning to dust. “Good. We need to get out of here.” And just as the smell of burnt flesh reminded her of the Flare Pits, a squealing noise began to seep into the smoke-filled air and reminded her of the screams in Crank Palace.

The screams of those past The Gone.

“What is that, a war-coyote?” the smaller girl asked.

“Sounds more like a pig,” Trish added. The islanders knew nothing of the Alaskan shore or the animals and the death it carried before the war, but as soon as the child said the word pig , Alexandra knew exactly where the noise came from. Was it unlikely? Yes. Impossible? No.

She had unfinished business to attend to.

“Go on ahead, I have to take care of something.”

Alexandra excused herself, began to turn away.

But the group stopped walking and looked at her as if they were capable of doing nothing without her expert guidance and directives.

“Go ahead. I need a moment.” She waved them off.

Very used to dismissing her Evolutionary Guard, she was also used to them listening to her.

“Go on ahead,” she said again more forcefully.

They just stood there looking at each other.

“But you just had a dizzy spell,” Sadina said. “I’ll go with you.”

“No,” the soldier snapped. “You stay here, Sadina. I’ll go with her.” He stepped forward.

The Goddess took a deep breath and tried to relax all the muscles in her face. Time for a little lie. “If you must know, I need to relieve myself.”

“Then I’ll go with you,” the soldier with orange hair said. “I’ll just be?—”

“Absolutely not.” Alexandra used all the power of her training in her voice.

She’d sooner trust the old hag they called Roxy than depend on either of the two soldiers with the same clothing as those who killed her guards.

Flint may have been a useless tool but he was her useless tool.

Clearing her throat, she said “Like you mentioned, I’ll see it along the coast, can’t miss it.

” She forced a smile. “Please. I just need a private moment to myself. And who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky and witness a Hollowing from the sounds of it. ”

“She’s a grown Godhead, for crying out loud. She can handle it.” Roxy nodded and shooed the children off. “We’ll see you at the ship.” The ancient hag waved.

“Thank you.” Alexandra touched the palms of her hands together. Too easy.

The soldiers shrugged but listened to Roxy and continued on. Alexandra watched over her shoulder until the group of teenagers and Roxy disappeared along the bend of the coast. The Goddess continued inland, following the direction of the squeals.

Did it sound like a pig?

Yes. Yes, it did.

The most human pig she’d ever known.