in my sessions with The Confessor had made me even more unwilling to use my own mind that way. So I was surprised at how easily it came to me: like peeling back a curtain. And what I saw were just fragments, just like my dreams, but it was enough. I saw a place I hadn’t seen before. A huge, round chamber. There were no tanks this time. Only wires, like those in my visions of the tank room, but infinitely multiplied. They climbed the curved walls, which were stacked with metal boxes.
I felt The Confessor recoil. She stood so quickly the chair was knocked backwards, and she leaned over me. ‘Don’t try to play me at my own game.’
I tried to hide my shaking hands as I met her gaze. ‘Send me my twin.’
*
When he finally came, the next afternoon, he looked shocked at the state of me.
‘Are you sick? Has someone done something to you?’ He rushed to where I stood, grabbing my elbow and guiding me to the chair. ‘How did they do this? Nobody else can get in here, except The Confessor.’
‘Nobody has. It’s this place itself.’ I gestured at the cell. ‘You can’t seriously expect me to be blooming with health and joy. Anyway,’ I said, ‘you don’t look so great yourself.’ I still hadn’t got used to this new Zach, his face stripped back to bone, with dark circles spreading like stains from beneath his eyes.
‘Probably because I’ve been up most of the night trying to work out what you’re playing at.’
‘Why does it have to be complicated? I need to get outside, Zach. Just for a few moments. I’m going mad in here.’ It was no ploy to say this, even if I couldn’t let Zach know the true source of my terror. I was genuinely at the limit of my endurance, as my shattered appearance attested.
‘It’s too dangerous. You know that. You know I don’t keep you in here for fun.’
I shook my head. ‘Just think about how dangerous it is for you if I go mad. I could do anything.’
He just laughed. ‘Trust me – you’re not in a position to threaten me.’
‘I’m not threatening you. I’m offering you something – something that could really help you.’
‘And since when have you ever been interested in helping me?’
‘Since I started losing my mind in here. I need this. Just ten minutes in the light. To see the sky. It’s not a lot to ask, especially given what I can tell you.’
He shook his head. ‘I’d believe you if you’d ever given us anything useful before. The Confessor says you sit there like a wax doll in her sessions with you. You’ve never even admitted the island exists, and now you’re telling us you know something useful about it. So why trust you now?’
I sighed. ‘Fine. I lied to her about the island.’ He stood, walked quickly to the door. I spoke to his back. ‘I knew that’s what it would take to get you here. But I’m not lying about having something useful to tell you. I couldn’t tell her.’
‘Why? That’s her job, collecting information.’
‘Because it’s about her.’
He paused, hand still on the door, his other hand holding the hefty bunch of keys that he always carried.
‘That’s why it had to be you I told. It’s about her – what she’s planning to do to you.’
‘I’m not going to believe this crap,’ he spat. ‘She’s the one person here I can trust. More than you.’
I shrugged. ‘You don’t have to believe it. I’ll just tell you what I know, and it’s up to you whether you believe it or not.’
He stared at me for a few moments. I watched as he turned, inserted the key, opened the door. He still didn’t speak. Finally he stepped outside, leaving the door open behind him. ‘Ten minutes,’ he called back as he headed down the corridor. ‘Then we come back here, and you tell me everything.’
Later, when I tried to remember the moment of stepping outside the cell, I couldn’t. I’d just chased after Zach, blindly following him through the long corridor, through another locked door, and then up a flight of stairs. It was only at the top of the stairs, where three high windows let in the light, that I felt the enormity of it. I was at once shielding my wincing eyes and gaping at the window for more. Already the fog of the last few weeks was dispersing; my mind felt clearer than it had for months. It was as if the fort above the cells had been a physical weight, bearing down on me. As we made our way out of the depths of the fort, I was shedding the burden.
Ignoring me, Zach led me along another long corridor, unlocked a larger door, then paused. ‘I don’t know if you’re stupid enough to try anything, but don’t bother.’ I tried to disregard the light and fresh air streaming in from the partly opened door, and to concentrate on his words. ‘You know you can’t fight me. The other doors leading to the ramparts are locked. And stay close to me.’
He pushed the door fully open. Despite the pain from my glare-struck eyes, the fresh air itself was intoxicating. I took heaving breaths as I stepped out.
The long, narrow rampart was unchanged since those escorted visits four years ago, in the first months of my imprisonment. It was a terrace, perhaps sixty feet long, protruding halfway up the sheer face of the fort. In front of us, crenellations toothed the wall that overlooked the drop below. Behind us, the wall of the fort continued vertically, carved straight into the side of the mountain. I heard Zach locking the door from which we’d just emerged, in the centre of the rampart. At each end of the terrace, either side of us, identical doors were set in the wall, their solid wood criss-crossed by metal spars.
For a few moments I just stood there, head tilted slightly back, sun on my face. When I approached the battlements, Zach shifted to block my way.
I laughed. ‘Relax. You can’t blame me for wanting to see. My view’s been fairly limited for the last four years.’
He nodded, but stayed close to me as I reached the edge and leaned over the waist-high wall to see the city below.
‘I’ve never seen the city properly before,’ I said. ‘It was night when they brought me from the settlement, and I had something over my head. And when they used to let us up here, we were never allowed near the edge.’
From this height, Wyndham was like a jumble of buildings tossed down the slope. It was too chaotic to be beautiful, but its size alone was impressive. The city clambered up the mountainside, as high as the base of the fort, but also spread out into the flat of the plain, where roads faded into the hills and the blurred horizon. The river meandered into view from the south, curving around the base of the city before disappearing into the deep caverns of the mountain itself. Even from this high I could see movement: carts on the roads; washing draped from windows, patiently flapping in the breeze. So many people, so close to where I’d been, alone, for all those indistinguishable days and nights.
Zach had turned away from the city. I did the same, leaning back next to him against the low wall. On either side of us, merlons rose to above head-height.
‘You
