too late,’ I said, looking ahead to where Paloma rode, Zoe walking beside her horse, her hand resting on Paloma’s foot. ‘We need to seek it out. It’s too important for us to just wait.’
Piper threw his arm wide. ‘Seek it where?’ he said. Behind us, the Spine Mountains, still snow-covered, cut off the horizon to the west. Ahead of us, plains and forests spread out to the east, until the morning haze blurred them with the sky. Where to begin?
‘We have Paloma to protect now,’ he said. ‘We can’t just run off on a whim. Once we’re back at New Hobart, we can give orders to our scouts – The Ringmaster’s network, too. We can put out word to report on any sign of unusual activity – any bunkers, any new installations. But without something to go on, we can’t just wander in search of the blast machine.’
I tried not to hear a criticism in his words: without something to go on. What did I offer, if I couldn’t even be relied on to harness my talent for locations? Many times I had felt useless compared to Piper and Zoe, as they fought and hunted and planned. My sense of places was one of the few things I’d been able to offer. Without it, was I still useful to the resistance? Useful enough that my life was worth more than the chance to kill Zach by killing me?
*
It was a hard journey. We’d started with only three horses for the four of us, and then lost one on Gallows Pass, where patches of ice still clung to the shale. Even though we’d dismounted and led the horses slowly, the grey horse had slipped and gone down thrashing, one of its front legs broken. Zoe was the only one who could get close enough to put it out of its misery. I watched how she spoke soothingly to it, right up to the moment that she slit its throat. We ate horse meat for five days, but our pace was slower with two of us walking. We had to travel at night whenever we were in Alpha territory, and Paloma’s false leg pained her if she walked for too long, so she rode one horse while the rest of us took turns on the other.
I was grateful whenever it was my turn to ride – I felt sluggish under the increasing onslaught of blast visions, each one an outburst of flame behind my eyes. One morning, a few days before we reached New Hobart, I woke from a vision with my whole head shrieking, a soreness in my temples and jaw that didn’t dissipate even as the vision dispersed. All day I found myself touching the tender spots on my face, wondering if my visions had somehow spread to my body now, as well as my mind.
We came within sight of New Hobart, two weeks after we’d left the coast and The Rosalind. We finally crested the western ridge at dawn, and there was the ring of torches around the town, and the troops massed at the gates and sentry posts. I didn’t know if I should feel relieved or afraid.
We were leading Paloma into a town held by The Ringmaster, until recently on the Council himself. I didn’t know how long our uneasy alliance with him would hold, or how he would respond to Paloma, and her news of the Scattered Islands. With The Ringmaster’s help, the resistance army had freed New Hobart from the Council occupation. But although Simon and what was left of our army were waiting for us in New Hobart, The Ringmaster had greater troop numbers, and the town was under his control.
Sally, Xander and Elsa were in there, too, at The Ringmaster’s mercy. He knew exactly what they meant to me – he’d made that clear before Piper and I left, when he’d threatened me not to betray him.
But we needed him. It wouldn’t be enough just to run, and hide, and keep Paloma away from the Council. We needed to outfit a fleet of ships; we needed money, and soldiers. We needed to strike back at the Council. Descending from the western ridge towards New Hobart with Piper, Zoe and Paloma, I knew that this thing was bigger than the four of us.
Despite the fortifications around the town, I was surprised to see signs of ordinary life continuing. Farmers were tilling the earth in fields to the city’s north and east, breaking the soil for planting when it was warm enough. Some of the houses beyond the town walls, on the open plains, had smoke coming from their chimneys. At intervals a mile or two beyond the walls, sentry posts encircled the town, and we saw two patrols making a slow lap of the perimeter, but New Hobart had once again spilled beyond its walls, and people were coming and going. I saw a hunchbacked silhouette in the driver’s seat of a wagon, heading for the western gate, and couldn’t help but smile. The Council’s laws prohibited Omegas from owning animals, so even that wagon, hitched to an ageing donkey, was a small act of defiance.
Nonetheless, for an hour or more we laid low and watched the sentry post on the western road. The soldiers wore red Council uniforms, but we could see the black armband that distinguished The Ringmaster’s men. Even then, we held back; only stepping out of cover after we’d watched a passing patrol of Omega troops, in their blue tunics, conferring with The Ringmaster’s soldiers.
When we rode up to the watch post, we were greeted calmly enough, though they didn’t conceal their stares as they took in Paloma. The Omega troops saluted Piper, while the Alphas gave grudging nods. Their matter-of-fact greeting felt strange. To them, we were just returning, as expected, after a few weeks, albeit with a pale stranger. They could not possibly know all that we had seen and learned in that time: the Ark. The blast. Elsewhere. They could not know that the whole world had changed in those weeks.
Word of our return had straight away been sent to The Ringmaster, and when the western gate was dragged open he was there to meet us, arms crossed over his chest, curly hair pulled back from his face. It had only been a month since we’d left this place, but he’d grown thinner, and older, in that time.
He was staring at Paloma. We waited what felt like a long time for him to speak. Then he turned away, dragging his eyes from Paloma to me.
‘Looks like you have a lot to tell me,’ he said.
Debriefing would be intense, I knew. The Ringmaster had set up his command in the former Tithe Collector’s office, and that was where he took us, straight into the main hall. Simon, Piper’s long-standing adviser, was waiting for us there, and Sally too – as soon as we entered, she hobbled to Piper and Zoe and embraced each of them fiercely. Even I received a smile, though her eyes seized quickly on Paloma. Xander was there too, though he didn’t move, or even look at us when we entered. I moved closer to him, looking for some sign of recognition.
‘Don’t waste your time,’ said The Ringmaster, shutting the door and jerking his head towards the corner where Xander sat. ‘He’s quiet, these days, at least. He’s settled down a lot.’ The Ringmaster looked back at me, and added meaningfully, ‘Since you’ve been gone.’ He gestured to the seats around the big table. ‘Sit. Leave the boy where he is.’
For hours we were cloistered in that room, describing all that had happened since we’d left. Xander remained silent, never even glancing at Paloma. But The Ringmaster, Simon and Sally looked hard at Paloma and interrupted all of us, including Paloma, at every stage of our story, hurling questions, prodding and prompting for more and more details. Paloma was tired, and I could see her bristling at The Ringmaster’s repeated questions about the doctors and the untwinning. I was exhausted too, and longing to get to the holding house and see Elsa, but we answered their questions until I felt wrung out of words.
At first, I thought The Ringmaster had been right about Xander. I watched the younger seer in the corner: he sat unmoving where he was placed, mouth slightly open, a thread of drool dangling from his lip. No more muttering and yelling, rocking back and forth, moving his hands endlessly. But several times, during the hours that we were around that table, his whole body jerked, like somebody
