Frozen

ONE

WE HAVE BEEN WALKING FOR two weeks. Nothing tails us but snow and crows and dark shadows of doubt. The days grow shorter, the evenings frigid. I thought I’d be able to handle the cold.

I was wrong.

Back in Claysoot, our winters were hard, but while our homes were drafty and crude, we still had shelter. Even if I had to bundle up and head into the woods for a day of hunting, I could always return to a house. I could light a fire and put on clean socks and cling to a cup of hot tea as though my life depended on it.

Now it is just endless walking. Endless cold. At night we have only tents. And exposed fires. And blankets and jackets and countless additional layers that are never enough to chase the chill from our bones.

It’s funny how Claysoot actually looks good on some days. When it’s freezing and no amount of blowing on my hands seems to warm them, I can’t help but think of the comforts of my old home. I have to remind myself that Claysoot was never a home. A home is a place you are safe, at ease, able to let down your guard. Claysoot is none of these things. It will never be these things. The Laicos Project made sure of that, starting the day Frank locked children away to serve his own needs, corralling them like cattle, raising them to create the perfect soldiers: Forgeries. Human machines to do his bidding. Perfect replicas of the people he imprisoned.

And now we march to one of those prisons, a forgotten group in the Western Territory of AmEast’s vast countryside. We’ll look for survivors at Group A, invite them to join us in the fight against Frank. See what secrets they’ve learned in all their years of hiding. Ryder’s holding out hope that Group A might make a decent secondary base, help us extend our reach to the opposite end of the country.

I look at my hands, dry and chapped. Snow is falling again, drifting through the early-morning light as delicate, gray flakes. I’m supposed to be doing something. What am I supposed to be doing?

I see the footprints, and I remember. Clipper.

He’s been drifting from our team lately. We’ll settle down for the night, or pause for a water break, and then someone will notice that he’s missing. I always get saddled with the honor of retrieving him.

I stand and pull my gloves back on, return my focus to tracking him. I crest a small rise and there he is, leaning against a pale birch tree.

“We need to keep moving. You ready?”

“Gray,” he says, turning to face me. “I didn’t hear you.”

I force a smile. “You never do.”

“True.” There’s an unmistakable heaviness to Clipper’s voice. He sounds older. Looks it, too. After Harvey died—was murdered by Frank—the boy took over as the Rebels’ head of technology. All the added responsibility seems to have aged him.

“I miss her,” Clipper says, touching a twine bracelet I watched his mother give him when they said their good-byes two weeks earlier. “And Harvey.” He kicks at a snow-dusted rock at his feet. “He was . . . I don’t know how to put it. I just feel lost without him.”

Harvey was like a father to Clipper. That’s what he means to say. I know it, and so does the rest of our team. It’s painfully obvious.

“You’ve got me, at least,” I offer. “I’m the one who races after you every time you take off. That has to count for something, right?”

He laughs. It’s a short, quick noise. More of a snort than anything.

“Come on. Everyone’s waiting.”

Clipper straightens and takes one last look into the endless forest of tree trunks. “You know I’ll never actually leave you guys, right? Sometimes I just need some space.”

“I understand.”

“But you always come after me.”

“It makes my father feel better. We’d be lost without you, and as our captain, he sleeps better knowing you’re not running away.”

Clipper frowns. “I might get scared, but I’m not a coward.” He folds his arms around the location device, clutching it to his chest as we head for camp. Clipper’s spent so much time staring at the thing lately, I’ve started to think he believes Harvey is out here somewhere, waiting in a snow-filled gully that Clipper can get to if he only plugs in the right coordinates.

Even though my father has been pressing us at a grueling pace lately, the camp is still not broken down when it comes into view. Tents as bright as grass speckle the snow, and a fire sends a thin line of smoke through the tree branches. Xavier and Sammy are pulling their tent stakes from the frozen earth, but everyone else is huddled around September, a mean-looking girl in her early twenties who is actually far sweeter than her angled features let on. She’s dishing out a breakfast of grits. This has been our fare since we set out. Grits in the morning. Whatever meat we manage to catch throughout the day for dinner. And little rest in between.

Bree spots Clipper and me first. She shoots me a smile, wide and shameless. It’s a good look on her. Refreshing, even, since she seems bent on scowling most of the time. She elbows Emma, who stands beside her, a wool hat pulled over wavy hair. Even from a distance I can hear Bree’s energetic words. “They’re back. I told you not to worry.”

Emma looks up and raises a hand in a shy sort of greeting. I don’t return the wave. I wish I could forgive her. For replacing me so quickly when we were separated earlier this year—me on the run from Frank, her stuck under his watch in Taem. For moving on as if what we had was meaningless, as if we never talked about birds and pairs and settling into something that feels right. I know it’s foolish to hold a grudge, but I’ve never been the forgiving type. I’ve never been able to look past people’s faults or bite my tongue or be generally decent. I am not my brother.

Clipper runs ahead to retrieve a cup of grits from September and my father shouts to me from across camp. “Took you long enough!”

“The wind covered his footprints,” I lie. I don’t want to mention that, like Clipper, I experienced a moment of weakness alone in the woods. That I stopped to ponder it all: the grimness of what we face, the bleakness of our journey so far.

My father swallows a spoonful of his breakfast before narrowing his eyes at Clipper. “I won’t have this anymore, Clayton.” Hearing Clipper’s true name makes the entire team freeze. “We waste time whenever you take off. Gray has to find you. We all have to wait. And we can’t afford delays like that—not when our mission’s details could be spilled at any moment.”

Just three days after we left Crevice Valley, Rebel headquarters, Ryder radioed to tell us one of our own fell into enemy hands. We’re now well out of communication range, with no way of knowing how much information, if any, the Order acquired. Still, we spend a lot of time glancing over our shoulders as we hike. Fear is an ugly thing to have chasing you.

“I need you to start acting like a soldier,” my father adds, jerking his chin toward Clipper. “You hear me?”

“Oh, go easy on him, Owen,” Xavier calls out, securing his broken-down tent to the underside of his pack. The act reminds me of when he taught me to hunt in Claysoot, him loading up his gear and signaling for me to follow him into the woods. “He’s just a kid.”

Clipper frowns at this, obviously disagreeing that a boy of almost thirteen is nothing but a child.

Sammy stops wrestling with his pack. “Yeah, he’s just an immature, no-good, brainless computer whiz who can take any piece of equipment and make it do his bidding. Actually, on that note: Clipper, can you fabricate a time machine so we can get to Group A already? My toes are about to fall off, and I could really benefit from an accelerated schedule.”

This gets a light chuckle from the group. I met Sammy over a game of darts back in Crevice Valley, but it wasn’t until this mission that I truly came to know him. He’s good-natured, endlessly sarcastic, and has a quick-witted sense of humor that’s been a welcome distraction.

“We all know you’re cold, Sammy,” my father says sternly.

“I’m not just cold, I’m freezing,” he responds, wrestling a hat down farther over his pale hair. “And think of what this wind is doing to my face! How am I going to win over any girls when I have these windburned cheeks?” He pats them with his palms.

“The only girls you’ll be seeing for the foreseeable future are the three in our group. And they’re not interested.” Sammy raises his eyebrows as if he means to accept Owen’s words as a challenge, and my father adds, “Don’t get any ideas.”

“Let’s start moving,” Bo says. “Standing still only chills a person further.” His customary twitch surfaces—a forefinger tapping frantically against his mug of grits—and I decide he looks the coldest of us all. His aged frame appears thinner and paler with each day. He’s younger than Frank, in his early sixties, but the years he spent cramped in Taem’s prison weren’t kind to his body. Sometimes I’m amazed Bo’s made it this far without complications. I half expected him to turn back to Crevice Valley during the first few days of hiking. I’m pretty certain Blaine would have expected the same.

But of course Blaine isn’t here to confirm or deny the theory, and sometimes, his absence hurts worse than the cold. I always feel slightly lost without my brother, my twin. Next time I see him, he’d better be back to his old self. I miss the brother who could keep up with me while hunting, and run without getting winded. I even miss his disapproving, judgmental looks, although I’ll never tell him that.

September spreads out the coals and the team scatters to break down the rest of camp. We’ve all become so proficient at the process that in mere minutes, our bags are packed and we’re falling into a thin line.

I tell my feet to move, one in front of the next. Bree joins me, assuming her usual place at my side.

“Think it’s too late to turn back?” She says it like she’s joking, but I can see the seriousness on her face.

“What? Why would you say that?”

“The more I think about it, the more I worry we won’t find anything. I mean, the Order confirmed Group A extinct years ago. Maybe we saw what we wanted to in Frank’s control room.”

“No. There were people moving through those frames. We both saw it. Bo and Emma, too. We didn’t all see something that wasn’t there.”

She lets out a long exhale.

“And it was the most advanced of the test groups,” I add. “Even if we find it empty—which we won’t—we’re still going to see if there’s anything we can salvage. Ryder thinks—”

“It could make a good secondary base. I know. He yapped about it enough before we left. There’s just that small problem about it being without power.”

“And that’s why we’ve got Clipper. He’ll work his magic.”

She nudges me with her elbow. “When did you become so positive?”

“When I decided Sammy alone wasn’t enough.”

She grins at that and even though I know Emma is behind us, I throw an arm over Bree’s shoulder and pull her closer.

It’s late afternoon and we’re staring at a town that shouldn’t be nestled in the base of the valley before us, at least according to Clipper. He’s been using his maps and location device to steer us down the least populated routes. Sometimes we’ll cross an abandoned, deteriorating stretch of road, or spot a town so far away it looks like a minuscule set of children’s building blocks on the horizon; but this community, practically at our feet, is a first. Surprising, too, since we left the Capital Region a few days back and have since entered the Wastes, a giant stretch of mostly unpopulated land that Clipper claims will take close to two weeks to cross. At least it’s flatter. The mountain pass that filled the first week of our journey was so brutal I still have sore calves.

Owen pulls out a pair of binoculars. “No lights or movement that I can see. Deserted, probably.”

“Maybe we should hike around it,” Bo offers. “Just to be safe.”

People this far west are likely harmless—average civilians trying to make a life for themselves beyond Frank’s reach—but we’ve been extremely cautious about revealing our presence to anyone, especially since Ryder called about the captured Rebel.

I’m as surprised as anyone when my father stows the binoculars away and says, “We’re cutting through. The town’s abandoned, and we could all do well with a night inside four walls.”

I’m thinking about sleeping in comfort—being truly warm for once—when I spot the crows. There are dozens of them, circling over the buildings waiting ahead. I don’t like the way they hover, or how their shrill cries echo through the valley.

Owen pushes open the wooden gate that borders the community and waves Bree and me in first. We pass beneath a sign reading Town of Stonewall, weapons ready. The crows’ shadows glide across the snow as we walk up the main street.

The homes are in rickety condition, but not because they’ve been long abandoned. There are signs of life everywhere: an evergreen wreath on a door, hung in recent weeks given how lush it still is. A wheelbarrow on its side, as though it was dropped in a hurry. Clothing, strung up on a warmer day, now frozen and stiff, that creaks on a line.

Something crunches beneath my boot. I look down.

Fingers, hidden beneath a thin layer of snow.

Fingers that attach to a hand, an arm, a torso. I step back quickly. Then I spot another. Human remains slouched alongside a well just ahead. And suddenly, they are everywhere. Mounds I thought to be snowdrifts are bodies, rotting and festering and rigid in death.

Bree uses her rifle to roll over the one at my feet. Two hollow eye sockets stare back. When she speaks, it is nothing but a whisper.

“What happened here?”

TWO

MY FATHER MAKES A FEW swift gestures, ordering Xavier and Sammy down a side street, September and Bo down another. He nods at me and Bree to continue up the main one, and heads into the nearest building with the others to check interiors. We all know his order, even if he never said the exact words: Spread out. Look for survivors.

Somewhere in town a wind chime is clinking, singing an uneven melody as Bree and I move up the street. The road dead-ends before a whitewashed building, tall, with a cross on its peak. Its heavy wooden doors hang open. There’s a dog between them, copper in color, and on the brink of starvation, given his thin, wiry frame. He bares his teeth, a low guttural growl escaping him, and then runs inside. Bree and I glance at each other and dart after the dog, taking the stairs two at a time.

The inside of the building is composed of a single room, large and cavernous and shaped like a t. Snow has drifted up the aisle we stand in, which bisects rows of benches. The seats are burdened with the dead, heads resting on shoulders, hands clasped as they sleep eternally. Even in the intense cold, the air smells like spoiled meat.

“Gray?” Bree nudges her rifle toward a raised platform at the front of the room. I follow the motion and I see him.

A boy, tucking candles into a tattered bag. He is young. And scrawny. And dirtier than a wild animal, with dark skin, and hair that stands up in all directions.

“Hey,” I call out. “Are you okay?”

He jumps, twisting toward my voice. When his eyes find us, they linger on Bree’s weapon and he backs away slowly, until he’s leaning against the far wall. His dog stands before him, growling.

“What happened here?” I ask.

“Sickness,” the boy says, lip trembling. “One got sick. Then another, and another. They died.”

Bree lowers her rifle. “From what? What kind of sickness?”

“Don’t know. Mama said it came from the east—a city under a dome. She said they brought it here knowing we would die.”

Bree and I exchange worried glances. Not more than two months ago, we infiltrated Taem to track down a vaccine that would protect the Rebels against a virus engineered in Frank’s labs. We feared he’d capture one of our own and send him back infected, eliminating all the Rebels in the process.

“Who brought it here?” Bree asks. “The sickness?”

But the boy just sinks to the floor, hugging his dog around the neck. He’s so scared he’s shaking, or maybe he’s just cold.

Bree walks up the aisle, pausing in the center of the t. The dog growls, and she decides not to risk the stairs. “Come on,” she says, holding out a hand to the boy. “We can get you warm. Help you—”

“No!” he says. “They carried weapons, too. I don’t trust you!”

Bree looks at me for help, but I’m as confused as she is. She turns back to the boy, cautiously walks up half the stairs.

“Go away!” he shouts. “You’re like them. You’re just like them!” He keeps screaming like she’s attacking him, which causes the dog to lunge at Bree. She jumps back, barely avoiding a bite.

“Look, we’re offering to help you,” she snaps, sounding like she wants to do anything but.

“Can’t you see you’re scaring him?”

The voice startles all three of us. We twist, and find Emma standing in the building’s entrance.

“I’m not trying to scare him,” Bree says through her teeth.

“But you are.” Emma walks up the aisle, passing me and slowing only when she reaches the stairs. The dog growls a bit more adamantly now that there are two potential threats to his master. “Maybe only one of us should do this,” Emma says.

Bree rolls her eyes. “Fine.” She stalks over to me and mumbles, “This will be fun to watch.”

I don’t say anything because I already know that Emma will be successful in calming the boy. Emma’s voice sounds like a fresh snowfall, whereas Bree’s comes out like a slammed door. And Emma moves the way a deer might in an open field, cautious and smooth. I’m not sure she could startle someone if she tried.

Bree and I watch Emma climb the stairs and sit down an arm’s length from the boy, seemingly unaware that the dog is baring his teeth more than ever. She tosses her wool hat toward them.

“Take it,” she says to the boy. “Go on. You must be cold.”

He moves so quickly, I nearly miss it. A hand juts out, grabbing the hat. He wrestles it over his disobedient hair.

“I’m Emma. What’s your name?”

The boy blinks, eyes wide. “Aiden,” he says finally.

“How old are you, Aiden?”

“How old are you?”

Emma laughs, and a smile spreads briefly across the boy’s lips. “I’m eighteen. Just had a birthday last month.”

The boy counts on his fingers. “I’m eighteen minus ten.”

Emma compliments him on how smart he is and Bree crosses her arms. “Lucky,” she says to me. “I could have gotten him to talk if I’d had more time.”

“Sure you could have.” Bree shoots me a look and because I don’t feel like being punched in the shoulder, I add, “I couldn’t have done much better, you know. Emma’s good with people.”

“And we’re not?”

Bree’s eyes are narrowed and she looks like she wants to kick something.

“No. Definitely not.”

Ahead, Emma is offering a hand to Aiden. “We’re going to make a fire and cook some dinner. Would you like to eat with us? Get warm?”

He nods and slowly takes her hand. As soon as Aiden has chosen to trust Emma, his dog seems to trust her as well. Not fully, because he won’t stop growling, but he trots behind them as they walk up the aisle, his teeth no longer visible.

Aiden freezes a few paces from us. “I don’t like the one with the gun,” he says.

Bree snorts. “See? I was doomed from the start.”

Emma drops to her knees alongside the boy and takes both his hands in hers. “Aiden, I don’t know what happened to you here. And you don’t have to tell me—not unless you want to—but just know that not everyone carrying a gun is bad. Some people let the power of a weapon go to their heads and they do terrible things with it. We are not those people.”

Aiden nods, peering up at Bree and me. “What’s for dinner?”

“Meat of some sort,” I say, and my stomach growls at the thought of it.

“With potatoes?” he asks. “And fresh bread?”

“You’re dreaming, kid.”

We find the rest of the team in a building that looks like some sort of woodworking shop. It has a vaulted ceiling and a series of workstations lining the walls. They are covered in sawdust and half-finished projects. Carving knives and planes wait patiently, as if they suspect the carpenter simply stepped out for fresh air.

Someone has cleared out the center of the room, save for a few chairs and benches, and September has started a fire on the slate floor. She’s found a large pot from one of the abandoned houses, and based on the smell, several cans of chicken stock as well. The broth is boiling while a skewered chicken sizzles over the fire.

“Where did you find chicken?” I ask.

“There were a few still alive in a coop down the west side of town,” Xavier says, poking at the fire. His eyes fall on Aiden. “Where did you find a boy?”

“I didn’t think there were any survivors,” my father says, looking up from the maps he’s examining with Bo and Clipper.

“There aren’t,” Aiden answers. “It’s just me and Rusty.” The dog bounds forward, ecstatic.

“I told Aiden he was welcome to join us for dinner,” Emma explains.

My father frowns but says, “Of course.”

Not much later we are huddled around the fire, feeling warm for the first time in days and devouring chicken soup that tastes so delicious no one bothers with talking.

“They came three weeks ago tomorrow,” Aiden announces suddenly. “I’ve been carving lines on my bedpost to keep track of the days.”

My father pauses, a spoonful of soup halfway to his lips. “Who came?”

“Men. In black uniforms. They said they needed our water. I was upstairs in my bedroom when they arrived. Mama told me to stay there.”

Aiden looks at the door as though the black-suited men may be waiting there.

“The well is right outside our house,” he says finally. “I sometimes lean out my bedroom window and shoot pebbles into it with my slingshot. Sophie—she was my cousin—played, too.”

Was. The boy has already adjusted how he refers to people who just three weeks ago were alive.

“The men walked right up to our well and started hauling out the water,” Aiden continues. “Mr. Bennett, who worked at the blacksmith shop, came running and tried to stop them. He said bad words, a lot of them. The man in black said something about the country needing our water, and when Mr. Bennett didn’t stop yelling, the man took out his gun and then Mr. Bennett was dead.”

The room is so still the crackling fire sounds as loud as gunfire. Aiden starts shaking again, so Emma pulls him into her lap.

“They pumped the well dry and left. The next day, people started getting sick. Mama got a cough and locked me in my room with our last jug of water and a bunch of bread and cheese. I thought I’d done something bad because she had a handkerchief over her mouth and wouldn’t look at me. She told me to keep my window shut and made me promise not to open it.

“I didn’t. Not even when I saw them walking around town, crying and coughing. Their skin peeled. Their eyes went yellow. Some of them got on their horses and left. Most went to the church and prayed. I watched them all from my window, but I kept it closed, just like Mama told me to. I didn’t touch the window until it was silent, and when it was, I pushed it open and climbed out.

“Everyone that stayed was dead. Mama was in bed. I wanted to bury her, because I know that’s what you’re supposed to do, but I wasn’t strong enough to move her. The only ones I could manage were the small ones. The babies. And Sophie. I buried Sophie, too.”

He keeps talking, about how he lived off canned fruit and chicken eggs. How he melted snow for water and gathered clothes and blankets from other houses to keep warm. How he goes back to his house only once each day to record a nick on his bedpost, but never lingers because of the smell of decay. I don’t understand how someone so young can go through so much alone.

“Rusty and I stay in Mr. Bennett’s house because it’s empty,” Aiden explains. “I’m running out of food, though. And it’s getting hard to feed all the chickens and horses—most are sick or dying. Are you going to leave me here? In the morning?”

“Of course not,” Emma says, but no one else speaks up. Bree has this pained look on her face and I know she’s thinking the same thing I am: An eight-year-old boy is going to slow us down.

Owen runs a hand over his head and gazes at the fire. “We’re on a strict schedule.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“It’s not like I want this, Emma, but we have to average around twenty miles a day. There’s no way he’ll keep up with us.”

“So you’re just going to leave him here?” She’s almost shouting now. “You can’t! We can put him on a horse if pace is your concern.” My father remains quiet, refuses to make eye contact. Emma turns to me. “Tell him, Gray. Please. If anyone can talk sense into him it’s you.”

She looks even more desperate than she did when I found out about her and Craw, when she apologized to me again and again and again. I wonder if siding with her now will make our conversations come easier. They’ve been forced at best, even when we’ve been trying so hard.

But my father is right. We still have another two weeks of travel before we reach Bone Harbor, a small town that sits along a stretch of ocean cutting north through nearly half the country. A boat is waiting to ferry us closer to Group A while simultaneously keeping us out of the Order’s eye. Without the boat, there’s a domed city we’d have to pass near. Haven, I think Clipper called it. Either way, Aiden will slow us drastically.

I glance at the boy and his face is hopeful in the firelight, his eyes as wide as Emma’s. I don’t want to let either of them down.

“If we leave him, we’re as good as letting him starve to death,” I say to my father.

He sighs, rubs his forehead. “You’re right. You’re both right.” He looks at Aiden for a long while. Exhales again. Then finally: “You can come, but only until we find somewhere safer, a place you can settle with the living.”

“Oh, thank you,” Aiden exclaims. “Thank you! Can I bring Rusty, too?”

“Why not? It will be good to have a dog around. They’re clever creatures, good judges of character, fantastic on watch.”

Sammy frowns. “Sir, I’m honored you think so highly of me, but I’m a little offended you’ve mistaken me for a dog.”

The group dissolves into laughter.

“Bed,” Owen orders. “Everyone. Now. Breakfast is at first light and then we’re moving again.”

THREE

TONIGHT I HAVE SECOND WATCH, which means I might actually get a decent night of uninterrupted sleep. We rotate the order and it’s the middle shifts that are the worst—I never feel rested the following day.

Outside it is cold and gusty. I have the woodworking shop at my back, blocking most of the wind, and Rusty at my side, keeping me company. He’s a good guard dog, just as my father suspected. Twice he hears something before I do, his ears perking up, and both times it is nothing but a raccoon coming to feast on the dead.

I watch the minutes go by on a wristwatch that Clipper says runs on “solar power.” He walks with it strapped to the outside of his pack each day, allowing the sun to warm its face so that it can tell time throughout each evening. When my hour’s up, I head back inside, where everyone is cramped around the makeshift fire pit, fast asleep. I find Bo, who always follows me on watch, and shake him awake. He grumbles, pulls on his jacket, and heads out.

I creep around the fire and slide into my sleeping bag. Bree is on one side of me, my father on the other.

Despite being properly warm for the first time in ages, I can’t fall asleep. In the darkness of the woodshop, all my doubts seem magnified. Group A seems so far away still, and Blaine farther behind with each day of hiking.

Bree rolls over, nudges into me for extra warmth. I can feel her pulse even with the sleeping bags between us. I smile, close my eyes, and suddenly sleep is easy.

The sound of Rusty barking jolts me awake. My father scrambles for the door, Sammy and Xavier trailing him. A moment later there is shouting outside and I know something is very wrong.

I grapple for my gear, but can’t find one of my boots and end up being the last person to sprint outside. It’s maybe an hour before dawn, still dark enough that it’s difficult to see. I can make out several things in the bouncing beams of flashlights: Rusty, still barking like mad, and Aiden trying to restrain him; my father, surrounded by the rest of the group, shouting; and two strangers, one of whom has a gun to the other’s head.

The hostage is young and lean and has a look on his face that appears more vicious than terrified. The other man is Blaine.

I skid to a stop. “How did you . . . Who is . . .” I have a million questions and they’re all overlapping to the point that I can no longer get my mouth to work.

“Hey, Gray,” Blaine says, beaming in my direction.

Sammy jerks his rifle at the hostage. “What the hell is going on? Someone better start talking or I’m putting bullets in you both.”

Rusty barks savagely.

“The only person you want to put bullets in is this rat,” Blaine says, pushing his handgun more firmly against the stranger’s head.

“No one is putting bullets in anyone,” my father yells. “Blaine, lower your weapon.”

My brother grits his teeth. “Can’t do that, Pa.”

“Why’s that?”

Rusty yelps and lunges against his rope.

“Because this piece of scum will attack us the second I do.”

“It’s not true,” the stranger says. “I wouldn’t—”

Blaine strikes him across the back of the head with his gun. “You lying piece of filth!”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Blaine so angry, so furious. It makes me fear the stranger he’s holding more than I’ve feared anyone in my life.

Rusty keeps barking.

“Will someone shut up that dog?” my father snaps.

Emma grabs Aiden and helps him guide Rusty back to the woodshop, glancing fearfully over her shoulder as they leave. My father stares at Blaine and the stranger for a moment longer, eyes narrowed, then pulls his rifle up so fast I barely see it happen.

Blaine yanks the stranger in front of him as a shield. “What are you doing?”

“What any captain would do when two men walk into his camp without explanation: I’m protecting my team. You have to understand that this looks very odd, Blaine.”

My brother stays sheltered behind his hostage’s shoulder. “I left headquarters just three days after you did,” he explains, “right around when one of our own got taken into Order custody. Ryder wanted to put Elijah on your tail, just in case the Order extracted mission details from our man and decided to send one of their own after you. Basically, Ryder wanted to send a Rebel shadow for the possible Order shadow.

“I kept telling Ryder it wasn’t right, that I was healthy enough and I should be with the team, with you and Gray. Family. Ryder ran me through a final endurance test—which I passed—and agreed to let me go in Elijah’s place. I’ve been putting in twenty-five-plus miles a day just to catch up with you guys.”

“Which means . . .” Owen’s eyes go wide as he looks at the stranger before Blaine.

“Ryder was right. Frank got some mission details out of our man, because this guy”—Blaine shakes the hostage—“is with the Order. I’ve been hiking for about an hour already today, and I caught him just outside Stonewall, loading his handgun.” Blaine tosses the extra weapon to Xavier.

“Is he the only spy?” my father asks.

“I think so. At least, he’s the only person I’ve seen between headquarters and here.”

“Your name?” my father asks the prisoner, whose skin is pale in the first light of dawn. He looks about my age and is perhaps just as reckless, because rather than answer my father’s question, he spits on his boots.

Blaine shakes him forcefully.

“Jackson,” the Order spy grunts. “My name is Jackson.”

My father raises his weapon. “Well, Jackson. Any last words?”

“You can’t kill me.”

“That’s an interesting theory. Perhaps we should test it.”

“Oh, I’ll die,” he says, smiling slyly, “but Frank will know. As soon as he loses my reading, he’ll send someone to replace me. You’re better off keeping me with you so that he thinks I’m still tailing your team.”

I frown because he’s right. Frank puts tracking technologies in all his soldiers, Order members and Heisted boys alike. One was unknowingly injected beneath my own skin last summer. Clipper removed it, living up to his nickname just moments after I met him. Once free of the device, Frank believed me dead. At least until I marched back to Taem with Harvey and Bree for the vaccine.

“I think we’ll take our chances. You dead gives us a head start. A big one.” Owen’s finger reaches for the trigger and Jackson’s face washes over with panic.

“Okay, wait-wait-wait,” he sputters. “Let’s talk this through for a minute. I don’t know what your mission is; the Order couldn’t get it out of the guy we captured. All we know is you’re heading west, so I was sent to intercept you, learn the details of your mission, and try to uncover the location of your headquarters in the process. But let’s just forget all that for a second and instead think about how useful it could be to have an Order member with you on this trek. Right? Eh?” He glances around for takers. “I can speak up for you in any Order-patrolled towns, help you avoid Frank’s eye. You can even take out my tracker if you’re willing to chance someone else being sent after the team, but don’t kill me. Okay? Please don’t kill me.”

The team looks around at one another, startled by Jackson’s willingness to fold.

“It’s a sign of weakness,” Owen says, weapon still poised, “betraying your kind so quickly.”

“Only if you believe your life is worth less than the success of your mission,” the spy says. “And I don’t. I put my own life above Frank knowing why a handful of Rebels are on a hiking trip. Some would say self-preservation is the very opposite of weakness.” He smiles. Wide.

“Knock him out,” Owen says to Blaine.

Blaine strikes Jackson with his gun harder this time, sending the prisoner crumpling to the ground. Xavier rushes to bind his hands and feet, but my father keeps his weapon aimed at Blaine, his finger dangerously close to the trigger.

“Now holster that gun,” he says.

Blaine does, but even still, Owen won’t lower his. “I need proof,” he says, jabbing the barrel in Blaine’s direction. “I need it or I have to pull this trigger.”

My brother looks stunned. “What more can I give you? He admitted he’s with the Order!”

“Yes, and now I need proof that you aren’t with them, too.”

I know where this is headed, but it can’t be true. I’d be able to tell. This is Blaine—scared, anxious, furious at a spy who was about to attack us—but it’s him.

“Pa,” I say, taking a step toward him. “It’s Blaine. It has to be. He mentioned the conditioning test, and Ryder, and—”

“The Rebels have been deceived by Forgeries before. These are dangerous times and we can’t be too careful.” He glances back at Blaine, eyes narrowed. “Your brother has a few scars. Name them.”

Blaine stifles a small laugh. “A few? He has more than a few.”

“And if you are truly my son, you know Gray better than anyone in the world and this question will not be a problem.”

Blaine looks at me. His blue eyes, the only feature that differentiates us, seem so colorless in the poor lighting that he could be my reflection. I give him an encouraging nod, and he starts listing off scars. A nick on my upper arm from a misfired arrow—his fault—when we were kids. The line on my palm from a poorly wielded knife—my fault—when whittling. A mark on my chest from falling on a jagged branch, stitches that scarred my chin after a fight with Chalice, the line along my neck from when Clipper removed my tracking device.

“And on his forearm,” Blaine says. “Burns from the public square in Taem that scarred real bad.”

I touch my arm, remembering my trip to Taem in the fall. Bree shot me with a rubber bullet so that I didn’t have to execute Harvey on Frank’s orders, and I ended up immobilized on a burning platform until Bo dragged me to safety. My father must have been waiting for Blaine to speak of this scar—a detailed account of an injury that healed within the safety of Crevice Valley, away from Order eyes—because he finally lowers his rifle.

Owen yanks the collar of Blaine’s jacket back to reveal a small, thin scar. Clipper’s work, done the same day he tended to my tracking device. Then Owen clasps a hand on either side of Blaine’s face. “I’m sorry I had to interrogate you like that.”

Blaine winks. “Like what?”

Owen pulls him into a quick hug and then turns to address the rest of us. “The spy makes a good point. Having someone to cover for us if we stumble across the Order gives us an advantage we can’t pass up. And so long as we have his life as a bargaining chip, he should remain loyal. Soon as we clip him, Frank’s bound to send another in his place though, so let’s eat quickly and get back on the move.”

The group disbands for breakfast, and I’m left alone with Blaine, still staring in disbelief.

“You’re really here,” I say.

He flashes me a smile. “I have to look after you, don’t I? You wouldn’t last long without me.”

Almost the same words he said when he woke from his coma. The joke he makes over and over because while the two of us are perfectly self-sufficient, we both know we’re better together.

“You’re full of it,” I say, but I pull him into a hug anyway. His arms are stiff, his clasp weak. When I step back he looks exhausted. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Just tired. And sore. And my chest’s been burning the last few days. Maybe Ryder was right all along. Maybe I wasn’t ready for this.”

“You absolutely weren’t.”

He shoves me and I’m sent stumbling through the shallow snow, laughing. “Stop that right now,” he says. “I’m supposed to be the big brother.”

“You’re older by a couple minutes, Blaine. Get over it.”

“Never.” He smiles and it brings some of the light back into his eyes. They momentarily look the way I remember—brilliant and bluer than a summer sky. “Now, did someone say something about food?”

“It’s only grits.”

But you’d think I’d said bacon and eggs from the look on his face.

FOUR

WHILE THERE IS NO BACON, breakfast does end up including some luxuries. September has decided that if we are leaving the town and Aiden is coming with us, there is no need to let a stocked chicken coop go to waste. I have to admit: Grits taste far better when paired with eggs.

Emma wants to bury the deceased, or at the very least make a pyre, but my father says it would take far too much time to gather all the remains, not to mention the fact that a giant plume of smoke puts us at risk of being spotted. So Sammy retrieves a small, black book from the building where we found Aiden, and we stand around the well while he reads about giving rest to the labored. It’s odd to hear Sammy’s voice so serious, to have it stir up feelings like remorse and compassion when until now it’s drawn out only laughter.

As soon as Sammy closes the book, Blaine escorts Jackson from the woodshop. He’s conscious now, but still bound and gagged. Blaine wrestles him to the ground and Clipper pulls the clipping device from his pack. The entire thing is over in a matter of seconds, but Jackson screams and writhes for far longer.

Watching from beyond the well, Emma is cringing. Like the rest of us, she knows the pain. She underwent a precautionary clipping when I brought her from Taem to Crevice Valley after securing the vaccine. I was surprised when Clipper found a tracker in her, but the boy pointed out that while Emma never served as a soldier in Frank’s Order, she did work in his hospitals, and Frank has never been one to take his security lightly.

When the clipping procedure is over, we pack our bags and ready ourselves for another day of travel. Xavier rounds up the healthiest two horses from the stables. Aiden is set to ride a dapple gray named Merlin while the second steed, a white mare called Snow, is loaded up with hay and grain for the both of them.

Sammy bursts from the woodshop, Rusty in tow. The dog is bounding playfully—at least until he spots Jackson, at which point his ears fold back, and he starts growling.

“This dog,” Sammy grunts, tugging to restrain him. “I thought the kid said he was good.”

“He is,” I say, looking between Jackson and the dog. “He doesn’t like the spy. It’s like he can sense he’s up to something.”

“I haf a name,” Jackson grunts through the handkerchief in his mouth.

“Your name’s Jackson,” Aiden says from Merlin’s back. “I heard everyone talking about you during breakfast.”

Jackson starts, staring at the small boy. “Yeah. It is.”

“Whatever,” Sammy says. “The dog hates him and I’m going to have to keep this thing leashed, and at a distance, or even a deaf man will hear us coming.” Rusty lunges, snapping, and Blaine and Jackson skirt out of the way to protect their heels.

“Great,” Blaine says. “I stand too close to the scum and the dog doesn’t trust me either.”

“Jackson,” the spy says through the gag.

“Right,” Blaine says. “Sorry.” But he doesn’t look it.

We start walking, our growing team again on the move. I glance back only once. The crows are already diving, anxious to return to their feast.

At midday we pause to give Owen, Bo, and Clipper a few minutes to discuss our route. There is a small town ahead according to Clipper’s location device, and after the fiasco Stonewall became, my father is desperate to avoid it.

From the back of his horse, Aiden has taken to playing a hand game he calls Rock, Paper, Scissors with, of all people, the Order spy. Jackson still has his mouth gagged and his arms tied behind his back, so he has to shout his selection as Aiden pushes his hand out to reveal his choice. The spy looks pretty miserable about the entire affair.

Aiden counts, bobbing a fist up and down to the numbers. “One . . . two . . . three!”

“Pahpur,” Jackson says, and at the same time, Aiden’s fist opens to form scissors. He snips them at Jackson, beaming.

“Again. One . . . two . . . three!”

“Roch!”

Aiden’s fist is now flat.

“You’re chea’in’,” Jackson mumbles through the gag.

“Nuh-uh.”

The spy frowns. “Den you’re rea’ing my mind.”

They get in one last round, Jackson again losing, before Emma pulls the boy from Merlin’s back.

“Let’s not get too fond of the prisoner, Aiden,” she says.

“But he plays with me. No one else does.”

Sammy bursts through the snow, being dragged by Rusty, who is barking at Jackson yet again. “I’d play if it wasn’t for this crazed animal. I think my forearms are going to give out.”

Emma laughs at this and Aiden relieves Sammy of the dog; the boy’s touch seems to be the only thing to calm the animal. Rusty curls up at Aiden’s feet, but he doesn’t take his eyes off the spy.

Sammy links his fingers together and pushes them into a stretch. “Who’d have thought I’d spend my twenty-first birthday like this: cold, frozen, and being tugged through the forest by a manic dog.”

“Today’s your birthday?” I ask.

“It’s the eleventh, isn’t it?”

I try to count back to when we left. The date sounds right, but I’m not positive.

“Clipper!” Sammy calls across camp. “What’s the date, genius?”

The boy doesn’t turn around to face us—he’s too deep in conversation with my father and Bo—but he holds his hands overhead, each with a pointer finger raised to the sky.

“The eleventh,” Sammy says. “Yup. Twenty-one today.”

“Another December birthday,” Bree chimes in. “I’m the twenty-third.”

I’m shocked to discover that until now, I didn’t know Bree’s birthday. How has such a basic detail never come up?

“We should do something,” Emma says. “You know, to celebrate.”

“Find a pub and I’m in,” Bree deadpans.

Sammy snorts. “Me, too, Nox. Me, too.” He jerks his head at Emma. “Have any backup plans, Link? You know, since there are no drinks in sight?”

Sammy has a habit of calling people by their last name, but for some reason, it bothers me when he refers to Emma this way. Emma and Bree both have harsh-sounding last names, but only Bree’s suits her.

“Yeah, actually. I do.” Emma grabs a small sack of grain from Snow’s back and sets it on the stump of a fallen tree about twenty paces away. “Archery match,” she says, pointing at the target. “Right now.”

Sammy’s eyes liven. “Oh, you’re on. Who else is in?”

I raise a hand. Xavier and September come join us.

“Hey, Blaine? You playing?” I call out.

He shakes a thumb at Jackson. “Have to hold this rat so he doesn’t run off.”

“I’ll watch him,” Bree says.

“You’re passing up an archery match?” I ask, shocked.

She shrugs. “A bow and arrow is not my preferred weapon of choice.”

“So you’re saying you can only fire that thing,” Emma says, eyeing the rifle in Bree’s hands.

“Is that a challenge?”

“Maybe.”

September and Xavier let out a series of ooohs, and Sammy starts whistling.

“Fine,” Bree snaps. “I’ll play.”

Xavier and I are the only two in the group who opted for a bow when we left Crevice Valley, so ours are passed around as the match progresses. There are six of us playing and we agree to knock off two people with each round. The first round is shot from twenty paces. To my surprise, September, who is deadly with a firearm, doesn’t even come close to hitting the target. Everyone else strikes true, including Emma. I’m proud to think that I trained her months ago in Claysoot, and I compliment her form. Sammy’s arrow ends up being the farthest from the sack’s center, so he joins September off to the side.

I fire a perfect shot in the next round. Xavier slips in the snow and shoots wide, but both Emma and Bree strike close to my arrow. Bree is a tad high, Emma a tad low.

“Not bad,” I tell Emma again. Bree snorts from behind me, but if she expects praise for missing a bull’s-eye, she’s crazy.

“Aiden wants to help judge!” Sammy scoops the boy onto his shoulders and comes racing through the show. Once we’re all gathered around the target, Sammy points at the two outlying arrows. “All right, Aiden. Which of these is closest to the center one?”

Aiden screws up his face in concentration and finally points at the arrow below mine.

Bree throws up her hands. “Of course he’d pick Emma’s. He hates me!”

“We didn’t tell him which arrow was hers,” Sammy points out.

“Ugh, whatever. I’d slaughter you all if this was a spear-throwing match. We didn’t use arrows much in Saltwater, you know. A spear is far more effective for catching fish.”

“But it’s not a spear-throwing match,” I say, nudging her with my elbow.

She scowls at me, furious, and stalks off. I should have known better than to joke with her during a competition.

“Don’t you want to see who wins?” I call after her.

“I couldn’t care less.”

“Moody thing, huh?” Xavier says. “Must be that time of the month.”

Sammy smirks. “Yeah, these next few days should be downright peachy.”

September and Emma glare at the both of them.

“What?” Sammy asks innocently. “Can’t a guy speak his mind on his birthday?” Xavier buckles with laughter. Even I can’t help smiling.

“What time of the month is it?” Aiden asks from atop Sammy’s shoulders.

“Forget it, Aiden,” Emma says. “They’re just being boys.”

“But I’m a boy! I want to know.”

“How about we finish the game? You can judge the final shot, too, if you’d like.”

“Okay,” he agrees.

But when we get back to the shooting spot, Rusty is trying to have another go at Jackson, and Blaine is somehow stuck in the middle of it. His pack is held out like a shield, protecting him from the dog’s jaws. The Order spy stands safely behind him, laughing through his gag. Aiden calls Rusty off and Blaine throws his pack in the snow.

“That dog needs to get it through his thick skull,” he snarls. “Yes, the prisoner is with the Order. Yes, he’s no good. But he’s going to be with us for a while, and I’m not okay with losing a limb because the dog feels like attacking me in the process of getting to him!”

“Blaine, are you feeling all right?” Emma asks. She reaches out to him and he shrugs away. “You’re not one to get worked up over something so small.”

“He would have killed me just to get at the spy, Emma. I swear it,” he says. “That’s no small matter.”

“All right!” my father calls out. “Clipper got us straightened away. We need to cut south for a few miles.”

“But the match,” Sammy says. “Emma and Gray have to play the final round.”

My father looks between us. “Gray would win—no offense, Emma—and we have a pace to maintain. This is not negotiable.”

We start walking again, but tensions are high. Clipper’s worried about the nearby town; my father, our pace. Sammy’s sullen and Blaine, suspicious. He keeps glaring at Rusty and holding the spy in front of him as protection. And Bree’s ill temper is transmitting in waves so thick it could knock a person over.

When I ask her if she’s okay, she rolls her eyes and walks faster.

Somehow, I feel like I’m at fault, even though I obviously have no control over any arrow fired but my own.

FIVE

THAT NIGHT AFTER DINNER, WE disperse into smaller groups around the fire. My father and Clipper are deep in conversation, likely discussing our path. Again. Xavier is hard at work drying out his socks—he’s stuck them on the end of a forked stick so he can dangle them over the fire like roasted meat—and Aiden is back to playing Rock, Paper, Scissors with the spy.

Someone removed Jackson’s gag and retied his hands in his lap so that he could eat, and he’s now able to make hand gestures back at the boy. He has a look on his face that almost appears big-brotherly as he plays with Aiden, not at all like the blood-hungry Order-spy-on-a-mission that we know he is. Blaine hovers nearby, watchful. Rusty, too, while not barking, hasn’t stopped snarling in Jackson’s direction. If I were the spy, I wouldn’t make a single sudden move with that dog around.

I’m sitting with everyone else, listening to Sammy ramble about his childhood in Taem. Bree, who hasn’t said a word to me since the archery match, has taken especial interest in his story. Mostly, I think, so she has an excuse to not make eye contact with me. Emma, on the other hand, seems to have zero interest in Sammy’s words. She keeps twisting around to check on Aiden, her shoulder knocking against mine each time.

“He’s fine,” I whisper to her. Blaine’s been looking at the boy the same way he looked at his daughter, Kale, back in Claysoot. Like he wants to show him the world and teach him everything he knows and protect him with his own life if it comes to it. I don’t understand how Blaine can care so much for a person he’s only recently met. More proof that he’s a better person than me.

“I just worry about him,” Emma says, as if I didn’t already know this. She hasn’t taken her eyes off Aiden since he joined our group, and he hasn’t wandered far from her side either. The fact that he’s sitting with Jackson—farther than an arm’s length from Emma—is a small miracle in itself.

“Well, you’re wasting your energy. He’s with Blaine. He’s as safe as he’ll ever be.”

Emma gives me a look that seems to say, You know I can’t help worrying.

“. . . I was barely six when he died,” Sammy says, and we’re both pulled back to the conversation happening beside us.

“Who died?” Emma asks.

“My great-grandfather. He lived through the Second Civil War and watched Frank come into power nearly fifty years ago. Man, the stories he would tell.”

“Like?” I prompt.

“They’re not really fireside material.”

“And this isn’t a typical campfire in the woods,” Bree points out.

“Fair enough, Nox,” Sammy says. “Fair enough.” He tosses snow at the fire for a moment, listening to it sizzle.

“He used to talk about how chaotic things were in the years between the Continental Quake and the Second Civil War. That was his favorite word for it all—chaotic.”

“Well, it fits,” September chimes in. “We learned about it all in middle school. Decades before the Quake, scientists were predicting massive shifts in the Earth’s plates. Plus, the climate was changing. Getting hotter, drier. There was less rain and more droughts, and the ocean levels were rising like crazy. A lot of major cities were in jeopardy of flooding. That’s where Robert Taem came in.”

“Taem like the city?” Bree asks.

“People forget it was named after him,” Bo says. He starts tapping on his knee, his fingers unable to stay still, and September nods in agreement.

“Taem was the engineer behind the domed design—nearly indestructible, safe from harsh suns, better air quality. The government contracted him to make it, and then the capital ended up beneath it, farther inland and safe from the rising ocean. Voilà! The city of Taem.”

“My great-grandfather used to joke that Robert Taem knew what was coming, but he couldn’t have,” Sammy says. “Not really. Taem died young, long before the War.”

“I don’t even think he saw all the other domed cities spring up,” September adds. “But they did, all based on his original design.”

“I thought we were talking about the years between the Quake and the War,” Bree interjects.

“I’m getting there, Nox.” Sammy takes a swig from his waterskin before continuing. “My great-grandfather had enough money to move to Taem with his fiancée. It was expensive to buy your way under a dome, but he got lucky, especially with the timing. Two months after his move, the Continental Quake hit: a half dozen widespread earthquakes in the course of three days. The coasts pretty much all fell into the ocean. The gulf ate its way up the center of the country. Rivers and streams flooded with salt water. Roads were upturned and cities toppled—including some domed ones. If the ground falls out from beneath a place, it’s not going to stay standing no matter how indestructible its outer shell is.

“People obviously panicked. My great-grandfather said the world outside still-standing domes became like a war zone. Everyone was looting abandoned stores, stealing from neighbors. Law enforcement was stretched too thin. Hospitals were over capacity. And then when the flooding didn’t slow, the government started barricading and controlling freshwater resources. Clean water went to the capital first, then the surrounding areas.”

“And it was taxed like crazy,” Bo chimes in. “I heard people muttering about that during my time in Taem. The farther water had to be shipped, the more expensive it was.”

“Not exactly how disaster relief should work,” Sammy says. “The West got furious—threatened everything imaginable, including secession. The capital ignored it all, and that, according to my great-grandfather, was when they attacked.”

“The virus?” Bree prompts. I know the one she’s referencing—the virus AmWest used to initiate war on AmEast—the very same virus that Frank’s lab workers transformed into the threat we faced in the fall.

“A Western movement dropped it in Big Water,” September says. “They were trying to take control of some water sources in that territory, but the damn thing mutated, spread, took on new forms. Even killed a bunch of the West’s own soldiers. Domed cities went on lockdown, but outside, people were dropping like flies.”

“And so began the Second Civil War,” Bo says rather casually, which makes me wonder how many times he heard these stories in Taem to become so numb. “The East staged a counterattack. Millions of lives were lost—to bombs, to disease. Point is, the country tore itself apart from the inside until two separate nations emerged: AmWest, their secession complete, and AmEast, led by Frank’s father, Dominic Frank.”

“And your great-grandfather was in Taem during all that fighting?” I ask Sammy.

“Yup, and the way he told it, Dominic was a decent ruler. It was only when Frank took over that things fell apart. Frank didn’t trust the people, so he stripped away everything he saw as a risk to a unified AmEast. Books, music, art—anything that could encourage debate or confrontation was declared illegal.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Bree says. “Debate’s a good thing. And why didn’t Frank focus on AmWest? They were clearly the enemy, not his own people.”

“Look, Nox,” Sammy says. “I get it. Really, I do. It’s messed up.”

“There has to be a reason. A motive. Something.”

September leans forward, firelight dancing on her face. “A few years after the War, when Frank was at college in Taem, his father—his mother and younger brother, too—were murdered. They were distributing water to communities in AmEast’s Western Territory—not far from where Group A now stands. AmWest soldiers stormed the square, shot Frank’s family and every Order member in sight. Then they took off with the water. The people of AmEast did nothing to stop it, and if there was a moment that caused Frank to snap, I’d imagine that was it.”

“That’s not the way my great-grandfather told it,” Sammy says. “His cousin was there that day; he said AmWest was only looking to take out the Order, but Frank’s family was killed in the crossfire. When the bullets stopped flying, AmWest apparently gave a speech about how the Franconian Order wasn’t the solution to rebuilding the country. It was a brand-new division back then,” he says quickly, reading the confusion on my face, “aimed at instilling peace between the two countries.”

“Regardless of its goals, AmWest never liked the Order,” Bo says. “They always felt that the people should rebuild the country together, not have it forced upon them at gunpoint by law officials wearing black. Sort of admirable, I think.”

September scoffs. “Well, they’re not teaching Sammy’s great-grandfather’s version of the event in school.”

“Of course not!” Sammy says. “Frank wants us to all believe the version where AmWest mercilessly assassinates his family. It paints him as an advocate for justice.”

“Are you saying you think AmWest isn’t despicable?” September counters. “After the virus that started the War? The fight they continue today? I mean, they just attacked Taem over the summer!”

Sammy rubs the back of his neck, but doesn’t answer.

“I think the point here is that Frank stepped into his father’s shoes with motives more deeply rooted in revenge than justice,” Bo says.

“But it’s the people of AmEast suffering most under Frank’s rule,” Emma points out. “People not even responsible for his parents’ death.”

“I know that. You know that,” Bo says. “But if it had been you in Frank’s place, do you think that day might have broken you?”

Months ago, when I was first in Taem, I saw an image of a family on Frank’s office wall. I understand now that Frank was the older of the two boys. His mother was smiling, her arms on his brother’s shoulders, his father looking stern. Frank’s family hangs there, always reminding him, always motivating him. I wonder if Frank’s ever noticed that his goal of avenging them has slipped into a territory that can no longer be considered admirable.

“So then he started the Laicos Project,” I say. “He began growing his soldiers, boys he could later replicate to fight against AmWest, to serve in the Order.”

“And girls,” Bree points out. “Boys and girls.”

Sammy nods. “Yup. You lot are just another piece in the puzzle of a man spiraling out of control. But of course, no one has stopped him. He is still bent on demolishing AmWest, and he fights that battle daily. And although he’s restricted the lives of people in AmEast, he’s also managed to keep up the work of his father, getting water to almost everyone in need. Rationed and highly taxed water, but still. Plus the Order is loyal to him, as are the majority of citizens in his cities. They know life’s far worse outside the domes.”

“Yeah, like in Stonewall,” I say. “Where he takes their water and gets them all sick in the process.”

“I never said it was right,” Sammy says.

“None of us have,” Bo adds. “But I can understand his motives in some weird, twisted way.”

I hate to admit it, but I can, too. I look over at Blaine, who is smiling as Aiden beats Jackson in yet another round of their game. I’ve already lost my mother to illness. I remember what it felt like to lose Blaine to the Heist. If they’d been taken from me all at once—murdered—I know I’d spend the rest of my life trying to avenge their deaths.

Aiden turns to play a round of his hand game with Blaine. The boy reveals scissors; my brother, a rock. Blaine reaches out to clunk Aiden with his fist, but he moves too quickly, or too forcefully, because Rusty lunges. Blaine is thrown backward into the snow. It’s not until he starts screaming, wrestling against the dog locked on to his forearm, that I’m jolted into action.

I sprint across camp. Aiden is trying to call the animal off, but it clearly has no intention of letting go. I throw myself onto the dog, latch my hands in his mouth, and tug. I’m bleeding almost immediately, but I pry harder, attempting to loosen the animal’s grip. His paws slash at me; his teeth clamp down. And then I feel someone else tug at the animal’s jaws. Jackson. His hands are still bound and yet he’s helping me force open Rusty’s mouth. The dog’s grip gives, and Blaine scrambles backward, cursing and clutching his arm to his chest.

“That dog is crazy!” he shouts.

Aiden puts a hand on Rusty, whispering until he calms. “He thought you were attacking me, that’s all.”

Blaine mutters a few curses as I kneel next to him. His forearm is a mess of blood and shredded clothing. I call for Emma, but she’s already there. Clipper hovers, flashlight poised.

Emma cuts Blaine’s sleeve open. She works swiftly, disinfecting the wound, washing away the blood, and dressing his arm in bandages. She takes the flashlight from Clipper to better inspect the rest of his arm—the minor cuts and scratches from the dog’s paws—and then focuses the light on Blaine’s face, his eyes.

“Blaine?” she says, her hand resting on his forehead. “Do you feel okay?”

He blinks rapidly. “It’s too bright.”

She looks at him hesitantly. “He’ll be fine.” Then she moves on to me and Jackson, examining our hands, shining her light in our eyes as well. She still looks confused when she finishes with the spy. Shaking her head, Emma packs up the gear and walks away to clean the used equipment.

The team is discussing what to do with the dog, which Aiden hugs as though it is harmless, but I’m staring at Jackson. He’s on the outskirts of camp, gazing into the trees like he’s thinking of running for it. The gag, which Emma loosened when she attended to him, hangs around his neck.

“You helped,” I say.

“Was there a reason I shouldn’t have?” When he looks at me, his eyes are too bright. Hopeful. I step away from him.

“We’re still keeping you bound and gagged. This doesn’t change anything.”

He shrugs. “It was worth a try.”

SIX

LATER, WHEN THE COMMOTION HAS died down and people have settled back around the fire, I approach Blaine. We sit shoulder to shoulder, staring through the branches that scrape at the sky. The moon is bright, nearly full, and it makes the stars seem minuscule.

“I used to do this sometimes in Claysoot,” I say to him.

“Get bitten by dogs?”

I laugh. “Stare at the sky. When you were snoring too much, I’d sneak out to the crop fields.”

“I used to do the same,” he says.

“Really? I didn’t know that.”

“That you snored, or that I used the same escape?”

“Both.”

Blaine glances at my hands. “You going to have another scar to add to the list?”

“Nah. They should heal all right. What about you?”

He touches his bandaged arm and winces. “Not sure. But the dog’s dangerous. We should put it down.”

“Pa already discussed it. Rusty stays. He’s so astute, he’ll be able to warn us if the spy is up to something.”

“And he might chew someone’s limb off in the process.”

A star streaks across the sky, and we point to it at the same time, Blaine gasping at the pain the movement causes.

“If Pa thinks we should keep him, we’re keeping him,” I say.

Blaine turns toward me and even with the shadows obscuring his face, I can tell he’s hurting.

“You’re gonna side with Pa?” he says. “Over me?”

“If the dog attacks again, I’m on your side. You come first. Always.”

He turns back to the stars, smiling. “Always.”

I wake to Xavier’s foot jabbing at my sleeping bag.

“It’s your watch.”

I feel like I only just closed my eyes. “But Sammy always follows you.”

“Owen gave him the night off. Special birthday privileges.”

I grumble and pull on a few more layers, feel around the corners of the tent for my hat. Bree stirs beside me. Like most nights, she came to my tent just a few hours earlier, only this visit she was uncharacteristically sweet. I think she was trying to make up for her attitude during (and following) the archery match.

I know the two of us shouldn’t let our guard down so much in the evenings, but sleeping alongside her is the only small comfort that exists on this mission. It melts my fears, silences the constant worry, makes me brave in a way I’ve never experienced before. It also doesn’t hurt that I like the feel of her lips on mine—like the feel of her in general.

“Is it your hour?” she mumbles.

“Yeah. I’ll be back soon. Don’t go anywhere.”

But even as I crawl outside I know she will. She never stays through a full evening. She’ll sneak back to her own tent before I return from watch. Just like how she always darted back to her room on those nights we fell asleep together in Crevice Valley, leaving me to wake up alone, the only sign of her an impression on my pillow.

I head for the fire pit, where Xavier left the watch propped up on a stick. Fifty-eight minutes until I can wake Bo to take over. Three more minutes go by and my eyelids grow heavy. Another two and it’s a struggle to keep them open at all.

I hear the gentle crunch of snow. Bree, sneaking back to her tent as I predicted. But no, the sound is coming from the opposite side of camp. Near Blaine’s tent. He’s been pitching it at a distance because he’s been tasked with keeping an eye on Jackson, and if they stay too near Rusty, the dog spends the entire night growling.

A moment later, I hear whispers. Worried the spy is giving my brother trouble, I steal toward the voices. The nearly full moon makes crossing camp relatively easy and I spot Blaine standing just beyond his tent. Sure enough, he’s arguing with Jackson.

“The dog is no good,” Blaine is whispering, his voice tense.

“I’m not killing it,” the spy answers.

Blaine thrusts a knife at him. “It’s just a dog. Do it.”

“But Aiden . . . It will crush him.”

“He’ll think a wolf got to it. Or a coyote.”

“If you want it done so badly, do it yourself.”

Blaine must be scared senseless, asking Jackson to kill the dog in the middle of the night. Why wouldn’t Blaine come to me if he was so worried? I promised I was on his side just earlier.

“Blaine?” I call out. He sees me and grabs Jackson’s arm, yanking him closer. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” But his voice quavers slightly. “The spy had to take a piss so I was escorting him.”

Why is he lying to me?

“I know what’s really happening here,” I say, looking between him and Jackson. “Why can’t you just tell me, Blaine?”

He laughs. “Tell you? I couldn’t tell you!”

What could be so terrible about admitting you’re scared of a dog? I pause, wondering if I’ve misinterpreted something, when he adds, “And you can’t tell anyone either. I won’t let you.”

Footsteps approach, and I turn to see a sleepy Emma walking to meet us. “You guys are going to wake the whole camp if you can’t keep it down,” she says.

What happens next unfolds so quickly I blink and nearly miss it. Blaine shoves Jackson aside and grabs Emma. He pulls her into his chest and brings the knife to her neck. All I can do is pull my bow up instinctively, an arrow already nocked, and aim at my brother.

“You figured it out, you sly little weasel,” he snarls at me. “How did you know? When did you know?”

“Blaine,” I say slowly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do,” he hisses. “You said so yourself: I know what’s really happening here. What tipped you off?”

“Blaine,” I plead. “Put the knife down.” He’s gone crazy. The dog must have been sick, and then he bit Blaine, and now Blaine’s sick, too. Emma is shaking, her hands clutching at Blaine’s bandaged forearm, which pins her to his chest.

“I kn-knew it,” she stutters. “They’re wrong. Both of them.”

“What?”

“It’s their pupils. They don’t dilate properly.”

“Shut up,” Blaine says, and he presses the knife to her neck.

“And the dog.”

Blaine shakes her. “That’s enough.”

“The dog hates them both. Neither of them are right.”

“I said that’s enough!”

Neither of them are right. Are they both sick? Are they—

And then, I see it. Blaine always passing off the dog’s aggression as a hatred of the spy. Blaine hugging me in Stonewall, his arms stiff. I didn’t notice anything odd about his pupils, or Jackson’s, but Emma must have, when she’d tended to them just earlier. Even still, I don’t want to believe it. It can’t be—not when Owen interrogated Blaine the way he did, checked for his clipping scar.

“Blaine,” I say, hoping that something in my voice will resonate with him. “Please?”

I take a small step forward, and he pinches the blade into Emma’s neck. Blood blooms against the weapon, against her pale skin, and when she cries out in pain, I know this is not my brother. Not really. Blaine would never force me into this position. He would never hold a knife to Emma or spill even a drop of her blood.

We’ve been deceived. We are not dealing with one spy; we are dealing with two.

And they are Forgeries.

I do the only thing I can think of: I let my arrow fly.

It strikes true. Blaine’s head whips back, and he falls, releasing Emma. She staggers to me, collapses against my chest. My arms go around her, squeezing, hugging tighter and tighter until it sinks in. What I’ve just done.

Jackson is standing over the darkening snow, a smile tugging at his lips. I shove him aside and then I’m yelling, screaming. I drop to my knees.

The camp is awake now. Someone is trying to nurse the fire to life. Owen is shouting orders. But my hands are moving of their own accord, checking Blaine’s neck, finding the same thin scar my father did. It doesn’t make sense. I pick up the knife and cut open the leg of Blaine’s pants. There is no scar on his thigh, no sign of an arrow wound when there absolutely should be. My brother was hit when we fled through the Great Forest over the summer. This thing, now dead in the snow, was made without knowledge of that injury. And whoever put the mark along his neck was not Clipper.

I throw a fist into his chest, curse him, start choking down sobs. Why couldn’t I see it? How could I not sense something so wrong in my own brother? I look at Blaine’s face for the first time, the arrow in his forehead. I throw up in the snow. I cough and pant and heave and scream until Owen drags me away from the body.

SEVEN

JACKSON IS SHOVED INTO THE snow before the fire.

“Explain.” It is a one-word command from my father and Jackson yawns at it.

I lose control and punch him as hard as I can. “Blaine brought you to us with a gun to your head! And now you’re on the same side?”

Jackson smiles but doesn’t say anything. I hit him again and my knuckles split open. At least he’s bleeding now, too: a bloody nose. I hope I broke it.

“Answer us, Forgery,” Owen demands.

Jackson rolls his eyes, like we’re boring him. “Blaine brought me in because we planned it that way. He pretended I was the enemy because we planned that, too. Everything we did we planned, except for, well . . . this.” He jerks his head toward the body in the snow.

“But Blaine had a clipping scar,” my father says. “He was flawless when I questioned him. He even knew about the burn on Gray’s forearm. How could he—” Owen exhales sharply. “Our man! The one the Order captured.” His eyes snap to Jackson. “Your people got information from him. How much, exactly, do you know?”

Jackson shrugs and this time it is Owen who strikes him. He shakes out his hand, opening and clenching his fist repeatedly. “You will answer my questions without cheek or I will make sure you regret every moment from here on. Is that clear?”

Jackson spits a mouthful of blood onto the snow.

“Let’s try this again.” My father kneels before him and I’m struck by how terrifying he looks in the moment. I’ve never before seen this side of my father, a man who someone should fear. “Explain everything.”

Jackson glances at my father’s fist and sighs. “You’re right, okay? The Rebel we caught leaked information when pressed accordingly. He was willing to lose a few fingers, but not an entire limb.” Another coy smile, as though the Forgery finds this detail amusing. “He told us a small group of your people was heading west on a specialized mission. The boy who infiltrated Taem to steal the vaccine would be a part of the team, while his twin”—Jackson’s eyes flick my way—“who was still recovering from a coma, would not. We gathered as much information on Gray as possible—learned that he sustained injuries to his arm and that he wanted his brother with him on the trip, but Blaine had failed to pass conditioning tests. The prisoner was willing to die rather than divulge the goals of your mission, though, or the location of your headquarters, so that’s exactly what he did: He died.”

“And you were sent after us?” my father asks.

“Blaine and I were already out patrolling the Great Forest when we got the call. We were given orders to track your team, uncover your plans, and stop them as necessary, all while trying to determine the location of your headquarters. That was the main goal: getting the coordinates and relaying them as soon as possible.

“We picked up your trail easily enough. It was the hiking that was rough—ten days of nearly nonstop pursuit. When we caught up with you at Stonewall, infiltrating seemed smartest, especially since Blaine would be recognized, so we agreed on a cover: I’d be an Order spy in his custody. We each played a part, and he, clumsily, botched his.”

“And Blaine’s scar?” my father prompts. “The one on his neck?”

“Oh, he’s had that ever since Gray came back to Taem for the vaccine. Frank saw Gray’s neck, knew the Rebels had found a way to remove tracking devices. He marked some of us after that—anyone he suspected to have fallen into your hands.” Jackson’s eyes dart over each of us in turn, like he’s waiting for someone to congratulate him on how deceitful he’s been. He’s suddenly so different from the desperate spy we met in Stonewall. Cool, calculating, unfazed.

“If I’m smart about things, I can still complete my mission,” he adds.

“Like hell you can,” Xavier snaps from the other side of camp.

Jackson laughs. “Why not? I’ve already uncovered your mission details by simply listening. The whole thing’s ridiculous! Group A? Frank gave you too much credit—the way he assumed you’d try to extend your reach into the west, strike up allegiances. But fine, I’ll keep tagging along on your pointless crusade. And when the time presents itself, I’ll slay you. One at a time. Slowly. Until someone divulges headquarters’ location.”

“You realize you were one of us once, right?” I say through clenched teeth. “The real Jackson spent his childhood behind a Wall. He was Heisted to make you. You’re Frank’s puppet, and you’re doing everything the real Jackson wouldn’t want.”

“It doesn’t matter what you say,” he says quietly. “My mind can’t be changed. I know what I have to do.”

I believe him even though I don’t want to. Harvey told me as much. The difference between a Forgery that can think for itself and a Forgery that blindly does Frank’s bidding is a piece of code—software as smoothly integrated with the replica’s brain as the blood that runs through its veins.

“I can change your mind,” I say.

“I’d like to see you try.”

I have an arrow nocked before Jackson even finishes speaking.

“You won’t fire that. Not with what I know.”

“What you know?” my father echoes.

“I’m a soldier. A technologically enhanced soldier overloaded with secrets. Do you have any idea how much confidential information is swimming around in my head? City maps. Computer passwords. Access codes to safes and storage units and maybe even Outer Rings.”

No one says anything. Jackson’s grin grows wider.

“What were you planning to do when you reached Group A? Push the Outer Ring’s wall over?” he says. “It’s taller than the interior Wall—surrounds the whole place. You need me or you’ll just stand there, staring at a dead end.”

Bo steps between Sammy and Emma on the opposite side of the fire. “You said maybe,” he calls out. “Access codes to storage units and maybe Outer Rings.”

Jackson grunts. “I can’t very well tell you how to open the door now. It’s my only leverage.”

“Then maybe you’re lying and we should just get this over with,” I say, raising my bow.

“Shoot me now and you’re already doomed to reach a dead end. But if you keep me alive, things can go one of two ways: I open the Outer Ring for you and you actually have a chance to complete your stupid mission. Or, I was lying all along, you hit a dead end later rather than sooner, and shoot me then instead of now. Your pick.”

Bo shifts uncomfortably. Emma is shivering behind him—still in shock or maybe just cold. Sammy puts his coat on her shoulders. And Jackson keeps smiling. That arrogant, cocky smile that I want to wipe right off his face.

“The Forgery lives,” my father announces. “We believe Clipper can get us into the Outer Ring, but on the rare chance he can’t, this is a solid backup plan and we’d be foolish to waste it. If the Forgery is lying about what he knows, it’s just like he said: He’ll die then instead of now.”

Owen turns and asks Emma to show the team what she recognized in Jackson’s and Blaine’s eyes. Sammy is in the process of bandaging her neck, but she agrees to explain everything when he’s finished.

“I still can’t believe it,” Bree says next to me. “Blaine. Even after we interrogated him. It’s—” She stops, touches my arm. “Hey, are you okay?”

Sammy’s brushing Emma’s hair to the side so he can better see the cut on her neck. He must say something funny because she lets out a small laugh. Bree follows my gaze and frowns.

“Gray?”

Xavier shouts for Sammy to help him move Blaine’s body away from camp, and I feel nauseous all over again.

“I just need a minute,” I say to Bree.

I want to be alone right now. Need to be alone. She has the decency to not give me a hard time about it.

I wander away from the tents, slip between the trees. When I find a fallen pine, I sit on the trunk, cringe at the sting of an oncoming headache. The moment I close my eyes, I see it all over again: Blaine’s head whipping back from the force of my arrow, his body in the snow; the way he lay, broken, with one arm crushed beneath his weight.

A little while later, my father finds me. “How are you holding up?”

I want to tell him how sick I feel, but he seems so formal in the moment. More captain than father.

He sits beside me. “It wasn’t him, Gray. That wasn’t your brother.”

“I know. But I still . . . I feel like . . .”

I don’t know how to put it into words. Like I ate spoiled meat and my stomach is writhing? Like I have a headache that pounds at the slightest movement? Like the wind’s been knocked out of me and I can’t get an ounce of air into my lungs no matter how deeply I breathe?

“You did the right thing,” Owen says. “Emma would be dead right now if you hadn’t acted so quickly.”

“How is she?”

“Fine. Nothing but a nick on her neck. She’s showing the others how to identify a Forgery, although the sign is so subtle. Clipper’s the only one having any success.” A quick pause. “I don’t know what it means. Not even Harvey seemed to know about this giveaway, and he made the damn things.”

Owen leans forward, resting his arms on his knees. I run a hand over my bloody knuckles.

“I don’t get it,” I say finally. “What the Forgery said—Frank giving us too much credit for heading west. That’s exactly what we’re doing.”

“I think our final destination surprised him, that’s all. I’m sure when Frank heard we were traveling west he expected us to be gathering more supporters, and of course he has a reason to fear that. With more numbers we have more power, and with those numbers spread out, more people doubting him in more locations. He could have an uprising on his hands, one that would be difficult to fight if it broke out in and around all his cities at the same time. It’s his biggest fear: losing control over his people.” Owen pauses for a second. “Frank probably never mentioned Group A to the Forgeries when he briefed them, and why would he? The place is a wreck and there are no numbers there to help our cause as far as he’s concerned. Of course, that’s exactly why it’s so alluring to us. It’s under the radar. Never thought of or looked at twice.”

“There are still cameras watching it.”

“Once we get the survivors on our side, Clipper will see to them. Remember his discussions with Ryder before we left—that idea to take several hours of video footage and loop it indefinitely? To anyone watching from Taem’s control room it will look like Group A is as deserted and dead as always, only we’ll be able to start recruiting beyond the survivors still there.”

“And the Forgery?” I ask.

“We’ll get rid of him as soon as we’re through the Outer Ring. The Order will think we’re anywhere but Group A ‘extending our reach,’ and he’ll be dead before he’s able to discover and give them headquarters’ location.”

I nod silently. I heard these plans, all this logic, a dozen times over—mostly in meetings before we left Crevice Valley. I’ve even repeated some of them to Bree when her reservations about the mission get the best of her. But now, as I sit here listening to my father, thinking about Blaine’s body back in the snow and how quickly life can get thrown off course, I catch myself feeling doubtful. There are so many details in our plan that could go wrong as easily as they could go right.

Owen turns toward me, his features extremely calm given all that’s happened. “You positive you’re okay?”

No.

But I don’t say it. Because I want to be unfazed like him. I want killing that Forgery to have no weight on my conscience.

“If you decide you want to talk about it,” he says, “or about anything, ever, you just say the word. I’ll make time.”

If he were Blaine he’d know I want to talk right now. He’d be able to read my silence as well as my words. But my brother is not here. And right then, another fear hits me.

Frank wanted Harvey back in order to make the limitless Forgeries. That was always his goal—a Forgery that could be replicated over and over. But when I brought Harvey to Taem in the fall as a decoy, Frank casually mentioned that he didn’t need Harvey’s help anymore. Which makes me wonder if he’s already accomplished it. The limitless variety.

“What if I have to kill another Forged version of Blaine?” I blurt out. “I don’t think I could do it.”

“You can,” my father says. “You will do what you must and you will do it without hesitation.”

“An order; how reassuring.”

“It was meant to be a compliment. I’m saying that you are a stronger person than most because you do what needs to be done even when those actions are unpleasant.” Owen scratches at his chin, stares into the sea of trees before us. “It’s supposed to hurt,” he adds. “Seeing something like that. Doing something like that. If it didn’t hurt, you’d be no better than a Forgery yourself.”

He stands and drops a square of cloth into my hands. “Clean yourself up.” A smile flickers beneath his beard. “You look like hell.”

EIGHT

THE NEXT DOZEN DAYS PASS as imitations of one another. We wake in the morning and break down camp. We walk for hours that seem as endless as the Wastes itself. Xavier guides Jackson now, who spends half his time staring off into the trees like he might run for it and the other half eyeing our team members with a look so vicious it gives me chills. I can’t figure him out, though, because each evening after raising our tents, the first thing he does is play a round of Rock, Paper, Scissors with Aiden. One night Rusty even calms long enough to let the Forgery scratch him behind the ears. It makes Jackson smile—a true, genuine smile—and for a split second it’s like I’m seeing through the replica and into the real Jackson. The one who must have grown up in Dextern, seeing as neither Bree nor I recognize him as one of our people.

Emma continues to lead the horses, but Sammy will sometimes lift Aiden from the saddle and carry him on his shoulders. It always sends the boy into a fit of giggles. Watching the three of them together reminds me of a funeral in Claysoot. Emma stood at my side, and Kale slept in my arms, and something about it felt right, made me think I might actually want a family of my own someday. Not yet. Definitely not yet. Although when Sammy glances at Emma and gives her his goofy, joking smile, I start thinking I could be ready if I had to. I could be whatever Emma needed, so long as she would stop smiling back at him the way she currently does.

I fall in line beside Bree when we hike. She’s back to her old self, the bitterness from the archery match and the surprising tenderness that followed it that evening both replaced with constant heckling. I mention that I have blisters from my boots and she tells me to stop whining. I offer advice in a team meeting and she counters it just to watch me frown. I climb a tree to check the trail behind us for pursuers and she criticizes my form, shouts out grip advice from the snow below like I can’t see the handholds myself. The only time she doesn’t seem to have something to say is when I bring up my showdown with Forged Blaine, wondering aloud how doing something right can also feel wrong. She just squints at me, her face somewhat pained, before turning to stare off at the horizon.

Still, she comes to my tent each night to fall asleep beside me, and each time I return from my watch she’s gone. There’s always a sting in my chest when I find my sleeping bag empty. I start wondering if she’s leaving me, drifting away just like Emma. Before I can ever make sense of it, a new day will break—one where Bree and I are back to our typical banter, as comfortable and familiar as a pair of worn gloves, wearing each other thin.

The landscape grows flatter and sparser, forests trading themselves for rolling plains and valleys. The snow thins beneath our feet until we can finally see earth again. Frozen earth, but visible. I think it is warmer, too, but I’m so numb after weeks of exposure that I could be tricking myself into believing it. I pull off my hat and let my jacket hang open, relish in the fact that it no longer hurts to draw a deep breath.

“We are heading a bit south these days,” Clipper says when I ask him about the temperature. He shows me on his location device, which he’s been using sparingly to prolong its battery life. The Wastes ends soon, butting up against a massive chunk of blue that spreads north through about two-thirds of the country. Clipper calls it the New Gulf. The AmEast–AmWest borderlines run along the Gulf’s western shore, and at its northernmost end, the water forks into two bays, long and narrow, like rabbit ears. Group A is supposedly located somewhere between them, in AmEast’s Western Territory.

But for now, our destination is Bone Harbor. I spot it on the eastern edge of the Gulf, miles south from where the water forks into those two ears. No one has said anything in days—not even Clipper, who sees how close we are—but we can all feel it: hope.

Reaching Bone Harbor means a good meal and a bath, but above all, it marks a crucial turning point in our trek. We will be over halfway to the end, the hardest part behind us. I’ve never been on a boat, but I’m excited for the experience, if only to give my legs a rest. Bree warns that the passage across the Gulf could make me ill, and I laugh in her face.

“It’s only water. I’ve swum in it. Why would sailing on it be any different?”

“I’ll remind you of that when you’re throwing up over the side,” she says.

The evening before Clipper estimates we’ll arrive at the Gulf, I have my only conversation with Bree that doesn’t include her arguing with me or criticizing my faults. In fact, it’s rather civil, completely void of judgment.

The team is relaxing around the fire after dinner when she sits down next to me and says, “It’s terrible afterward. The feeling. You walk through it again and again and wonder what you could have changed, how you could have acted differently, if you missed something that would have spared them.”

It takes me a moment to realize she’s talking about killing someone, finally responding to my comments about the Forgery of my brother.

“That is exactly what I’m going through,” I admit. “Every day I reanalyze it.”

“The analyzing will stop eventually. The nightmares might not. I still dream about my first sometimes.”

“What happened?” She’s never told me the details and I’m suddenly curious. “Unless you don’t want to talk about it.”

“No. It’s fine.” But she stares at the flames for a long while before she speaks again. “I was on a scouting mission with the Rebels. We’d all split to go our own ways and had orders to meet up two hours later. I got turned around and couldn’t find my way back to the rendezvous point, so I dropped my gear and climbed a tree to get my bearings. When I came down, there were two Order members standing there. I don’t know how I didn’t see or hear them coming.

“They had their guns on me and one of them pinned me against the tree. I’ve blocked out what he looked like, but I remember his breath was hot when he said—I’ll never forget the words—‘She’s awful pretty, Mack. Maybe we should have some fun with her first.’”

I can’t believe she’s never told me this before. I’m gaping at her, horrified for what comes next.

“The instant that guy reached for his belt, I kneed him in the gut, pulled a knife from my boot, and slit his throat. The second guy ran off as soon as I snatched up my rifle. I didn’t even bother following him because I was too busy crying like an idiot and staring at the man who was bleeding out at my feet.

“For weeks I kept blaming myself for being so careless, leaving my weapon in plain sight, not hearing them coming. I visited the hospital in Crevice Valley a couple times for meds; my headaches were so bad I couldn’t sleep. I just wanted a do-over. I wanted to repeat the whole day so it could turn out differently.”

“That creep had it coming, Bree,” I say firmly. “He deserved what he got.”

“So did the Forgery you killed, but that doesn’t mean you wanted it to happen.” She turns so that she is looking directly at me. Her blond hair is dark with sweat, her cheeks caked with dirt. She looks wild in the firelight. “I’m not happy you had to kill someone, Gray. But I am glad you did it before he killed Emma. Or worse, you.”

She stands up quickly, and before I can say another word, she is gone.

We’ve been keeping up a blistering pace since dawn, and it is at midafternoon the following day, when my feet feel as though they might dissolve to dust, that the land before us stops. We crest a bluff and the earth drops away, revealing pebbles and sand and blue. Blue, as far as the eye can see.

The New Gulf.

Its surface is darker than the sky and speckled with white rifts that build and surge and throw themselves at the shore as though they are alive.

“Waves.” Bree sighs, and she opens her arms to the wind. It is salty when I breathe and the air feels wrong against my skin, but Bree seems so at home in these elements.

“This is the best birthday present ever,” she says to no one in particular. I realize I have again lost track of the days. It is the twenty-third already, a year to the day after her Heist from Saltwater. Today she is seventeen.

“We’re only a few hours from Bone Harbor,” Owen announces, “but let’s set up camp for the night. We’ll head in tomorrow morning with the traders to draw less attention.”

By the time the tents have been raised and dinner eaten, the group is in nothing short of good spirits as we sit around a dying fire.

Sammy and September are singing in harmony from across camp, him tapping out a rhythm on a piece of driftwood while Emma bobs her head to the beat. Even Bree hums along as she cleans her rifle. To my left, Bo has fallen asleep with his feet dangerously close to the fire. Jackson gives Aiden a piece of tall grass to tickle Bo’s nose. Each time Bo bats at it like he’s swatting a fly, Aiden descends into a fit of giggles.

I catch myself smiling.

Because there’s a sense of tranquility among us, an optimistic current you can’t ignore.

We’ve almost made it. We’re nearly there.