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“So what did the Pilot do?” I ask.

“He saved people,” Caleb says. “He and some of the other pilots would run people from the Society out as far as the last stone village. He made citizens pay to get out, and he helped Aberrations and Anomalies, too. ”

“That’s who carved in the ships, isn’t it?” I say, understanding. “People who were hiding there when the Pilot flew them out. ”

“It was stupid of them,” Caleb says, a hint of anger in his voice. “They could have gotten the pilots in trouble. ”

“I think they meant it as a tribute,” I say, remembering the picture carved on one of our earlier ships of the Pilot giving the people water. “That’s what it looked like to me. ”

“It was still stupid,” Caleb says.

“Do people live in the villages anymore?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” Caleb says. “They might have all left for the Otherlands by now. The Pilot tried to get them to join the Rising, but they wouldn’t. ”

That sounds like the Anomalies who lived in the Carving. They wouldn’t join the Rising either. It makes me wonder what happened to Anna’s people when they reached the village we saw marked on the map. Did they meet the stone villagers there? Did the groups have enough in common to get along? Did the people living in the stone villages help the people from the Carving, or did they drive them away—or worse? What’s happened to Hunter and Eli?

“Other kids grew up telling stories about the Pilot,” Caleb says. “But I grew up watching him fly. I know he’s the one who can lead us out of this. ”

Caleb sounds terrible. The pain’s winning out. I can hear it thick in his voice. And I know what’s happening.

He’s going still.

He was supposed to be immune. Something’s happened with the Plague. Is this a new version of it? One our immunity can’t protect us against?

“I want you to write down everything I said about the Pilot,” Caleb says, “including that I believed in him until the end. ”

“Is this the end?” I ask.

Silence.

“Caleb?”

Nothing.

“Did he go still?” Indie asks. “Or decide he didn’t want to talk anymore?”

“I don’t know,” I say.

She stands up as if she’s about to go down into the hold. “No,” I say. “Indie, you can’t risk exposure to whatever it is. ”

“He didn’t tell you much,” Indie says, sitting back down. “I bet there were plenty of people who knew that about the tubes and the Pilot. ”

“We didn’t,” I remind her.

“You believe Caleb because he has those notches on his boots,” she says, “but it doesn’t mean he was in the camps. Anyone could have cut their boots like that. ”

“I think he was there,” I say.

“But you don’t know that he was. ”

“No. ”

“He is right about the Pilot, though,” Indie says.

“So you do believe Caleb,” I say. “About the Pilot, at least. ”

“I believe myself about the Pilot,” Indie says. “I know that he’s real. ” She leans closer to me and for a minute I think she might kiss me again, like she did all those weeks ago. “The villages are real, too,” she says, “and the Otherlands. All of it. ”

Her voice is every bit as impassioned as Caleb’s was. And I understand her. Indie loves me, but she’s a survivor. When I told her I wouldn’t run with her, she turned to something else to keep going. I believe in Cassia. Indie believes in the Rising and the Pilot. We’ve both found something to pull us through.

“It could have been different,” I say, almost under my breath. If I’d kissed Indie again after she kissed me. If I hadn’t known Cassia before I met Indie.

“But it’s not,” Indie says, and she’s right.

CHAPTER 20

CASSIA

The world is not well.

I look out the window of my apartment and put my hand on the glass. It’s dark. Crowds gather at the barricade, the way they do often now at night, and soon the Rising officers will come in black and disperse them all, petals to the wind, leaves on the water.

The Rising hasn’t told us exactly what’s happened, but, for the past few weeks, we’ve all been confined to our apartments. Those of us who can, send in our work over the ports. All communication with other Provinces has ceased. The Rising says that is temporary. The Pilot himself promises that everything will be fine soon.

It has begun to rain.

I wonder what it would have been like to see a flash flood in the Carving from up high like this. I’d like to have stood at the edge of the canyon and felt the rumble; closed my eyes to better hear the water; opened them again to see the world laid to waste, the rocks and trees torn and tumbling down. It would have been something to watch what looked like the end of the world.

Perhaps I am witnessing that now.

A chime sounds from my kitchen. Dinner has arrived, but I am not hungry. I know what the food will be—emergency rations. We have only two meals each day now. Someday they will run out of the rations, too. And then I don’t know what they’ll do.

If we start to feel sick and tired, we’re supposed to send a message on the port. Then they’ll come and help us. But what if you go still while you sleep? I wonder. The thought makes me lie awake at night. It’s become difficult to find any rest.

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