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CHAPTER 62

XANDER

It sounds like a million birds beating their wings against the sky, but it’s only the ships flying above me. At the last minute, I realized I couldn’t go with them to the Otherlands. But I also couldn’t make myself go back to Camas. I’m stuck here in the middle, as always.

Morning comes. I climb up to the stream near the field where Oker and I dug the camassia, skirting the village so I don’t have to talk to anyone. Later, I’ll come back and ask them if there’s something I can do: maybe work in Oker’s old lab.

Roots from the trees at the edge of the stream dangle down into the water. They are tiny and red. I never knew roots could be that color.

And then I see a larger glimpse of red. Another. Another. They’re almost hideous—strange jaws, round eyes—but the color is so brilliant.

They’re the redfish Lei told me about. I’m seeing them at last.

My throat aches and my eyes burn. I come down closer to the water.

Then I hear something behind me. I turn around, change my expression to a grin, ready to talk to whatever villager found their way out here.

“Xander,” she says.

It’s Lei.

“Are they back?” she asks me. “The redfish?”

“Yes,” I say.

“I didn’t know you were here,” she says. “I didn’t see you on the ships from Camas. ”

“We must not have been on the same ship,” I say. “I meant to go to the Otherlands. ”

“I did, too,” she says. “But I couldn’t leave. ”

“Why not?” I ask, and I don’t know what I hope the answer will be, but my heart pounds in my chest and in my ears there’s a sound like rushing water or those ships lifting into the sky.

She doesn’t answer, but she looks toward the stream. Of course. The fish.

“Why do they come all the way back?” I ask her.

“To find each other. ” Her eyes meet mine. “We used to come to the river together,” she says. “He looked a little like you. He had very blue eyes. ”

The rushing in my ears is gone. Everything feels very quiet. She came back because she couldn’t leave the country where she knew him. It has nothing to do with me.

I clear my throat. “You said these fish are blue in the ocean,” I say. “Like a completely different animal. ”

“Yes and no,” she says. “They have changed. We’re allowed to change. ” She’s very soft with me. Her voice is gentle.

And then Lei is the one to close the distance. She moves right to me.

I want to say something I’ve never said before, and it won’t be to Cassia, the way I always thought it would be. “I love you,” I say. “I know you still love someone else, but—”

“I love you,” she says.

It’s not all gone. She loved someone before and so did I. The Society and the Rising and the world are all still out there, pressing against us. But Lei holds them away. She’s made enough space for two people to stand up together, whether or not any Society or Rising says that they can. She’s done it before. The amazing thing is that she’s not afraid to do it again. When we fall in love the first time, we don’t know anything. We risk a lot less than we do if we choose to love again.

There is something extraordinary about the first time falling.

But it feels even better to find myself standing on solid ground, with someone holding on to me, pulling me back, and know that I’m doing the same for her.

“Remember the story I told you?” Lei asks. “The one about the Pilot and the man she loved?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Who do you think had to be more brave?” she asks. “The Pilot who let him go, or the man who had to start all over in a new world?”

“They were both brave,” I say.

Her eyes are level with mine. So I see when she closes them and lets herself fall for me: right when my lips meet hers.

CHAPTER 63

CASSIA

Ky and I stand together at the top of the steps of City Hall, holding hands and blinking in the brightness of an end-of-summer day in Camas. No one notices us. They have other things to think about on their way up the stairs. Some look uncertain, others excited.

An older woman stops at the top of the steps and glances at me. “When do we write our names?” she asks.

“Once you get inside to vote,” I tell her.

The woman nods and disappears into the building.

I look at Ky and smile. We have just finished putting our names to paper, making a choice about who we want to lead.

“When people chose the Society, it was almost the end of us,” I say. “It might be the end of us again, forever this time. ”

“It might be,” Ky agrees. “Or we might make a different choice. ”

There are three candidates offering to lead the people. The Pilot represents the Rising. An Official represents the Society.

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