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Evie wanted to scream. This was it—their last chance to save James. How could she get him to listen? How could she…
“Henry,” Evie said. “You talk to people in dreams all the time. You make suggestions. Get him to listen. Please? Please, try?”
All this time, Henry had thought his dream walking wasn’t terribly useful, not compared to the others’ powers. But he’d always been able to talk to people.
“James,” he said now. “The phone is going to ring. You mustn’t pick it up. Don’t pick up that phone.”
On cue, the field phone trilled. The soldiers reacted exactly as they had every time since that fateful day during the war.
“Doll, if this is the last cycle, we gotta heal that breach and get outta here,” Sam said. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey, Sarge,” James said suddenly. “Don’t pick up that phone.”
The sergeant’s hand stopped mid-reach. He looked at James. “What’s that, O’Neill?”
“I said: Don’t pick up that phone.”
It rang again.
“We have our orders, soldier,” the sergeant said.
“The orders are bad. Don’t pick up the phone.”
The phone rang and rang and rang. The record sped up, slowed down. And then, all at once, the Eye’s clanging heart skipped a beat. It began to wheeze. One tiny piece of golden machinery came loose and spun to the ground. Just one thing. A chain reaction of change set in motion.
The soldiers were gathering, looking up at the Eye, having just noticed it for the first time. The dancing soldier had stopped. He cupped a hand over his eyes and stared at the Eye, beginning to change. “Say, what is that thing?” he asked.
Luther Clayton was coming toward them.
“There you are!” James said, and Evie could hear the love in it, could see her brother’s eyes shining. This was a moment that had happened, was happening, but what had happened before would not happen in the same way again. No longer were they tied to Marlowe’s machine. They were free of the agonizing wheel. They were free.
“Hey!” The sergeant held up a glimmering hand.
Evie gasped. James was silhouetted by a fiery glow. Released at last from his pain, her beautiful brother shone.
“It’s over,” James said, smiling.
Behind him, the unit stood at ease. She and her friends had freed them. But Evie knew her supernatural connection to her brother was over as well. He was letting her know that it was time to let him go for good. It was past time to bury the dead. Poppies sprang from the barren field. They leaned their sweet red petals toward the radiance of the soldiers and threaded themselves around their ankles and trouser cuffs, which began to soften with rot.
James raised a hand in farewell. Already the edges of him had begun to fuzz into pale gold. He turned toward his waiting unit. The field was a riot of color now. A bright red sea of poppies. The golden brilliance brightened and brightened again until it consumed James, until he was the light itself and the light was everywhere.
A loud boom shook the ground, pitching the Diviners sideways. Steam shot up from the top of Jake Marlowe’s golden machine. Rivets popped loose, sailing down like bullets. The Eye was wildly unstable.
“Something has to contain it,” Ling said.
“We’ve got to go,” Sam said.
“We can’t leave it like that,” Ling insisted. “There’s no telling what it could do.”
They were connected. That was the one true beauty of Jake Marlowe’s awful machine, and Marlowe never even saw it. They were connected, and so Evie knew what was in Jericho’s heart before he said a word.
“Jericho, no.”
“Someone has to, Evie.” Jericho held out his hand. He squeezed his fingers, but try as he might, they would not close. “I can’t make a fist.”
“No. Jericho. We’ll find another way.”
“This is the way, Evie.” He looked down at his trembling hand. “Look at that. I’m scared. Guess I’m mostly human after all.”
