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“It already led me here,” she said. “I don’t think I need it anymore. You can keep it, if you want.”
“It isn’t the one you had,” I told her. “This is Sophia’s bird. She still had yours with her when she... So I thought you should have it.”
Abby took it from me, her brow wrinkled in confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“What’s not to understand?” Liam asked.
“This is the same bird,” Abby said. “The wing’s broken, see? And there’s a stain on the side. Sophia’s wasn’t damaged.”
I reached into my pocket. My fingers bumped against something small and hard, and I pulled it out. It was the tip of the wing, broken off. “It must have happened while we were running,” I said.
“Then it is Sophia’s bird,” Abby replied. “But it’s exactly the same as the one my sister gave to Ashford. Which means... I have no idea what that means.” She snarled in frustration. “What were my father and my grandfather doing here? Why did Miranda send me—to help you? Or was there something else? I don’t understand. I thought I would understand.”
“Maybe that means you aren’t finished yet,” I told her. “Whatever brought you here, it isn’t done with you quite yet.”
She closed her hand around the bird. “It’s done for tonight,” she said. “Tonight, let’s just be done.”
“Well, we’ve already spent most of the night out here talking,” Liam said jokingly. “Want to stick around and watch the sun rise?”
“I’d like that,” she said. We sat on the steps, the three of us in a line.
Dawn was coming. We’d made it through the dark.
INTERVIEW
Sophia Novak
SEPTEMBER 2, 2018
Silence lingers as Sophie—or Sophia—finishes her story. Ashford frowns, but it takes him some time to compose a question.
ASHFORD: That is an astonishing tale, Ms. Novak. And a well-put-together file. Did you assist in that?
SOPHIA: Liam did the titles.
ASHFORD: I thought he might have.Tempest. It seems fitting. You know, Ms. Novak, I don’t know that I’ve ever met someone whose life has been so thoroughly steeped in the extra-normal.
SOPHIA: But there are other people who are in tune with the other worlds. Like me. Like Abby and her sister. We’re drawn to those other worlds, and they’re drawn to us. Because we’re useful. The Six-Wing wanted to use me. Thething that’s after Abby, that killed her sister—it wants something from her too, doesn’t it?
He doesn’t want to have to ask; you can see it in his face. But it is the question he has been trying not to demand answers to this whole time, and it is finally too much.
ASHFORD: WhereisAbby, Ms. Novak? She made it off the island. So why isn’t she here? Why send everything like that? Not a word of explanation. She won’t answer her phone or her email. No one seems to have seen her. Do you know? Can you tell me?
SOPHIA: I know.
ASHFORD: Then where is she?
SOPHIA: She went to find out what you’ve been hiding from her. She went home.
Ashford looks grim.
ASHFORD: That is what I was afraid of.
SOPHIA: Because you don’t want her finding the truth?
ASHFORD: No, Ms. Novak. Because I don’t want it findingher.
