They kept a blistering pace. Three days passed without sign of anyone. The scouts came back reporting empty fields, blank roads. Bodies—but long dead, with only skeletons remaining. Little by little, they all started to relax. It seemed that everyone had refused to leave the northern cities, turning New York and D.C. and Boston into inescapable hell prisons, but something different had happened here. For whatever reason, everyone south of that had just disappeared. Was it because the Forgetting was complete here? Or had they all heard about this mysterious new version of New Orleans, and thought they were close enough to make a break for it?
ON THE FIFTH DAY, JUST AS THEY WERE ABOUT TO LEAVE Virginia, they found a grave by the side of the road. There was a simple wooden cross jammed into the earth in front of the mound, and someone had touched a piece of charcoal to the horizontal post, as if they had meant to write something. The name of the deceased, or a prayer. But that was all there was—just a dark, hesitant smudge. Maybe whoever buried the dead had forgotten their name or never knew it. Maybe they thought there would be no point, because whoever passed by the grave on this road likely wouldn’t be able to read it anyway. Ory stared at it so long, it gave Naz a chill. Then it chilled her again when she realized that she cared. That she’d gotten used to him as part of their army, because that wasn’t how he thought of himself. His army was only a team of two.
“I think we should talk about succession,” she said to him that night as they set up their tents. She knew it would be a hard conversation, but she’d seen his face at the grave. Tomorrow, they would leave Virginia behind and cross into North Carolina. They would leave behind the place he’d last seen Max, forever. And she knew he wasn’t going to do it. So the best thing to do was just get it over with quickly, instead of dragging it out. “I think it should be Malik, then me, then Smith Tres. He’s quiet, but he knows what he’s doing.”
“I know I was bad in boot camp, but I wasn’t that bad,” Ory replied.
Naz fumbled, embarrassed. “That didn’t come out right. I didn’t mean I think you’re going to . . . die.”
Ory popped the last pole of his tent into place, and stood studying his construction in grim silence as he waited for her to continue.
“I know what was promised to you, if you helped get Paul’s book,” she said at last. “I’d understand if you had to go back to D.C. or Arlington to search. We’d all understand. But if you’re going to do it, you have to do it sooner, not later. Before we start to depend on you.”
“You depend on people?” he asked, eyebrow cocked skeptically.
“Malik’s getting close,” Naz said. “Maybe in another ten years.”
Ory chuckled. Just overhead, the strange little musical clouds—puffs of warm fog each no bigger than a deck of cards that the soldiers had taken to calling iizingers—scooted by in a faint chorus of flutes. “I’m staying,” he finally said. “I made a promise to Imanuel.”
“Imanuel’s dead. He doesn’t remember you.”
“Neither does Max,” Ory said.
It hurt to look at him, down deep. Naz tried, but it made everything tight, from the crevices of her lungs up to the top of her throat. “I’m sorry,” she finally managed. “Max—”
“Don’t.” Ory shook his head. Don’t speak of it ever again, he meant. He took a breath. “Who knows? I might forget someday, too.”
He wouldn’t ever. His shadow seemed a hundred shades darker and deeper than anyone else’s. “Maybe someday,” Naz said.
“I’m staying.” He looked up at her. “Even though you don’t believe me.”
She didn’t.
NAZ CANTERED A LEAN, TIRELESS GELDING NAMED HANNIBAL in circles the next day, each pass around the carriages wider and wider. Searching for footprints, places where bodies had slept, buried shit. Anything red. Signs that they were still following.
How fast could a raiding party travel in a day, if angry enough? How long until they gave up or forgot what they were pursuing? Every morning she wanted to think that she and the army had run far enough, but every night no distance ever seemed sufficient. She wondered if as the shadowless poured after their carriages, streaming out of that broken city, they turned everything red behind them—the ground, the trees, the sky.
A WEEK LATER, WATSON STUMBLED IN A FOXHOLE AT A RUN and snapped her front leg in two. Vienna was almost crushed when the mare fell, whinnying in agony. By the time they all stopped the carriages and ran to them, there was blood everywhere, and Vienna was struggling, half-dazed, one of her own legs trapped beneath the writhing horse. Naz scrambled to help lift the animal up enough that Malik could drag her out, shuddering so hard with terror that she could barely keep her grip. The sweat that poured off her was cold as ice.
For a single instant, the face of the girl they pulled free of Watson’s broken body was Rojan’s, not Vienna’s, and Naz almost screamed. She would have lost her hold entirely if Ory hadn’t suddenly appeared behind her then and grabbed the saddle too, lifting the burden out of her hands.
Vienna’s leg was fine—so was the rest of her. Just the wind knocked out of her, but not a scratch. After she pushed Malik away, she sat down by Watson’s head and whispered to the mare until she calmed a little. Naz and Ory looked at each other under the shade the first carriage cast down.
“We don’t have much ammo,” Naz stammered, still trembling. She wrapped her arms around herself.