I want to say something important for the very last thing I remember, something profound and eternal. But there’s so little left, and I’m scared to think of any of it at all, in case I do damage to its form. Most of all, I’m afraid to think of you, even though I can’t help it. Where did you go, Ory? Why aren’t we together? Was it my fault, or yours? What reason could I have to ever leave you?
I’m not ready. I’m not ready, I’m not ready, I’m not ready. I refuse to forget. It took all of me, but I refuse to let it have the last thing, which is you. Ory. I remember you. I remember your name. I remember I touched your face, on your eyebrow above your scar; I remember a football; I remember night and a mountain; I remember you gave me this speaking machine, but I don’t know why; I remember a dark room, and writing numbered rules by candlelight, and you cried—why did you cry?
I remember there is something we always say to each other when things are good, when things are bad, when the sun comes up in the morning, when one day it won’t. When there’s nothing else left. I want to tell you that I remember what we say.
I REMEMBER, ORY.
FIF—
Part IV
Orlando Zhang
IN TOTAL, THEY LOST NINE SOLDIERS IN THE AMBUSH. AND the last carriage—everything inside but what Zhang had managed to grab and throw to the other driver.
Only one, Zhang kept trying to tell himself, between spells of unconsciousness. Only one carriage. But it felt like they’d lost them all.
When he finally opened his eyes, he realized they had stopped moving. They had stopped a long time ago—the beams across the low wooden ceiling had finished creaking and settled. And there were no flames. It wasn’t the same carriage, he realized then. He was back in his own.
“We won,” Malik’s voice said somewhere near when Zhang tried to focus his gaze. “Killed every last Red, and drove off the rest of the ones in white. We’re safe now.”
Zhang tried to nod. He meant to ask about Ahmadi, if she was all right. “Max?” His lips whispered instead. He faded again before he heard the answer.
THE NEXT TIME HE CAME TO, IT WAS ALMOST DARK. ZHANG was leaning against someone as he sat in the grass, elbows propped on his knees. Ahmadi. He could hear her voice beside his ear, telling him they were almost done. He couldn’t hear the other, the one that had always been there to help him before. Zhang tried to understand what Ahmadi meant about the pain. Then he finally did. Oh, the pain.
“That’s all we can do for now,” Fenton said. “I’ll dress them.”
Zhang opened his eyes and looked at what remained of his hands. They were terrifying. Purple and black, and covered in monstrous, boiling welts. Just the air on them made his eyes sting in agony.
“Are these third degree?” Malik asked.
“I don’t know,” Fenton admitted sheepishly. He was the soldier with the most medical experience, three months of paramedic training before the Forgetting, but it wasn’t very much. He checked the water he’d boiled to see if it was cool. Vienna was carefully opening packages of gauze from one of their first-aid kits. “I think so. Blisters mean third degree, I think.”
“It’ll be okay,” Zhang said, mostly to convince himself. He was wide awake now. His hands looked so bad, he was already starting to panic that a few days from now, when they were infected from the dirt of the road, they’d have to amputate. Or try.
“We just have to keep them clean,” Fenton said.
“You shouldn’t have done it,” Ahmadi murmured.
“I saved sixteen books,” Zhang said helplessly. Sixteen books, two hands. Which was worth more? Sixteen books you could choose, sixteen this mysterious Gathering One might want, that was different from sixteen books chosen at random. The ones Zhang had saved he’d selected not by value, but by proximity—plunging his hands into fire, again and again, grasping for the nearest smoking page. He had no idea what he’d taken. He was just grateful that the carriage that had caught fire wasn’t the one that held Paul’s book. If that had been inside, Zhang probably would have died trying to reach it.
“It was noble,” Malik finally said. “Even if it was stupid.”
ONLY ONE CARRIAGE, ZHANG KEPT REPEATING. HE TRIED TO convince himself it was a victory.
“Only one,” Ahmadi echoed later that evening. They were all trying to do the same thing, it seemed. She sat down beside him and Malik on the grass, holding both Zhang’s and her small portions of dinner.
“There are still four carriages left,” Zhang said to her, and tried to smile.
“Exactly. There are still four carriages left,” she stammered, repeating his words. “Four.” But then she gasped raggedly.
Zhang didn’t understand what had happened at first. It took him a few seconds to realize she’d burst into tears.
“I’m sorry,” she said. She set the plates down quickly and jammed the heels of her palms into her eyes, but failed to stop the sobs. She pressed her face into Zhang’s shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her awkwardly, unable to grip her with his bandaged hands, and held her like that until she quieted. Her tears slowly warmed the sleeve of his shirt as they soaked in, until that side of him didn’t feel cold at all.