So Zhang hadn’t misunderstood that first day. Naz had no idea how many shadowless were inside the sanctuary, but the great hall was massive, and there were at least four hundred living in the city among the rest of them. “Eight against thousands? Why not all of them? Even the ones who can barely remember can still hold a weapon.”
“The shadowless won’t fight this battle with weapons,” Yoshikawa said. “And it must be eight. We’ve been doing this a long time, since the first who heard the rumors began to trickle in. We tried many different ways. It must always be eight. Any less or more is not as powerful.”
“I don’t understand,” Naz said helplessly.
“Most of us don’t,” Yoshikawa shrugged. “I think probably only Gajarajan and The Eight do. But we know it works.”
She finally nodded. “So there’s nothing we can do to help?”
“There is. The Eight will fight tomorrow. But Gajarajan requests that you, Zhang, and Malik go to the altar to meet with them. They’re ready to face the threat—and now that Transcendence is almost here, he’d like you to tell them as much as you can about their ways. Numbers, tactics, appearance, how your own battle with them went.”
Naz blinked. “Teach them everything? Now? When Transcendence is just hours away?” She threw her hands up. “I thought they must already know! Why didn’t we do all this when we arrived? We could have been filling them in for weeks, instead of all on the last day!”
Yoshikawa smiled sadly as she realized her mistake. “The Eight are shadowless,” he said. “If you’d told them any sooner than this, they might not remember by the time the enemy reached our gates.”
NAZ WENT TO GET ZHANG FIRST AT THE LIBRARY. WHEN THEY came up the stairs of House 32, Malik’s door was closed, but before she could put her knuckles against the wood, it opened.
“Saw you from the window,” he said. “Transcendence?”
Naz nodded. “Gajarajan’s seen them. We have a day, a day and night at best. He wants you to join Zhang and me in the final discussions with something he calls The Eight. Share our firsthand experience with them.”
Malik nodded. “Come on in while I get my shoes.”
She and Zhang stepped into Malik’s small shared room. A half-eaten apple sat on the table. “Where’s Vienna?” Zhang asked.
“In the alcove on the bed, rereading the book you let her take from the library,” Malik said, coming back into the main room from where he’d just pointed with his chin. “Well, reading. She forgot she finished it before.”
“If I forget again, give it back to Zhang so he can reshelve it!” Vienna called. Then, more quietly, “No point in keeping it.”
Malik sighed. “Vienna, we’re going to—”
“Wait, just wait for me! I can’t find my gun.” Her voice replied from around the corner.
They’d given them up already, weeks ago, when they’d all arrived in New Orleans. The weapons had been added to the wall guard’s inventory. “You don’t need a gun right now,” Malik finally said.
Vienna came around the corner. “Yes, I do,” she said. She nodded at Zhang, then studied Naz thoughtfully, for the hundredth first time. “Isn’t she—I mean, isn’t she from the precinct?” she asked her father. She turned back to Naz. “Did you come to help my dad and Zhang and me find my mom? See if she went farther downtown toward the White House?”
“We’re not—” Malik grimaced. “Doing that today.”
“We’re going to speak to Gajarajan right now,” Zhang finally said to her, more gently.
“Oh. Well, that’s good, too,” Vienna replied. She went over to the floor by the door, where her shoes were. Naz watched her start to tie the laces—calmly at first; then her fingers stuttered once. She’d realized she didn’t know how she knew Gajarajan, even though she knew who he was. That she’d forgotten some things in the gap between her mother and their new lives.
“Vienna,” Malik said. “You’re not going. Only us.”
Vienna looked up at him, one shoe dangling in her hand. “But . . .” She looked between them, confused. “Why are you going then, if not to take me to volunteer?”
Malik sat down slowly on the chair at the table. “Later. Not this time.”
Naz looked down at her hands. So Vienna had told him what she’d said to Zhang in their kitchen the other day. More than once. It seemed this wasn’t the first time this argument was playing out. It made her heart break to hear it, because she knew Malik couldn’t win forever. Don’t come to Boston, Rojan. Don’t you dare come. But no matter how many times she ordered her sister not to leave their home in Tehran, it made no difference. Nothing could have stopped Rojan. Nothing would stop Vienna.
“Why not now?” Vienna persisted. “You’re going there yourselves anyway. Take me with you. I want to volunteer to try to receive a shadow.”
“Not now.”
“I want to volunteer, Dad.”
“Not now!” he shouted.
Vienna didn’t speak again, but she didn’t put the shoe down either. She looked at Zhang, begging. But Naz was the one to help her.
“Malik,” she said to him.