Beside Naz, Zhang shook his head. “Is that what you tell The Eight every time you need them to do something for you?” he asked. “Everything you tell them to voluntarily forget?”
“I would never force anyone to do something they didn’t want to do,” Gajarajan said. “Each of The Eight is here willingly. They want to help the city.” His ears waved, big gentle fans. “You’ve seen what’s out there. Without their help, New Orleans would be the same as every other place—or worse. How do you think the wall that keeps us safe was built? Where the first food came from before what we had planted grew? How do you think all of the dangerous little misrememberings are all fixed so quickly?”
“Even if it means slowly dying for it?” Naz countered. “That’s a high price to pay.”
“Is it, though?” Gajarajan asked. “Any one of you also could have died fighting the Reds to save your home in the Iowa. What The Eight do here is the same thing. Except once I figure out how to give them shadows again and make the shadows stay . . .” He seemed to smile. “In fact, the price you might have paid for the same goal was far greater, then.”
Vienna touched her father’s arm. “Gajarajan’s right, Dad,” she said. “I might lose something, but if we don’t win against Transcendence, I’m going to lose everything anyway. All of us are.”
“If the situation was so dire, why didn’t you say anything before?” Malik asked, barely controlled.
Gajarajan shrugged softly with his ears. “I told you. I would never have sought her out, because to join the sanctuary must be a free choice, not a forced one.”
Naz didn’t want to agree with him, but she could feel the defeat already beginning to set in. It didn’t matter that it was Vienna, their Vienna. It wouldn’t even have mattered if it was Rojan. Vienna knew the shadow was right—without Vienna’s help, they might not win. She had to do it, even if it meant that she would have to sacrifice who knew how many of her precious last memories to save them all.
Orlando Zhang
DAWN SEEMED TO COME EARLIER THAN USUAL THE NEXT morning. As the sky slowly brightened, Zhang stood in the guard tower with Ahmadi, Malik, and Gajarajan—both the shadow and its body, which was seated behind them in the corner of the small enclosed platform. Far below, the world was very different than it had been when the sun set. Outside the city, and stretching to cover most of the long bridge over Lake Pontchartrain, the ground was blanketed in white, as if they had woken up to snow. Transcendence had arrived.
“I wonder what they did to the deathkites overnight,” Ahmadi mused quietly.
None of them replied. Whatever they had done, it had been effective. There was no sign of even one of them now. No vast, colorful shapes catching the light, no silent angular shadows drifting over the water and fragrant grass, waiting for prey.
“We should tell The Eight,” Malik said tensely, glancing across the city toward the first great hall, where the shadowless waited inside. “They should know. Every bit of tactical information . . .” He trailed off, as if realizing how far it was. Zhang hadn’t thought of phones for a long time, until he realized he’d put his hand into his pocket as if to retrieve one.
Gajarajan glanced at them for a moment, considering. The wall of the tower was suddenly brighter, containing only pale morning light, and then just as suddenly, the familiar gray pattern was cut back into it. The elephant ruffled his ears.
“I’ve informed them,” he said.
“Thank you,” Malik said, surprised. “That was—I appreciate it.”
Gajarajan shrugged. “To move using light doesn’t require a similar effort to walking. It made more sense for me to go than any of you.”
“Or him,” Ahmadi said, indicating the blindfolded body sitting quietly in the corner. The man made no move to acknowledge he’d heard her. “Why did you bring him?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” Gajarajan said. “It isn’t very useful, is it? Better dexterity, as it’s a solid form, but that’s about it.”
Zhang couldn’t help but shake his head. To be talking about a human body in such a way—especially his own. It was hard not to be entertained sometimes at how strangely Gajarajan understood people. More often than not, he seemed to Zhang more like a robot than an elephant, or the shadow of one—a disembodied intelligence that regarded their flesh like cars: interchangeable models. Zhang had always thought of the great gray animals as sort of like humans, really—with families, personalities, identities. Just bigger, and with tusks. But he supposed that was simply his attempt to understand them. Maybe that wasn’t how they were at all.
Ahmadi was leaning cautiously over the edge of the tower, staring into the vast white. “What are they . . . doing?” she whispered.
“Praying,” Gajarajan said.
Zhang looked at him sharply. “Praying to what?”