“Well, I hope the right thing comes quickly,” Ahmadi said. “It’s going to be much harder to defend the city until then.”
“I think the worst is over,” Gajarajan replied. He turned back to the quiet battlefield. “We’ll be all right until The Eight can devise something new.”
Zhang looked at the elephant. “Do you think . . .” He trailed off.
“I don’t know either,” Gajarajan said.
Zhang nodded. And they would probably never know, he guessed—whether Lucius didn’t have enough power to stop, or at least dampen, the drowning wall as it choked the life out of his disciples, or if he’d been able, but didn’t try. If he had wanted to be free so badly that he let Downtown and Curly plunge Transcendence’s army into a watery grave—and himself.
“Vienna!” Malik cried. Zhang turned around to see him take off running, white robes flapping damply in the warm, humid air. Another white shape put its arms out as he swept it up in a crushing hug.
“Dad,” she said softly.
“Oh, thank God,” Malik whispered. Zhang felt his throat tighten as he watched. He had known that feeling all too well once. Thank God it wasn’t me, whatever was taken from you. Thank God you still remember me. He felt Ahmadi’s hand on his arm, a tentative, nervous touch. He leaned into it.
“Did you see?” Vienna asked softly as Malik brought her over by the hand. The other seven of The Eight trailed slowly behind, as if dazed. Gajarajan moved gently between each of them, his dark form propped up directly against their bodies instead of against something facing them. Perhaps that was the way he embraced? Zhang wondered. “Did you see—what I did?”
Zhang held out the front of his white robe. “I did see,” he said. It was too incredible to believe. To try to comprehend that Vienna, Vienna—who on some days was still so innocent it seemed as if she was more child than young adult—had worked magic across an entire city, and saved thousands of lives in an instant. “I think it’s safe to say that you are, without doubt, the best soldier the Iowa has ever or will ever have.”
Malik and Ahmadi laughed, Malik almost hysterically. Vienna started at the outburst and put out a hand on instinct, as if to bat away the sound. Malik saw it as he wiped his eyes. His smile was gone—he hugged her again. Oh, no, Zhang realized. “It’s okay,” he said to her. “The Iowa isn’t important. Don’t worry. It doesn’t matter. You can forget that.”
“It seems like it was important,” she said, brow furrowed. “That place.”
“You’re here now,” Zhang said. “That’s more important.”
She looked up at him. “And you—I know that I know you, but not from where. Are you from the Iowa, too?”
“Yes. I was Imanuel’s friend.”
“That’s it.” She nodded, having finally found something to grasp on to. “Ory.”
Zhang chuckled for a moment. He hadn’t heard it in such a long time, his first name sounded almost wrong now. But something strange had happened to Gajarajan. He’d snapped from where he was against the grass beside the rest of The Eight to the picket fence in front of Zhang and Vienna in a blinding instant, as if someone had flicked on a light.
“His name is Zhang,” the elephant said. There was something odd in the tone—suspicion, or a question.
“Zhang?” Vienna asked, confused.
“Yes. Zhang,” Gajarajan repeated. “Not Ory.”
“It is Ory,” Zhang said to him. “My first name is Orlando. Zhang is my surname. At the Iowa, it was just something we did for morale—like real soldiers. Going by our surnames.” He nodded encouragingly at Vienna. “She forgot the one, but she still remembers the other. You still know who I am.”
Vienna nodded. “I remember.”
Gajarajan was silent against the fence for a long time, lost in thought. Why this had struck the shadow so intensely baffled Zhang—but almost never did he understand why the things that mattered to Gajarajan mattered and why others didn’t. He turned to Ahmadi, planning to leave the elephant to his strange, brooding thoughts.
The great dark ears were folded, perfectly still for the first time ever, Zhang noticed then. The sight was even more unsettling than when he warped into impossible shapes and heights.
“I didn’t know that,” Gajarajan finally murmured, almost as if in awe.
The One Who Gathers
GAJARAJAN RETURNED TO THE SANCTUARY LATE THAT NIGHT. There had been the New Orleanians to tend to, and then the dead. Then finally, the shadowless who had won the battle for them all. They were not as bad as Gajarajan feared, but for Survivedthestorm, it was time to let him retire from The Eight, to begin his wait in the first great hall while Gajarajan looked for a suitable shadow. He had done as much as he could, and it was wrong to ask him to forget more. There would be others to take his and Vienna’s place.