“Hold this so it doesn’t tangle,” Imanuel told Ory after he’d washed his hands. The thread was still warm in his palms. “Feed it to me slowly.”
Ahmadi watched from the corner, biting the end of one of her nails. It was unnerving to see her so shaken. Behind her, Malik’s daughter, Vienna, hovered, trying to steal a glance. Malik came up behind her and gave her a reassuring squeeze. Ory’s heart swelled for the two of them as they watched Imanuel work—that they both still had their shadows, that they were both still together.
It had been a bloody day, and a fiery one. They’d almost caused a retaliatory burning, but managed to calm the Reds at the last moment—they had just given them everything they brought in exchange for not putting any books into the flames. They came home with nothing.
“That’s the other reason we don’t just charge in and try to take the place by force,” Imanuel said to Ory later, as they watched Smith Tres sleep. “All they have to do is just light a fire, and smile as we call off the troops.” He ran his hands through his hair and sighed. It was the first moment they’d really had alone since Ory arrived—now that the shock had worn off, he could see Imanuel looked twice the age he did at Elk Cliffs. “I still think about the first one, almost every day.”
“The first burned book?”
“It haunts my dreams,” Imanuel said. “Because I’ll never know what it was.”
They watched the flames in the fireplace in front of them crackle, licking at charred wood. “Imanuel,” Ory finally said, “we need to talk.”
“You want to know why the books,” he replied. “I mean, what they’re for, once we have Paul’s. Ahmadi told me.”
“No. I mean, I do. But this isn’t about that.” He took a deep breath. “It’s about Max.”
Imanuel’s face softened. “Ory.”
“A few soldiers, some food. Just give me that.” Ory took him by the shoulders, to stop him from turning away. “And when I find her, we’ll come back. I’ll help you get all the goddamned books you want. I don’t even care about the reason. I’ll get you the whole library, if you do this for me.”
“Ory, she—”
Ory cut him off. “Don’t say it.” He didn’t know if he could bear to hear it out loud. Not from Imanuel. “Don’t you say it.”
Imanuel sighed. “Even if she still remembers, you’ve seen the city. What she would have walked into. Your apartment is gone. Paul and I went to see it when we first got here. To see if there was something left to—remember you by. The whole thing was concrete powder.”
“I know.”
“Even if she made it here, what then? Then where would she go? The Reds aren’t—”
“She’s not a Red,” Ory said.
“I know she’s not. That’s my point. The Reds don’t just take any shadowless. They’re not a charity. Most of the time they just kill them like they kill shadowed survivors.” He stopped himself suddenly, eyes wide. “I’m not saying that’s what happened to her. Christ. Sorry.”
Ory put his face in his hands. “Imanuel, please. I can’t give up on her.”
“Ory—”
“No,” Ory cut him off. There was a high, desperate pitch in his voice that scared them both. “Okay, what about after, then?” he asked frantically. Everything—reaching D.C., finding Imanuel, all the hope—was streaming through his hands like sand in a sieve. “What if I agree to help until we get Paul’s book? Would you lend me soldiers then?”
They stared at each other for a moment until Ory finally looked away.
“Ory,” Imanuel said. “Look at me.”
Ory couldn’t meet his eyes. He knew it was a pointless thing to ask for. If there was almost no chance that Max was still alive in D.C. now, there’d be even less chance she would be here once he found Paul’s book days, weeks, months from now. When he finally looked up, he could see it in Imanuel’s face. That Imanuel understood that somewhere deep down, Ory knew Max wasn’t in D.C. That he’d never find her, no matter how long he tried. But that it wasn’t so much about actually finding Max as just not stopping the search. As long as he kept looking for her, she was still real.
“Do you sometimes feel like—” Imanuel paused. “Like you don’t even know who you are without her?”
Ory watched him, not moving.
“I did, when the Forgetting first happened in Boston—during the wedding,” he continued. A faint smile flickered. “The wedding. Those terrible tuxedoes.”
Finally Ory smiled, too. He couldn’t help it.
“I remember standing there with Paul, watching the broadcast. I thought, It’s going to happen to us, too. One of us was going to lose his shadow, and it was going to be me.” His eyes searched Ory’s face. “I was convinced it was going to be me. Because he was so strong. So . . . larger than life, and sure of everything, always. I was always the one afraid or uncertain. Never taking risks. Standing there in front of the TV, I couldn’t imagine how I’d go on without him, as just myself. I thought that meant something. A weakness.” He shrugged. On the floor, his shadow did the same. “Here I am.”