“What do you want with us?” Ursula asked.
The woman in white set the cloth aside and pulled her arms back through the bars. The bars. I realized we were in a cavernous empty hall—from the look of the walls, it had once been the main room of a church, but now all the religious fixtures were gone. Only the stone bricks and windows remained, as well as one new construction, a giant iron cage in the center of the floor, inside which we were all locked. “I’m very sorry for the rough handling. They know better than that,” said the woman, as if Ursula hadn’t asked the question. “They were just so excited to have found so many of you at once.”
“Are we prisoners?” Lucius asked. My head spun.
“No, of course not,” the woman said emphatically.
“Then we’re free to leave,” Ursula said.
The woman shifted. “We hope you won’t want to.”
“So then we’re prisoners.”
“You are honored guests.” She smiled. She gestured to the bars. “I know how this looks, but these are for your protection—those out there with shadows are fearful and violent. We want to protect you from them. We want to help you.”
I checked: the woman had a shadow. “You want to help shadowless?” I asked warily.
“Anything you want,” she offered. “Name it. We will find a way.”
“We want to leave,” Ursula repeated.
Victor stood up, and so did Wes and Lucius. Before they could reach through the bars to the woman, the door behind her opened, and five more strangers dressed in white filed in to stand at intervals around the hall. Guards.
“Honored guests?” Ursula asked sarcastically.
“They all say that at first,” the woman replied, with a smile so kind it sent a chill down my spine. “I promise you’ll see.”
Mahnaz Ahmadi
NAZ WALKED SLOWLY UP TO THE FRONT OF THE IOWA, WHERE Ory and Malik were standing with the General. Above, the sky was just starting to brighten, not into warm peach, but an oppressive wintery navy streaked with gray. It was hailing lightly.
“Some day for our most important mission.” The General sighed when she reached them, gesturing at the threatening sky. He stuck his foot out, a few inches over the ground. “It’s so overcast, we look like a bunch of Reds.”
Naz smiled, despite the grim mood. He was right. The morning had that peculiar kind of stormy light that was bright enough to illuminate the landscape, but so lifeless it sucked the shadows from everything except the deepest, most narrow corners of the world. Everything was there, but two-dimensional.
“You ready?” Ory asked.
“I’m always ready,” the General said automatically, then flinched. He and Ory both smiled, surprised at the sudden memory, but it was bittersweet. It had been Paul’s catchphrase, once.
Naz looked down. She hated seeing moments like this. Sad recollections. She’d heard the trademark saying in the stories Paul sometimes told, when they all used to sit around the fire at the Iowa in better times—usually when he had been trying to goad the much more cautious Ory into doing something mischievous with him as kids. Then history repeated itself when Ory met Max. She’d said it when Ory accidentally proposed far too early, when it had just slipped out at a romantic dinner; when they’d gone skydiving; the first time they’d nervously talked about children, maybe, someday. Paul said at that fateful football game, when he heard Max say it to Ory when he asked her if she wanted to get out of there, and go get dinner somewhere, it was how he knew she was right for him.
Naz thought that if Max had still been here, she probably would have liked her. She seemed a lot like Paul.
“Well, you look it.” Malik finally broke the awkward silence. They all turned to him gratefully. The General was lightly armored, and wearing a leather shoulder bag to carry his tools on the way there—then hopefully Paul’s book on his way back. Over all of it, he’d shrugged the cleanest single piece of fabric Naz had seen in two years—a doctor’s white lab coat.
“Can you believe I still have it, after all this time?” Imanuel asked. He admired the blindingly clean sleeve.
“Honestly, yes.” Ory smiled. “You have a weapon?”
The General shook his head. “I don’t want to aggravate them.” He put a hand on Ory’s shoulder. “I’m coming back.” He looked at Malik and her, too. “I’m coming back.”
Naz looked down sharply as her eyes grew hot. He was hugging each of them now, Malik and Ory clapping him roughly on the back and blinking just like she was. Her body moved against her will when it was her turn, arms outstretched, as if a hug would do anything at all. You don’t understand, she wanted to tell him. You can’t go alone. I made a promise to Paul before he died. I said I would bring Ory and Max back, and I said I’d protect you. I can’t fail a second time. But before she could say it, he started walking toward the front lines.