She headed down the first path. Her breath plumed white and thick with every exhalation, and moving helped to keep the cold at bay. She wished that the flashes and roar of battle were still there, if just to help light the way. She told herself that it meant the rescue ship was almost there. And that she had to hurry.
The path through the forest seemed brighter than the sky above them. The snow was thicker here, rising up almost to her knees. Muskrat huffed and pushed, forging a path beside hers, and Holden followed along in the furrows they made. The snow was still falling. Small, hard flakes that tapped against her cheeks and melted down like tears.
There were tracks in the snow where animals had passed, and one of the trees had a long, fresh rip in its bark where something looking for food had dug deep into the hibernating flesh. Teresa wondered if animals did that on other planets, or if it was only here. For a moment, the implications of what she was doing rose up and threatened to overwhelm her, but she pushed the thoughts aside. She wasn’t going back now. Not even if she could.
Something moved in the trees to her left, and she felt a moment of panic. A bone-elk leaped across the path and away, the exoskeleton of its legs clattering like stones rolling down a hill. It was nothing.
She made what she thought was the right turn, and the path grew steeper. The mountain loomed up in the darkness. Not really a mountain. An artifact so ancient it was covered in stone. Or one that had been made that way. History so deep, a forest had grown over it, and seasons passed against it like days.
She pushed into the clearing where the evacuation ship was supposed to land. It was wide and flat, with a slope that rose toward the distant summit on one side and a clear view of the State Building on the other. In the falling snow, the buildings with their softly glowing windows seemed farther away than they were. Like something seen from fairyland. With the flash and roar of the battle gone, it looked peaceful. It wasn’t, but it looked that way.
Behind her, Holden came to the clearing. He had pulled his arms inside the shirt for warmth, the sleeves flapping empty against his sides. He squatted down in the snow.
“Are you all right?”
“Out of shape,” he said. “Next time, I’m working out more. I’ll convert a corner of my cell into a gym or something.”
She’d had enough conversations with him now to know he was telling a joke without his voice signaling that it was a joke. No one else in her social life did that, and she found it irrationally annoying. It made every exchange into a puzzle that had to be decoded to see if it was sincere or not. She pushed the irritation away. There were a lot of things people did that she’d never had to be patient about. It was time to start learning that skill.
“This is where I met him,” she said.
“Met him?”
“Timothy,” she said. “Amos.”
“Oh,” Holden said, and looked around. For a moment, he was silent. “It’s beautiful. I mean, weird. But also beautiful. I wish I’d seen more of Laconia. Not just the gardens.”
“Me too,” Teresa said, and stared at the low, gray sky. “Where are they?”
Without the trees to shelter them from the wind and the effort of pushing through the snow, the cold grew sharper. Holden seemed to fall in on himself, arms wrapped tight, head resting on his knees. Muskrat went and sat beside him, the dog’s wide brown eyes concerned.
Teresa knew about hypothermia. She didn’t feel bad herself, but Holden was older and he’d been in prison for a long time. It had weakened him. She thought about going and sitting beside him too. She remembered stories about people caught in the wilderness making structures in the snow to capture and share body heat, but she didn’t know how that worked. She wondered, if the evac ship came and Holden was already dead, what they would do with her . . .
A blast of frigid air came down the mountain, pulling the top layers of snow up in brief whirlwinds. Teresa took a step toward Holden. Maybe she could take him to Timothy’s cave. Just until the ship came. Take him there, and then she could come back herself and lead the rescuers to him. If there were rescuers. If this worked.
A trickle of black dread seeped through her body. This had to work.
“I’m sorry you had to find out that way,” Holden said.
Teresa looked at him. She couldn’t remember if delirium was part of hypothermia, but it seemed like it might be. “Find out about what?”
“The whole killing-you thing. Pushing Cortázar into it. It wasn’t personal.”
Teresa looked him. A miserable man, hunched in the snow. She knew that she should feel angry. She was angry all the time these days, and at everyone. She tried to summon up the rage, but it didn’t come. She could only feel sorry for him.
Holden took her silence as something it wasn’t. He kept talking. “It wasn’t supposed to get you hurt. I was putting a wedge between your father and Cortázar. That was all. You were the only thing that would do that. Everyone saw how much he loved you.”
“Did they?”
Holden’s nod was slow to start, like he was already turning into ice. “There was a woman I knew. Long time. She used to say you can’t judge anyone by what they say. You have to watch what they do.”
“She said that.”
“I recognize the irony. But I watched what she did too. How she made people like her. How she made them afraid. I’m not good at the second one, but I was pretty good at the first part.”
“Because of her?”
“In part. And I watched what your father did with you. How he treated you. And I used that. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah?”
“Not repentant,” he said. “Just sorry.”
“So sorry that you’d do it again the same way?”
“I’d try to move it along a little faster, but yes. Sorry that it was my best move.”
Teresa looked up into the clouds again. The snow swirled down at them. Her fingers and toes were starting to burn. There still wasn’t a ship.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I knew you were the enemy. You did what enemies do. It’s worse when it’s your friends.”
“That’s true,” Holden said. And then, “Cart’s coming.”
She listened and heard it too. The electric whine of a security cart. The way the snow muffled sound, it had to be close. She looked around for someplace to hide, some way to escape, but the snow would give her away no matter where she went, and Holden couldn’t run anymore.
“Stay calm,” she said. “I’ll handle it.”
A moment later, Holden rose to his feet, and Muskrat looked up at him, concerned. The dog’s expression said, Maybe you should sit back down. You don’t look steady. Holden scratched between her ears.
There were voices now. She made out two of them. Maybe a third. Down the path that led back to the State Building, a light began to dance. Headlights on a cart moving fast through the fallen snow. Voices calling her name. The cart rolled into the clearing and stopped. Three men in it. Two wore guard uniforms like the one Holden had stolen. The third was Colonel Ilich.
Ilich leaped out, pistol raised at Holden.
“Put your hands up,” Ilich shouted. “Now!”
“Okay,” Holden said, poking his arms back into his sleeves, then lifting them. “I’m not armed.”
“Teresa, get in the cart.”
“No, you get in the cart,” Teresa said. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Ilich turned toward her, shock in his eyes. She watched him understand, confusion slipping seamlessly into rage.
“Get in the fucking cart,” Ilich said.
“Or you’ll shoot me?”
The two guards looked at each other nervously, but Ilich walked toward her. He kept his pistol trained on Holden, but his eyes were on her.
“No, I won’t shoot you. But I’ll put a guard on you every moment for the rest of your life.”
“You don’t control me anymore,” Teresa shouted, and Ilich laughed.
“Of course I do. That is literally my first duty. Make sure the girl eats. Make sure the girl sleeps. Educate her. Socialize her. I am your fucking mother, and I am telling you to get your spoiled, egotistical, self-centered ass into that God damn cart!”
“I won’t,” she said, and crossed her arms.
Ilich seemed to deflate. For a second, she thought she’d won.
“You will,” he said, “or I’ll kill your dog.”
He lowered his pistol a degree. It was like the volume of the world turned down. Teresa could still hear everything, but at a distance. She waited for the gunshot, sure it was coming. That she wouldn’t be able to stop it. Don’t do it, I’ll come tried to find its way to her throat, but she was frozen. Her throat wouldn’t work any better than her legs. Ilich shook his head once, just a centimeter one way and then the other. He turned to check his sights on Muskrat, but the shot that rang out wasn’t from him.