Alia pulled on the jeans she’d packed and a ratty old T-shirt with a double helix on it that she’d gotten at science camp years ago. She frowned at her reflection as a memory came back to her: a brawl that had erupted at the closing picnic that year. She and the other kids had thought it was hilarious. They’d called it the Great Nerd Battle. But when the fight had been broken up and some semblance of calm had returned, Alia had heard two of the counselors talking. A boy had almost been choked to death by one of the staff, and a fire had been set in the dining hall. They were just lucky it hadn’t spread. The camp had closed permanently after that.
At the time, it had just been something shocking for the campers to talk about, a story Alia brought home to her parents and Jason. But now she remembered her parents’ expressions when she’d told them about the fight, the look they’d exchanged. From then on, they spent their summers traveling or at one of the family’s houses. There were no more trips to camp.
Alia wasn’t sure what to do with the wreck she’d made of her beautiful dress, so she crushed it into a ball and shoved it to the bottom of her bag. No doubt Nim would be appalled, but she couldn’t bear to look at it. Thinking of how happy and hopeful she’d felt when she’d put that dress on, of how she’d imagined Theo looking at her in it, made her skin prickle with embarrassment. It seemed silly now, and dangerous, too. Diana had been right: The people pursuing her were relentless. They clearly had resources they were willing to use—on innocent people on a boat in the Aegean, and now in full view of some of the wealthiest members of New York society.
Alia untangled the pretty gold chain from her braids, pulled on her sneakers, and took a last look in the mirror. Warbringer. Had Helen’s legacy passed through her father’s bloodline? Through the Keralis name to Alia? It didn’t matter. She was her mother’s daughter, too. She’d thought it had taken all of her courage to leave New York and sign up for the trip aboard the Thetis without Jason’s permission, but she’d been so wrong. That had been just a scrap of her courage. Since then she’d faced shipwreck, a near drowning, and a gunfight, and she was still here, still standing. She was going to make sure no girl ever had to live with this curse again. And Alia knew it was because of the way her mom had raised her. For all her mother’s caution, she’d never wanted Alia to be meek. Look them in the eye, she’d always told her. Let them know who you are. When someone asked where you were from. When a new kid at Bennett wanted to know if she was on an athletic scholarship. Look them in the eye.
Another memory came to Alia—sitting in the office of the penthouse, her mother sliding a needle into her arm, the syringe filling with Alia’s blood. “Just for tests,” her mother had said, covering the injection site with a cotton ball and a Band-Aid, and planting a kiss on her cheek. Alia had never given it a second thought.
Her parents had believed something good could come from Alia’s heritage, that the terrible power inside her might be turned to better purpose. They hadn’t lived to make that a possibility, but Alia could at least make sure the world didn’t pay for their choice to keep her alive.
“I’m Alia Mayeux Keralis,” she said, surprised by how steady her voice sounded. “And I’m going to stop a war.”
She pulled her braids into a knot atop her head and returned to the front of the plane. Theo was sprawled out on one of the padded banquettes. Nim was still slumped forward with her head in her hands. Alia sat down next to her and gently bumped her shoulder against Nim’s. “Are you okay?”
“No,” Nim said into her palms.
“Gemma—”
“I watched her die,” said Nim, still not looking at her. “No, that’s not right. It happened too fast to watch. We were just talking. I was looking at the butterflies on her dress. I was thinking about the color, the bead count. I was thinking Gemma was pretty but”—Nim hiccuped a sob—“pretty but boring. And then people were screaming. We heard the gunshots. We tried to get down. Why did they shoot her?”
“I don’t think they meant to,” said Alia. I don’t think they cared. She barely knew Gemma Rutledge, but she’d seemed nice enough. All of those people she’d been complaining about having to talk to had seemed nice enough. How many had been hurt? Killed? She held tight to Diana’s promise that there was a purpose to this mission, that all of it would mean something if they could just get to the spring.
“There’s a shower,” Alia said. “And some Keralis Labs gear if you want to change.”
Nim sat up, wiping the back of her hand across her eyes like a child woken from a deep sleep. “I don’t want to change. I want to know what’s going on. What just happened?” Her voice was pleading. “Why did Jason have a gun? Who are we running from?” She turned to Diana. “And how did you do those things?”
Diana sat cross-legged on the banquette, methodically untying the knots in her lasso. She said nothing, only shifted her gaze to Alia, waiting.
“Well?” said Theo, resting his glass of ginger ale on his stomach. “I think it’s fair to ask what the hell is going on. Even if Nim is the one asking.”
“Just shut up,” said Nim. “What are you even doing here? What if your father didn’t make it out of the party?”
“My father wasn’t there.”
“What?” said Jason. He’d disappeared into the back of the plane and emerged in jeans and a T-shirt. He set a pile of sweats on one of the seats and began to dig through the jet’s medical kit.
“My father took off,” said Theo. “He said he had to be on a call to Singapore or something. Good timing, right?”
“When was this?”
“I don’t know,” Theo said. “He wanted me to come with him. ‘You’re going to embarrass yourself, Theo, blah, blah, blah.’ The usual stuff. It was right around Alia running off and us being shot at.”
Alia felt something cold uncoil in her stomach. Could it be a coincidence? She met Jason’s gaze and knew he was thinking the same thing. Could Michael be involved? What if he knew what she was? He’d been like a father to them both, but “like a father” wasn’t a father. Maybe he’d been willing to make the sacrifice Alia’s parents hadn’t.
“Don’t look so worried, guys,” Theo said. “I’ll call him when we’re on the ground.”
“No!” they said in unison.
Theo’s brows shot up. “Why not?”
Jason pinched the bridge of his nose between his forefingers. “It’s just really important that no one know where we are or where we’re headed.”
“Okay,” said Nim. “Fine. How about you tell us why?”
Jason and Alia did their best. They answered question after question from Theo and Nim. At first the queries came fast and loud, one piling on top of another: Who had attacked them? Why? Were the gunmen terrorists? What did they want? Was it because of the Foundation? But as Jason calmly explained that these people had a different agenda in mind and Alia was at the center of it, Nim and Theo grew quiet.
Jason set the medical kit aside and handed around some of the files he’d printed, a copy of the scroll, and a laptop with the documents from the flash drive. Big chunks of text had been redacted from some of the files, and others seemed to be incomplete, but there were more than enough to make the point.
Alia felt a little like she was standing naked in the middle of Times Square. The story sounded so much less far-fetched with Jason telling it—especially with all of those documents to back him up. But that only made it worse. She’d pretty much accepted the fact that Theo was never going to see her as more than an annoying kid, but what if he looked at her now and saw a monster? And Nim had been her friend through everything, but “everything” had never included bringing about the end of the world.
When Theo finally looked up from Jason’s files, he focused his attention on Diana. “What about you? What’s your deal? Right now, my best guess is government super soldier.”
“Government what?” said Diana.
“You know…like, genetically altered killing machine.”
Diana clenched the pile of gleaming rope in her lap. “I’m not a killer.” She said it with such conviction, her chin tilted at an almost regal angle. But the words of the vow they’d spoken still resonated through Alia. Diana would honor it.
“Okay, okay,” said Theo. “Member of a bionic-ninja fight squad.”
“I’m not trained as a ninja, either.” Diana looked down at the lasso and said, “Where I come from, we train for war.”
“Why?”