The Invasion of the Tearling

She reached out and grasped the barrel of the gun. Jonathan resisted for a moment, then let it slide bonelessly from his fingers. The sirens were louder now, leaving downtown and entering the quiet maze of streets that had made up Lily’s adult life.

“Go. Think about him, not me. Help him.”

Jonathan’s dark face had gone pale. “They’ll check your hands. For powder. Fire a shot into the ground.”

“I will. Go.”

He hesitated a moment longer, then headed for the wall and climbed it, in almost the exact spot where Dorian had fallen down. Even in the midst of her terror, this symmetry pleased Lily; she felt that she had now come full circle, completed the journey from the woman she had been pretending to be to the woman she really was. At the top of the wall, Jonathan turned and gave Lily a last reluctant look, but she waved him away with the gun, relieved when he dropped soundlessly into the Williamses’ yard, out of sight.

Lily planted herself, aiming the gun at the ground several feet away. She knew that guns recoiled, but she was still unprepared for the force of the shot, which sent her sprawling backward. The gunshot echoed around the garden, and as it faded, Lily heard the squeal of tires turning onto her street.

I killed my husband. He was beating on me and I shot him.

How did you get the gun?

I took it from Jonathan the last time he drove me downtown. Tuesday.

Bullshit. He would’ve noticed it was gone.

That was true. Lily tried again. What if I tell them it was Greg’s gun?

The gun’s tagged. They’ll only need to scan it to know it was Jonathan’s.

She couldn’t think of a response. Jonathan was right; the story was too flimsy, no matter who did the telling. Greg was dead, shot by two bullets from Jonathan’s gun. Last night, Lily had gone outside the wall alone and come back with Jonathan. They would either think that Jonathan had killed him, or that she and Jonathan had done it together. No one would care about Lily’s black eye, the cuts on her face and arms. It was all over now; she was a woman who had killed her husband. She thought of the executions that played regularly on the giant screen in the living room: men and women turning pale as the poison hit their veins, drowning them in their own lung fluid. Their agonized gasping always seemed to go on forever before they finally succumbed, and Greg would laugh at Lily when she tried to cover her ears. They died with bulging, pleading eyes, like fish in the bottom of a boat.

Lily dropped the gun and closed her eyes. When Security burst into the backyard, she was standing on a high brown hill, miles of grain all around her, staring down at the deep blue river that ribboned the land below. She didn’t hear them speak to her, didn’t understand their questions. She was caught by the world around her, Tear’s world, Tear’s creation, the sights and sounds of the land, even the smell: freshly turned earth and a tang of salt that reminded her of childhood trips to the Maine shore. Lily didn’t feel them pin her arms behind her back and march her toward the front door. She didn’t feel anything at all, not even when they pushed her into the back of the truck.

FOR THE FIRST time, Kelsea opened her eyes and found herself not in her library, but in the arms room.

“There you are, Lady.”

She blinked and found Pen on one side, Elston on the other.

“What am I doing here?”

“You wandered in.” Pen released her. “You’ve been all over the Queen’s Wing.”

“What time is it?”

“Almost midnight.”

Less than two hours gone. Lily’s life was moving faster now. Kelsea blinked and saw, as if through a thin veil, the dark tin box of the Security truck, its armored inner walls. It was night again; flashes of street lighting spilled intermittently through the small slats near the ceiling, fleeing over her hands and legs before it disappeared. Lily was right there, not centuries away, not over the borders of unconsciousness, as she had once been, but right there inside Kelsea’s mind. If she wanted to, Kelsea could reach out and touch her, make Lily scratch her forearm or close her eyes. They were bound.

“Only crossing,” Kelsea whispered, clutching her sapphires. Who had said that? She couldn’t remember anymore. “Only crossing.”

“Lady?”

“I’m going back, Pen.”

“Back where?” Elston asked crossly. “Sooner or later, Lady, you’ll have to sleep.”

“Back under, I think,” Pen replied, but his voice was already distant. Dimly, Kelsea remembered something she was supposed to do, something about the Red Queen. But Lily took precedence now. Another flash intruded: Lily being pulled from the truck and marched down a long staircase, her eyes blinded by glaring fluorescent light. A wave of nausea broke over Kelsea like a wave, and she remembered that Lily had hit the double doors headfirst. Did she have a concussion? “You stay, Pen. Don’t let me fall.”

“Go, El.”