Everyone here had a magical talent, but no one could cause food or drinking water to appear out of thin air. A person with a quirk like that could rule the world.
When the storm began the other day, it had not rained for months. Some Celans had wept happy, foolish tears. Some had fallen on their knees, thanking God, drinking rain. Though most were wise enough to spit it out at the taste of the salt, there was one boy who had been so thirsty he couldn’t stop drinking until his body convulsed with seizures. Even those with healing quirks like Filiz’s mother could not ease his dehydration. And the salt in the rain had tainted what little drinking water they still had.
The boy died. Filiz had gone to the small service for him that afternoon, just before she went to work. Then she’d entered Solon’s cave and met the girl responsible for his death. Solon had watched her reaction, but he must have known she wouldn’t say or do anything. Now that the tear rain was falling, the girl was their only hope if Atlantis rose.
That was what Solon said anyway. How the Tearline girl would succeed was Filiz’s greatest question. Perhaps her people were right—they should build their arks and prepare for the worst.
Filiz felt her neighbors’ eyes on her and wondered whether the Poet had told them yet. Then she saw a plate of food being passed around. Men and women were slapping the Poet’s back and laughing. The Poet, the hero. Filiz watched him bask in the glow. What good would it do a roomful of starving people to have a single bite of food? Maybe they were too hungry to ask now, but as soon as the food was gone, wouldn’t they demand to know where it had come from, how to get more?
She wasn’t angry at the Poet, she realized. She was angry at Eureka. She watched Pergamon sleepily place a bite of spinach in his mouth. The boy next to him took the plate and licked it clean.
The Poet watched Filiz with as much suspicion as she felt for him. He used to ask her why she avoided the Assemblies. Now he clearly wished she wasn’t there.
“You met Solon’s visitor this afternoon?” Yusuf said. All eyes turned to Filiz.
“She is here with two children, her father, and two friends,” the Poet said. “They are kind people, tired from their journey. One girl is named Cat and she is very—”
“Enough about the others,” someone called from the back. “What about her?”
“She is a selfish brat,” Filiz said, and wondered why. Perhaps it was because the Poet had brought food and she also wanted to give the people something they hungered for. They desired an enemy, a common cause—someone to blame.
“Did she care about the innocent people who would die because of her?” Filiz shook her head. “She thought her pain was more important than your lives. Now Atlantis will rise and wash us away. We are powerless.” Her voice grew louder as she went on. “We sit and wait and starve.”
“I’ve always wanted to visit Atlantis,” someone said in the back.
“Hush, boy,” Filiz’s grandmother said. “We have no food, no water to drink. My daughter is dying. And my granddaughter …” She looked away as the others finished her sentence in their minds.
“There is more food,” Filiz said, because she resented the distrust on her grandmother’s face. She was tired of feeling like an outsider among her people.
The room grew silent. Eyes like saucers watched Filiz. The Poet offered her no help. She wished she hadn’t said it—she was giving up her life’s one remaining pleasure, the time she spent with Solon in his cave—because now she had no choice but to explain.
“Solon has food. He has been preparing for this storm, stocking up. The Tearline girl feasted tonight as you starved.”
“And water?” a salt-boy beside the Poet asked.
“He has water, too.” Filiz glanced at the Poet. “We discovered this only tonight.”
“You will take us there tomorrow,” Filiz’s grandmother ordered.