I turn and run into the mist, toward the danger, toward O’Malley. My body feels electric, on edge.
I hear voices. I slide to my right, into the underbrush, crouch between two wide, curving leaves that cover me completely. A small gap between them lets me see down the trail. Moonlit mist surrounds me. This is the perfect spot. The shadows are my friends.
“She killed Beckett!” A Grownup man’s voice. I hear him, but can’t quite see him. “And Visca! She cut off Visca’s damn head! I’m going to kill that little bitch!”
Something about that voice is familiar, but I can’t place it. Another voice answers, one I know by heart, one that makes every inch of me crawl with fear.
“Farrar, don’t you dare.”
That voice…Matilda.
She was on the lumpy ship with Bello. She’s here. She’s come for me, to erase me.
“Hurt her, and you die,” she says. Her voice is coming closer. “Or I’ll make sure your shell dies. I’ll watch you wither away to nothing. Find out if there are any more hopping vermin around here, kill them, then catch her.”
I hear footsteps squish in mud, hear small branches crack and snap—they are coming closer.
Even if they’re old and slow, they’re still faster than the wounded Barkah and Lahfah—if I let Matilda and Farrar pass by, they will quickly catch up to the Springers.
Coming down the trail, through the mist, I see a Grownup. A little shorter than I am, moving with painful, jerky motions: it is Matilda.
And with her, taller, thicker, old and wrinkled but made of solid muscle—that has to be Farrar.
They both wear masks and the suits of thin, shiny metal. Like the one I just killed. Visca…I killed Grownup Visca.
Farrar comes first, a few steps ahead of Matilda. He wears a bracelet on his extended arm, sweeps it left, then right, then straight down the trail. He doesn’t see me. In seconds he will pass by me.
I can end this, all of it, right now. I can shoot him with the musket at close range, drop him.
And then I must kill Matilda.
The musket will be empty. I can use the wide, flat end…I can swing it hard, smash it into her face, knock her down…then I will cave in her skull.
For El-Saffani. For Beckett. For Coyotl. For Muller. For Latu. For Visca. For Harris. For Bello. For Yong.
Matilda is my enemy…kill her, and I will be forever free.
She deserves to die, deserves it for the thousands of humans she has murdered, for her slaughter of millions of Springers, for the culture she tried to destroy, for the ship she transformed into a nightmare, and for the enormous city she turned into cinders.
Farrar and Matilda creep closer.
I stay so very still.
I am the wind…I am death…
Five steps away.
My musket’s hammer is already cocked. I silently raise the barrel, aim it to my left. I won’t even have to extend it past the leaf: Farrar will move right past me.
Three steps.
I put my finger on the trigger.
One step.
On my right, the big leaf rustles, splashing me with beaded rainwater as it is pushed aside.
The red-eyed, masked face of a Grownup is only inches away. How could I have not heard it coming? It is the biggest Grownup I have ever seen, with wide shoulders and huge muscles stretching out the gnarled black skin.
Then I realize how it snuck up on me.
It’s Bishop.
A flash of black smashes into my face.
As I fall, I see the two moons high above—one blue, one maroon—and then nothing.
I wake.
My head pounds and throbs. Feels like it’s full of jagged rocks, grinding against each other.
I’m on my back. Lights above blind me. I blink madly. I try to raise a hand to block the lights, but I can’t move.
“She’s coming to.”
That voice…the hiss of a Grownup, a woman, but so familiar. I almost recognize it.
“Thank you,” says a second voice, one that is unmistakable and full of the promise of death—Matilda.
She has me. Panic bites deep. I struggle to push it back, to stay in control.
I can see a little now. The lights above are embedded in a carved ceiling. I’m indoors. I try to sit up, but something cool, solid and curved pins my wrists, my waist, my ankles.
White fabric to my left, to my right.
I’m in a coffin.
I yank and twist and lurch. I’ve broken bars like these before, and I’m much stronger than I was then. I pull until the coffin shakes with my effort, until my bones feel like they are going to break…
Something is different.
These bars, they’re smooth, not rough against my skin. They aren’t rusted…they’re new.
My arms give out in mid-pull, as if my muscles, bones and skin realized escape is impossible before my brain does.
I lie there, chest heaving, not knowing what comes next.
A head leans in, silhouetted by the bright light. A Grownup. Wrinkled, charcoal skin covered by a mask. Through that mask, I see one bulging red eye, and a white patch where the other eye used to be.
“Hello, pretty girl,” Matilda says.