Tear began to reply, but Jonathan cut him off; he had returned to stand in the doorway. “It’s too late for that. Everyone will know, sooner or later. An armed guard is hard to hide.”
“Why me?” she asked, looking between the two of them. “I’m the smallest of us. Lear is smarter. Virginia’s tougher. Gavin’s better with a knife. Why me?”
“Because I trust you, Katie,” Jonathan said simply. “I’ve been watching all of you for years, and you’re the one who doesn’t change course with the wind.”
This was news to Katie, who thought she changed her mind all the time, and sometimes for the most ridiculous reasons. She wanted to disabuse Jonathan, but Tear was nodding agreement, and the idea that they saw her so differently from the way she saw herself stunned her into silence. Later, she would think that it was as if she’d known that this was coming all along, that there had always been something much larger here than nine children in a clearing, playing with knives. The past three years had only been preparation for the next phase.
Jonathan moved forward, extending a hand across the table, but for a moment, Katie could only stare at him, this odd unknown, her eccentric classmate, strange sometimes friend who didn’t get along with anyone and didn’t want to. At times she sensed William Tear’s grandeur in him, masked, carefully hidden because being a Tear was dangerous, because in the days to come all of the Tears would have a target on their backs—
How do you know that?
Jonathan’s hand closed over hers, and Katie blinked, her mind suddenly filled with a vision: she and Jonathan, alone in a lightless place. He released her hand and, mercifully, the vision faded. But the feel of his hand did not; Katie felt as though she’d been branded.
What happened to me?
Her mind returned an answer immediately, unbidden, as though from a deep well that stood outside Katie’s control. She was bonded to Jonathan now, and she suddenly understood that she had taken on much more than an internship, or even a career. A tiny, cowardly voice spoke up inside, protesting that this was too much, that she was only seventeen, but Katie fought the voice, furious. She had always known this was a serious business, even at fourteen, sitting with Tear on the bench in her backyard. She had promised to protect the Town, but William Tear and the Town had always been inextricably intertwined. Now Tear was leaving, and all the Town would have left was Jonathan, an unknown.
I’m a guard, Katie thought. Jonathan might reject the title—and he wouldn’t be the only one—but she was a guard protecting a prince. She thought of the incessant whispering she heard everywhere now: discontent, avarice, judgment. Superstition creeping into the Town like tendrils of mist. The air of trust and goodwill that had been an omnipresent part of Katie’s childhood seemed to have drained away from the Town, little by little, and now it was almost gone.
“You’ve made a good choice,” Tear told Jonathan. “If she guards your back half as well as her mother guarded mine, you should be safe as houses.”
He smiled at Katie, but Katie couldn’t smile back, for a terrible premonition was suddenly upon her, a certainty she could not shake, and it seemed to seize her heart.
“Katie? Are you all right?”
She nodded, forcing a smile, but she wasn’t all right. She knew, and Jonathan knew too; his dark eyes were grim as he met her gaze across the table.
William Tear wasn’t coming back.
“Katie.”
She looked up from her book. She had come out into the middle of the woods to read, in a quiet area that she and Row had discovered as children: a small, relatively flat clearing, ringed by oaks, on the western slope. But she hadn’t seen Row here in ages.
“What are you reading?” he asked.
Katie lifted her book to show him the cover. She had just been getting to the good part, but she was just as happy to put the book down for a while. King’s work could always scare her, even on a bright sunny day. Row dropped down beside her, and as he sat, Katie caught sight of a flash at his throat.
“What’s that?”
Row held the pendant up, and she saw that it was a crucifix, bright silver on a fine chain. Katie felt a tremor of disquiet; it had been so long since she and Row had actually talked. Even though Row had finished school, they ran into each other often. But the days when the two of them would spend an entire weekend together, out of sight of the rest of the Town, were long gone.
“What’s that for?”
Row shrugged. “I’ve been saved.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Nope. I’m a bona fide believer.”
Katie looked up sharply, but relaxed as she saw the twinkle in his eye.
“It must have taken quite a while to save you, Row.”
“Oh, it did. I had to confess my sins.”
“To who?”
“Brother Paul.”
“Brother Paul?”