PELLEGRIN MAKES MORE calls than I can count as he leads us down the narrow staircase, along the balcony, and back into his lab. We don’t stop there, but head straight through to the terrace where the zip line dropped us off.
“Burrow Canal,” Pellegrin says. “Party of four, to be positioned on New Port Isabel.” Clearly, he’s not broadcasting the truth of our destination for everyone to hear. “West side,” he adds.
The west side: it’s where the red barracks are, where Hope and Finnley came from. It feels like so long ago that I saw their names in red ink for the first time, tattooed on their pinkies. The chaos Alexa caused at the beach didn’t kill our camp entirely, it seems.
My stomach lurches. Finnley. Where is Finnley? I should have asked earlier—how could I have failed to ask? I’ve been more than a little distracted, sure. But that doesn’t make it okay.
I am the first person behind Pellegrin in line. I can risk a question if I’m careful. He is the leader, and as long as he keeps facing forward, his face isn’t in danger of being caught in the guys’ spy vision—it’s possible he could give me an answer without it being too obvious.
He bends down to untangle the rope ladder. The others gather nearby, at the ledge. I inch closer, close enough to be heard at a whisper. “Where is Finnley? The girl from the nets?”
His shoulders stiffen in his pristine white shirt. Other than that, there is no indication he’s heard me.
“Did she—is she—”
He stands, so suddenly and close I have to take a step back, and throws the rope ladder over the edge. “Climb down,” he says, addressing the entire group. “Wait on the boardwalk until the transport vessel arrives to take you to the yacht. They should be here any minute now.” He doesn’t look at me, makes a great effort not to. “Lonan, why don’t you go first.”
Lonan does meet my eyes, and it takes a good measure of self-control to stay rooted in place. It is the first time I’ve seen him in the light—really looked at him—since our kiss in the cave. And now that I’m looking, I’m having a hard time looking away. So is he.
“Aries, could you check the sense levels on Number Seventy-Two, please?” Pellegrin says, touching his earpiece. For once, though, the little light—the one that says he’s actually connected to someone on the other end—is dark. “He seems a little slow.”
Lonan gets the hint and starts over the ledge. Phoenix and Cass follow, until it’s just Pellegrin and me up on the terrace.
“Brilliant,” I say when I realize what he’s done to separate us from the others.
He looks at me intensely, the whites of his eyes pure light against the deep darkness of his skin. This is the true Pellegrin again, not the shell he’s worn since we left his lab. “We don’t have much time,” he says. “As soon as Cassowary reaches the boardwalk, you have to go or else Ava will pick up on it when she comes to.”
I knew I was right about Ava, that she is sharp. “Where is Finnley? Why isn’t she with them?”
Warmth and compassion and contrition flood his face, and I have my answer. “She was alive when she hit the net,” he says, eyes shining. “But only barely.”
“Is she still—”
He shakes his head. “Your father gave her the directive to turn on Stark, who was taking her down to Medical—he explained it away as a psychotic side effect of the bone-shard hallucination you’d all just experienced.”
Cass is firmly on the ground now. I should start climbing, but I can’t. Not until I know.
“I’m sorry, Eden,” Pellegrin says. “Stark is impulsive, and his perception of right and wrong has become incredibly muddled over the years. He snapped her neck as soon as he saw her start to turn on him.”
The world is a blur.
The rope ladder, the foliage, the transport vessel when it arrives: all blurs of white, green, gray.
The faces around me: Lonan, Phoenix, Cass, Pellegrin—who will be joining us on the yacht, apparently—tan, freckled, pale, ebony.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Where there should be blackness, I see Finnley. It isn’t only my fault, I know that, but all I can think of is the cocoon bridge. Her fall. How I am still here, how she is gone.
Right, wrong, purity, pollutant, joy, pain, grief, goodness: they distort, they intersect, they fuse. Life is full of double-edged swords. Life itself is a double-edged sword.
I open my eyes. Breathe. Try not to feel guilty that I can breathe: try to use it as fuel, as fire. Finnley did not deserve to die. All I can do now is to do well with the life I still have, for as long as I have it.
On the canal, our vessel veers left instead of right. It’s odd: earlier, when we paddled our canoe into the cave, there was very clearly a barrier of jungle on our left.
Now there very clearly is not.
We aren’t just close to the shore—we are on it. “Biosecurity again?” I murmur, and Pellegrin gives a discreet nod. Incredible. When I look back, there is no trace of the canal, the lodge, or the opening through which we came. It presents itself as an unbroken jungle that spills out over a low, rocky cliff—and our small transport vessel is out on open water. A large, white, extremely modern-looking yacht awaits us not fifty yards away, lit by spotlights and on-board lamplight.
I never aspired to this: that this yacht will take us to the man who dragged our world into war. That the war could crumble based on the mission I’ve been assigned—as long as I’m able to follow through. That the guilt I feel over Finnley is a drop in the ocean compared with what I’ll feel if I let my father down.
If I fail. If I’m found out.
If they kill him for it.
I never asked for any of this.
SEVENTY-NINE
I’VE NEVER SEEN a boat quite like this one: it is one part luxury yacht, one part art display at the MoMA. Two of its sails hold a soft-sculpted form, with striated seams that make them each look like the underbelly of a giant whale. Its bow gracefully arcs into a long, sharp point—a masterful blend of form and function, no doubt—and looks like it could pierce straight through the cruelest waves. A pointed decorative sculpture mirrors it, jutting out directly above it to puncture the sky. It is as if the two pieces together are a vicious beak waiting to devour anything that gets in its way.
Pellegrin directs us onto an open-air deck on the middle level of the yacht, where windows have been carved out to make an unusual, sinuous pattern. It’s impeccably designed, more window than wall, and meticulously executed. Once we’re all on board—Phoenix, Cass, and Lonan, then Pellegrin and me—he pulls the door shut behind us. It is the most gorgeous yacht I’ve ever been inside: the interior a rich vanilla cream with walnut trim, narrow-boarded wooden floors tinted with a nutmeg stain.
“NPI, west side?” one of the yacht’s men calls from the far end of the deck.
“Affirmative,” Pellegrin replies.
“Y’all settle in,” the man says. “It’ll take most of the night, and tomorrow will be a long day.”