by Trisha Leigh
The Elements might not have the same detrimental effect on the temperature and atmosphere, though, since they can regulate themselves using their powers, but we have no way of knowing for sure. I’ve been thinking about Deshi’s request that we discuss how to handle the expulsion of the Others before the moment arrives. There are two options, and neither of them sits terribly well with me.
First, if the reverse magnetocaloric effect works and incapacitates the Others by stopping the cooling process that takes place in their blood, as we’re hoping, we can take the opportunity to figure out how to kill them. They heal quickly, but I’m guessing if we hurt them to a point where they die faster than they heal, they won’t recover.
Or we could simply get them to surrender and agree to abandon Earth back to the humans. The problem with that is, of course, we’re simply dooming another planet to the fate we’ve been fighting so hard to overcome.
Even so, refusing to help them and killing them in cold blood are different things. But there are only two hundred-ish Others while there are uncounted galaxies of beings at risk, and that’s not even counting the thousands of people still waiting for salvation on Earth. If the right thing to do saves the most people, then the decision is made.
I just wish I didn’t have to be the one to make it, that’s all.
After the sun goes down around nine, we sneak back out of the half-building and through the dusky streets to the university, where we find most of our friends gathered in the common room. Lucas and Deshi go to clean up while Pax and I let everyone know what we found.
“They’re definitely here, setting up for the Summer Celebration. We found where they probably keep their cache of injections—in a smaller tent to the side of the festivities—and they aren’t guarding it.” Pax gives me a sidelong glance, and I shrug. “But the Elements are in there, too.”
“How are we going to sneak in and switch out the substances with the Elements watching?” Sophie wonders aloud.
“Well, they’re caged.” They all watch me carefully, probably wondering if I’ll feel sorry for my imprisoned mother. “This is a group effort now, and we’re not going to make a decision without everyone’s input, but the four of us believe the Elements are on our side.”
“Even if they realize what you’re doing is going to maybe kill them, too?” Katie lifts her manicured eyebrows.
Different responses wrestle in the back of my mind: that our parents would want us to survive, that they can’t do anything to stop us since they’re locked up, or that the praseodymium might not affect them the same way it does the rest of the Others. In the end, none of those is 100 percent true or a sure thing, so I stay silent.
Pax must be struggling with a similar issue, because he just shrugs. “There’s no point in overthinking it right now. After we hear from Griffin and Greer tonight, we’ll know more about what kind of preparations we’ll need to make.”
That seems to placate everyone, at least enough to staunch any further questions. Pax and I head upstairs to get cleaned up before the Sidhe show up with either good or bad news.
The worst would be, of course, if they don’t show up at all.
I’ve hardly allowed myself to think about the possibility of losing them and our chance at testing the altered element before the Celebration begins. They’re resourceful and smart, and they know how much this means. Even if they can’t accomplish the test, they’re not going to get caught.
Pax pulls me to a stop in the deserted hallway. “What do you think about what Deshi asked the other night?”
It takes my brain a second to switch from worrying about the Sidhe to finding the answer to his sudden question, even if I have been struggling with it off and on for days. Having a life—even the life of an Other—in my hands makes me sick. “I don’t know. There’s no good answer, is there?”
His olive features darken, and he rakes a hand through his too-long hair. “Yes. They’re killing four innocent people every day. They’ve killed thousands more over the past twenty years, and that’s just on Earth.” He pins me against the white plaster of the wall with an intense look. “We can’t let them do this again. You, me, and Winter have to agree, to be united before Deshi tries to change our minds. His time with them clouded his judgment.”
My heart aches for Deshi, even as my brain agrees with Pax. But then Nat’s face floats behind my eyes and doubt creeps in. “I don’t know, Pax. I don’t know what’s right. But think about this—the Others aren’t killing four innocent people a day. The Prime Other is doing that to accomplish a very specific goal. What about Nat? If even a few of the Others are like him—with their own ideas and beliefs but are unable to break free from the Prime’s control—do they deserve to die?”
Brief uncertainty flickers across his handsome features before they harden into stone. “We can’t think like that, Summer. We can’t feel sorry for them.”
“I don’t feel sorry for them, Pax. I’m just saying I’m not sure I want to live the rest of my life, providing we get to have one, with the weight of the annihilation of a race on my head. If there’s another way, we should try to find it.” I reach out and squeeze the tense muscles in his forearm. “We’re better than them.”
He sighs, putting a hand over mine and holding on tight. “I don’t know. I want to believe that. I’m just so angry.”
Concern over the hardness on his face and in his eyes twists my heart. I had thought spending time with Leah was helping lift his burden, but it’s been worse for all of us since the Goblert’s daily visits began. “What does Lucas think? Have you talked to him?”
“No. We haven’t been alone.”
“Well, all we promised Deshi is that we’d listen to what he has to say and that we’ll talk about it. Maybe tonight after the Sidhe share what happened at the Harvest Site,” I say, my mind already tripping back to worry over them.
“Okay. Deal.” He leans forward and halfheartedly tugs the end of my ponytail, then sniffs. “You stink.”
I swat his arm and shove him away. “You don’t smell all that wonderful yourself. Leah’s going to run for the hills if you don’t get a shower before bed.”
He grins, the slow, lazy one that gives every girl here an attack of nervous giggles. “Oh, I promise Leah’s not running anywhere. I mean, you’ve kissed me. You know how it is.”
I purse my lips as though trying to recall. “Oh, right. I forgot.”
He snorts and I grin, and when he loops an arm around my waist I lean into his sturdy side. We do stink, like two people who’ve been lying on a dusty floor in the hot sun all day, but his faint scent of apples and cinnamon bolsters my happiness through the summery stench. At the top of the stairs we part ways, slipping into the separate cleansing rooms we’ve established for boys and girls.
***
The Sidhe are late.
It’s almost two in the morning now, hours past when we expected them, and none of us can sit still. Leah slipped out an hour ago to go to the lab; she said she couldn’t wait any longer without having something to keep her hands busy. Deshi and Pax stare out the window hole as though Griffin and Greer are going to walk down the road and into our room at Perkins Hall. I’m standing next to the desk, ripping my cuticles to pieces, and Lucas paces from one side of the room to the other so fast I swear there’s going to be a groove in the floor.
When they do arrive, at first I think I imagined them into existence simply by wanting it so badly. But they appear the way they always do—not there one minute and standing in the room the next. I can’t help the relieved smile that crawls onto my face or the weakness that washes into my knees.
I lean back on the desk for a moment, gathering new strength. The look on their faces say things went well, or at least not disastrously.
“Well?” Pax demands, stepping away from the window with Deshi on his heels.
The portal still bobs and shifts behind Griffin and Greer, who thankfully look like themselves and not Wardens. Their grins stretch wide as they
step out of the way. Griffin sweeps his hand in an inviting motion, bending slightly at the waist. “Your Harvest Site, young Dissidents.”
When we don’t move, Griffin stands up and plants his hands on his hips. “Hello, have the four of you gone deaf in the last twenty-four hours? Come and see!”
He’s obviously proud of himself, and when I glance at Greer she smiles and nods. She steps through the portal first, maybe to show us it’s okay even though we’ve all done it before, and I follow a little more hesitantly. The boys step through behind me, one by one, finally followed by Griffin. He shrinks the portal behind him until it’s smaller than the soccer ball we played with a few days ago, but leaves it open.
“Does that make you feel better?” Griffin asks none of us in particular.
We don’t answer but it does make me feel better—being back at the Harvest Site winds my already-tight nerves into vibrating balls. Now that we’re here, though, I take a look around, warm enough but not recognizing the space we’ve entered.
The equipment scattered around, along with the barrels of mined bedrock, suggests we’re in the extraction area of the Harvest Site. Once we’ve all taken inventory and focused back on the Sidhe, Griffin motions for Greer to go ahead.
“It worked. Look.” She spreads open the flaps at the back of the tent, letting in a burst of air so cold it crushes the air from my lungs before I warm myself up.
“Whoa,” Pax breathes.
I have to agree with his assessment. Behind the tent, stretched on their backs in neat rows across the ice, are the Harvest Site Wardens. “Are they dead?”
Greer shakes her head in response to my question. “No. Come on, we’ll show you.”
She and Griffin duck outside, and the four us exchange glances filled with trepidation before following the Sidhe twins for the second time tonight. At the first Warden, I crouch down, ignoring the sick twist in my stomach at being so close to an Other. Even though he’s incapacitated, the sight of him still stabs pins through my eyeballs. The last months have taught me to ignore it with more ease than I would have thought possible before this all started.
He looks almost normal, from the crop of blond hair to the black eyes to the outline of the star mark behind his ear. Except steam rises off his neck and face, his hands, and all other exposed skin. The skin itself appears translucent for the first time, but instead of revealing veins, it looks like shiny black glass underneath. Tremors move through him from head to toe, sending his limbs into tiny, almost unnoticeable convulsions.
“Touch him,” Griffin instructs.
It takes all of my courage, even though he hasn’t moved or acknowledged our presence, to reach out and press a finger against the star on his neck.
I yank my finger back, inspecting the tip and finding a blister. “He’s burning up.”
“Exactly. It’s working.” Greer motions down the line. “Even keeping them out here isn’t reducing their temperature, and it’s put them in their weird recovery state to attempt to heal. Except as long as we keep giving them the wrong praseodymium, they won’t.”
“And they haven’t moved?” Lucas questions.
“Nope. They started collapsing between an hour and three hours after their injections. They took them at midday.” Greer’s eyes are steely, determined. Nothing about her body language suggests she feels badly for hurting them, even though they were presumably Nat’s friends. “We double-checked the hive, but the fever and the recovery state restrict their brain function.”
“Does that mean they can’t alert the Prime to what’s happening here?” I ask.
“Yes and no,” Griffin answers, shivering. “Let’s go back inside, it’s flipping freezing out here.”
I couldn’t agree more, and Pax and Deshi look happy to be out of the cold, too. Inside, we settle on some waist-high stools next to a cluttered counter as Griffin continues.
“Yes and no,” he says again. “We don’t think they’re able to reach out to the Prime, but if someone were to come looking for them in their sinum, they would definitely know something’s up.”
We’re all silent for a few minutes. I think briefly about sealing their alcoves, but that would likely attract more attention than it would prevent.
“We only need to get through the next three days. What are the chances one of the Others finds out before then?” Pax asks the Sidhe.
“Are you asking for real or is that a rhetorical question?” Greer snorts. “Because your guess is as good as ours.”
Griffin’s eyes flit to Deshi. “But maybe not as good as his.”
Deshi shrugs, looking uncomfortable with the sudden scrutiny. “If you two fake the reports well enough, they won’t have any reason to suspect anything’s off. The Prime only listens in on the reports occasionally. They’re normally given to one of the Warden Captains, as far as I know.”
“So if we have a little luck for the next couple of days and you two hold up your end of the bargain, this could work,” I chirp with a smile that’s more confident than I feel.
“We’re due for a little luck, I think,” Deshi replies, returning my smile.
It makes me feel warm when Deshi displays the ability to fit in with us, even if I often still feel as though we don’t understand him or what he’s been through as well as we should. There hasn’t been time to coax out of him the experiences he’s keeping close to the vest, but in spite of that fact, I believe in him. I care about him, and I catch him watching all of us at times, quiet but always there, and it’s clear he cares about us, too. That after everything, he has come to believe we’re the family he belongs with, no matter his lingering feelings for his father or for Zakej.
“Is there anything else we should know before we go back and figure out how to duplicate this with the rest of the Others?” Lucas asks, standing up and pacing anxiously.
“Wait until the first official day of the Celebration. The Prime Other and his family won’t arrive until that afternoon, and if you don’t get them, too, you’ll be in trouble.” Greer stands up, too, shifting nervously from one foot to the other. “And Griffin has an idea. A backup plan of sorts.”
I’m almost afraid to ask, because with Griffin one never knows if the idea will be helpful or the opposite. “What is it?”
“There are almost ten thousand people here, between the four Stations,” he starts. “A lot of them aren’t right in the head since the Others weren’t careful about removing their veils, but some of them are. If something goes wrong and you end up needing to fight for real, they could give you the pure numbers you need to overwhelm the Others, weapons or not.”
“Speaking of weapons…” Greer drags two big duffel bags, each large enough to hide a body, from behind an isotope separation machine. “We raided some castles in Ireland. Nothing too modern, but they’re better than nothing. They should nicely augment the training we’ve been giving your friends.”
Lucas bends and unzips one of the bags, and Deshi reaches inside to pull out what appears to be a long, thick, incredibly sharp knife. He blows hair out of his eyes and turns a questioning gaze on Greer. “What is it?”
“They’re called swords, and there are a bunch of different kinds in there,” she replies.
“Stick the Others with the pointy ends, yeah?” Griffin snorts, taking in our hesitant faces. “It’s not so hard.”
I roll my eyes at him, then turn toward my friends. “I don’t see any harm in them telling everyone here what’s going on, do you? With the Wardens gone they obviously know something, anyway. And if we end up needing backup, a few thousand humans could overwhelm the Others, even if they do have fancy weapons.”
“Not without loss, though,” Deshi reminds me. “People would die.”
“It’s still not our first choice. But this is a war, like you said, Desh. Sometimes people die. Maybe even us.” It hardens inside me, the promise Pax, Lucas, and I made to one another when we were here at the Harvest Site earlier this summer. “Remember, no matter what happens—we
lose this planet, or the Others leave—we’re not going with them. Maybe we can’t save Earth, but if we’re this generation’s Elements and we die before there are more, the Others won’t survive.”
“We die before letting them use us. Yes.” Fear gathers like a storm in Deshi’s black-veined gaze, but after a moment or two it clears, making way for steady determination.
“Aww. You guys are like the Three Musketeers,” Griffin drawls in a fake emotional voice. “Only there are four of you.”
“Well, technically there were four Musketeers; d’Artagnan gets left out. I don’t know why,” Greer corrects her brother.
“Because at the beginning of the story he wasn’t a Musketeer, dummy.”
“But he is a Musketeer at the end. And he pretty much saves all of their asses. It seems a little rude not to call it the Four Musketeers, don’t you—”
She stops when Pax clears his throat, and they both dissolve into laughter at our quartet of baffled expressions. It’s as though they’ve forgotten we were listening.
“What are you two talking about?” I demand.
“It’s a book,” Greer explains.
“And a movie,” Griffin interrupts. “Well, several movies.”
“Whatever, just shut up.” She turns back to us, still frowning at her brother. “It’s a book about these three—four—Musketeers, which are like men who guarded the leaders of this country called France.”
“Where Lucas is from!” I exclaim.
“Where my mother is from,” he corrects, smiling at me.
“Anyway, they used swords like the ones we gave you and they had this motto: ‘All for one, one for all.’ You guys reminded us of that just now with your creepy death pact,” Greer finally finishes.
“It’s not creepy,” I insist, trying to read her opinion in her lilac eyes.
“Oh, it’s creepy,” she assures me. “Noble, but creepy.”
I shrug, then turn back to my Musketeers and raise my eyebrows. “So, all for one, and one for all?”