Carefully I close the Bible, overcome by painful memories.
For a long moment, everyone is silent, lost in their own thoughts. Then Achilles stirs, sighing once more.
“Would you kids mind giving me a minute with Naiya?” he asks. His voice is deceptively light.
They nod, standing. Enoch pats my shoulder awkwardly, then walks off toward the small group around the fire. Tate trails behind him.
“I almost forgot to tell you,” she says, stopping and turning to look back at me. “I made a copy of the program before he stole it. My father, I mean.” She pulls another small chip from her jacket pocket. “We can still find the portal, you know. We just have to get there first.”
“Tate, you’re amazing,” I say fervently. The words feel strange coming out.
She smiles, a real smile, then glances briefly at Achilles and walks away.
“I haven’t had a chance to ask yet,” I say with trepidation, looking back at him and fearing the answer. “Is my little brother okay?”
He smiles. “None the worse for the wear. That’s a good healer you’ve got.”
I look back at Tate, now sitting calmly by the fire and looking exhausted. “I know.”
“You’ll have your trackers removed once we reach Athens,” he adds. “For now, just make sure no one wanders from the group. That book you have will protect us all until then, but not anyone who strays.”
I nod, looking down at it. It seems so small to contain something so powerful. For a moment I wonder why Papa didn’t use this technology more often, in our everyday lives as Collectors. It was probably too dangerous, would make us look like we were hiding something. Not worth it.
Until it was our lives we were hiding, anyway.
“Why didn’t he come with us?” I ask sadly. “If he had a blocker, why not?”
“Jamming a signal isn’t the same thing as escaping,” Achilles answers gently. “Your father stayed in your apartment to give you a chance. He knew that once you disappeared, they’d come for him first as long as he was still there. It was a play for time, and it worked.”
“But it might have worked for him to come as well!” I protest, feeling angry at Achilles, as though it were his decision. “He didn’t have to leave us alone! He could have at least told us what the Bible was!”
“He probably didn’t want you to get cavalier, rely too heavily on its protection. He knew you would keep it with you, and that was enough for him.”
“That’s crap.” My chest heaves.
The beetle-black eyes search my face.
“I can’t tell you he did the right thing,” Achilles says finally. “Maybe he didn’t. But he did what he thought was right. That’s all any of us can do, yourself included.”
I flush at the small rebuke, standing impatiently. “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do. I don’t even know what I think is right,” I say, mimicking his emphasis.
“You will.” He too stands, groaning slightly.
“What if I don’t?” I demand, looking him in the eye. “What if I never figure it out?”
“You aren’t the first Legerdemain,” Achilles assures me. “Hopefully you won’t be the last.”
My blush deepens as the significance of this hits me. I’d always wanted to have children, but it had never occurred to me that others would have a stake in the outcome. I choose not to dwell on it.
“What do you mean, I’m not the first?” I ask instead.
“I mean that your powers, your abilities, aren’t unique to you. And an inability to control them at the beginning is not unusual. Don’t worry: it will take time, but you can learn. Where I come from, there are people who can teach you. There have always been people willing to teach the Legerdemain.”
His words flood me with relief.
“You don’t have to wonder who you are any longer,” he says, more softly. “You’ll be safe, protected and taught like you should have been from the beginning. Someone like you is too precious to risk in unhappy accidents inside a city. Yet what could we do?” he adds, seeming almost to talk to himself. “Your mother refused to leave you behind when she came here.”
“I wasn’t born in the City?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
“But,” I say, finally voicing something I’d wondered about for weeks. “The dreams, the hints and everything, why couldn’t my mom figure that stuff out? It was her mission first, and she was a Legerdemain too. Shouldn’t she have been able to?”
“Honestly I don’t know,” he says. “Song tried her hardest, but things don’t always work out the way we want them to.”
I nod, feeling a lump rise in my throat. For some reason I miss my mother more deeply now than I have at any other time since she died. I wish she’d shared more with me, wish Papa had been able to reveal he knew her. Then he could have told me about her, all the things I’d been too young or too heedless to ask while she was still alive.
But as much as I love him, as well as he trained me, Papa revealed precious little to me about my past or my future. It is, and seems like it always will be, an unhealed wound.
With a flash of illumination, I suddenly remember the envelope.
Scrabbling inside my dirty jacket, I pull out the rectangle of paper, only slightly damp from the long walk, the sweaty fight. In the confusion and horror of the past day, I had nearly forgotten it, but now it winks up at me tantalizingly.
Bright moonlight displays my name printed on the cover, a fact I had not noticed in the darkness of the apartment and the shrieking of the alarm. But somehow I’d already known this was for me.
Please, Papa, I beseech silently, please help me understand.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Achilles says delicately, eyeing the letter. He turns and walks away.
I seat myself on a fallen log and, with fingers trembling from cold and anxiety in equal measure, slit the flap and lift out the piece of paper inside. It feels shockingly heavy, though I know that is with the weight of words I fear will say too much, or not enough.
Naiya,
You must be wondering why I’ve left you with so much on your shoulders and so little to draw from. I’m sorry, child. Perhaps I should have told you more, but preserving your innocence always seemed like the best way to protect you against what was ahead. I laid the trail so carefully, just in case, but I could never bring myself to put you on it until I had to. The truth is, though you are special, you are not the only one. I had hoped you might play no part in this struggle.
If you are reading this letter, it is because I was wrong.
Your mother would be proud to know that her mission has passed to you. Unfortunately, the wars fought in the past are nothing compared to the war that is coming, the one that will take place in Terminus itself. A lone soldier will wage that war, and I cannot say who or what the foe will be. But I know that if you choose to take up humanity’s standard, Earth could have no better champion.
I apologize that I couldn’t be explicit about the Bible; it was dangerous enough giving it to you in the first place. Again, I ask your forgiveness that I didn’t tell you more. Secrets are best shared with those you trust, and I would never want you to think I found you lacking. You have always been trustworthy, from the time you were a little girl. I simply wished for you to have a childhood. I hope, at least, that my decision provided you with one.
You are, and have been since the beginning, my beloved daughter. Please take care of Pip. I hope you and Enoch find happiness. I love you so much,
Papa
Drawing a deep breath, I read the letter through once more, stopping each tear as it makes its way to my lash line.
I cannot tell Papa what he’d like to hear, that I forgive him. I cannot tell him Amy is dead, her double abandoned. And I cannot tell him that I accept the task he’s given me.
Though his words have filled me with peace, they have also left questions in their wake. Where are the others like me, the other Legerdemains? How could you fight a war in
Terminus? And, more than anything, what did he mean about Enoch and me finding happiness? Did he just mean he wished us both well, or something more? Was it … a blessing?
Absently I reread the letter again and again, till his fine script swirls together into an illegible black mass before my eyes. Finally, I take a deep breath, fold the paper, and place it back in my pocket. I pull out Papa’s glasses, gazing fixedly as though I can will his face to materialize behind them, then tuck them sadly next to the letter.
Looking up, I catch sight of the faint yellow dot on the horizon. It is the City, her many lights blurred into one small pinprick, miles and miles away. In my heart I say goodbye to all that was there and all that I will never see again.
Except the Doctor, I realize with a sinking heart. Even if he stays in that City to stake out his newly won power, to watch over the scientists as they work hard to put Amy’s torture to good use, him or something like him will continue to dog my steps. Perhaps forever; at the very least until all of this is over or I am dead. But there is nothing I can do about that now.
Standing, I head back toward the fire.
Enoch and Tate both look up as I approach, staring at me with concern and curiosity. There will be time enough to tell them everything.
I see Achilles and his surviving comrades, fighters each and every one, talking quietly on the far side of the tumble of burning logs and licking flame. Around its warmth huddle the remains of our small band, little Biyu looking terribly alone without her big sister. I try not to imagine losing them as well.
Deliberately I draw a breath, hitching pride and determination onto my face in place of doubt or sadness.
There is only one way forward.
AN OPEN LETTER TO WRITERS (+ A SHORT BIO)
My name is Sarah, but my friends call me … Sarah. Sorry, I thought maybe I had something more exciting to add there.
Guess not.
Anyway, this bio is going to be a little different from your run-of-the-mill “I’m a copywriter by day and novelist by night, love fiction and have wanted to be an author since the age of 5, learned everything I know about fantasy and sci-fi from my dad, live in Belize with my husband, two kids and two dogs, and am afraid only of flying and dying alone.”
I mean, that does pretty much sum me up, but that’s not the main point I want to get across to you. Because if there’s anything I’ve learned in the last five years of running a professional writing business and writing books, it’s this: Copywriting is the absolute best way to cultivate a fiction career.
Yep, the two might seem different, but they are so super related.
How? Because when your vocation and your avocation require many of the same skills, you’re building what you need on both fronts each and every day. When I switch from my day job to my moonlighting job, I don’t have to put on a different hat, which means I’m building those skills not just for the two hours I can scrounge in the evening … but for 8 to 10 daily. You become an expert a lot faster that way (she said immodestly).
So now you’re wondering why I’m telling you all of this.
Good question. Here’s why.
Because not all of you, but many of you, are writers at heart. That’s a thread we readers all have in common, and I’ve met few fantasy and science fiction lovers who wouldn’t jump at the chance to see their own work published. So, in a mildly self-serving but MAJORLY you-serving way, I strongly suggest you look into starting a paid writing business of your own.
I can help. Whether you want to dip a toe in and see if copywriting is for you, or are ready to dive headlong into your own business, here’s your chance.
Head to my courses Overnight Copywriting, where I teach you to quick-start a copywriting biz practically overnight, or Overnight Direct Marketing, a deeper dive into one of the hottest commodities online today. It’s my bread and butter, and the reason I can afford to write all day and live in Belize.
#dope, amiright?
If you don’t want in already, you should – so go check them out.
You can also get access to my Free Resource Library here, which will help jumpstart your writing career with dozens of resources related to finding your voice, building a writing routine, outlining, getting clients and more.
If you want to be the first to know about new books and get FREE review copies whenever I launch a nonfiction or fiction title, let me know here.
Guys, I can’t say it enough: If you want to be a fiction writer, please do me a favor and consider a career in nonfiction by day. If you can write decently well, like it, and want more words in your life, this is the answer.
Now, wanna talk more books? Cool! I’m also the owner of the Instagram account @newleafwriter, where I chronicle my journeys in literature, life and obsessively arranging small items of home décor. When I’m not hard at work writing, reading and reviewing, I’m playing with my two kids, doing yoga, cooking or staring at the turquoise waters of my Caribbean home.
… So do you want to be a writer yet? Let me help.
Xoxo, Sarah
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
… and soon all will bleed
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
An Open Letter to Writers (+ a Short Bio)
Broken Moon Page 28