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Chapter 24
Chapter 24: Twelve Black DotsI did not panic. I want that on record. I stood on the roof with twelve black dots glowing on my map and six hours on the clock, and I did not scream or throw anything.I just stopped breathing for about ten seconds."Say something," Lirien said."Nobody tells anyone," I said. "Not the refugees, not the soldiers, not the guards on the wall. If eight hundred people find out there are twelve Collector things hiding among them, we will have a riot before lunch.""And Selene?""Selene already knows. She is bound to me. She can feel when my pulse jumps."As if I had called her, the door at the top of the stairs opened and Selene stepped out. She had been crying, I think, though she had cleaned her face. She looked at my map window without being invited and went very still."Anchors," she said."What?""Dormant anchors. I have only seen them in old records." She stepped closer. "When the Collector sends an Avatar, it cannot simply drop into a world. It needs a
Chapter 24
Chapter 24: Twelve Black DotsI did not panic. I want that on record. I stood on the roof with twelve black dots glowing on my map and six hours on the clock, and I did not scream or throw anything.I just stopped breathing for about ten seconds."Say something," Lirien said."Nobody tells anyone," I said. "Not the refugees, not the soldiers, not the guards on the wall. If eight hundred people find out there are twelve Collector things hiding among them, we will have a riot before lunch.""And Selene?""Selene already knows. She is bound to me. She can feel when my pulse jumps."As if I had called her, the door at the top of the stairs opened and Selene stepped out. She had been crying, I think, though she had cleaned her face. She looked at my map window without being invited and went very still."Anchors," she said."What?""Dormant anchors. I have only seen them in old records." She stepped closer. "When the Collector sends an Avatar, it cannot simply drop into a world. It needs a
Chapter 23
Chapter 23: Handles"Thank you, Administrator. That was very generous."The voice did not come from the sky or from the walls. It came from somewhere behind my ribs, right next to the Key, and it was so polite that I wanted to tear my own chest open."Get out of my head," I said."I am not in your head. I am in the handles." It sounded almost apologetic. "You took three hundred and twelve of my constructs into yourself. Each one is a small door. I am simply standing in the doorways."Selene was still in the infirmary doorway, frozen. Niko had his face buried in my shirt. I pushed the voice down as hard as I could and kept my own voice steady for his sake."Selene. Can you hear it?""No." Her face was gray. "Only you can. It is speaking through the Key.""Then tell me how to shut it.""I do not know."That was the first time I had ever heard her say it.I put Niko in the chair by the bed and told him to stay with Mama and not move. Then I walked out into the corridor, because I could n
Chapter 22
Chapter 22: The GateNobody on the wall breathed. Three hundred and twelve people stood in perfect rows in the street, and every one of them was staring at me with the same empty face."Administrator," they said again. Their voices blended into one, flat and smooth. "Open the gate.""No," I said."Open the gate.""I said no."Hierarch Doran stood at the front of the line, a thin man in a black coat with a shaved head and a scar across his throat. His mouth moved with the others, but his eyes were not his own. They were the same silver as the thread that had hung over the broken vial."This is not a request," the chorus said. "You have seventy hours. We are here to help you decide."Lirien grabbed my arm. "They are all relays. Every one of them. The Collector is wearing them like gloves.""I know.""Then you know we cannot kill them. They are still people under there.""I know, Lirien.""Mara," I called down. "How many of them carry a Seed?"She was still sitting on the stones, knees p
Chapter 21
Chapter 21: Three Hundred Black DotsI could have lied. It would have been easy. One word, a shrug, a story about a refugee looking for a bed. She was standing alone in my courtyard, and I had a hundred drones overhead and a Law that said nobody could hurt anyone inside these walls.But I had just spent twenty minutes listening to my mother cry over what happens when people hide the truth to protect someone."Open the inner door," I told the Key. "Let her walk to the base of the tower.""Zarek," Lirien said quietly. "You do not know what she has in her coat.""Sanctuary does. If she draws on anyone, she gets thrown out.""And if she has something the Law does not recognize?"I did not have an answer for that, so I went down the stairs anyway.Mara waited at the bottom with her bandaged hand held away from her body. Up close she looked worse than she had from the roof. Dark circles, chapped lips, a split in her armor she had not bothered to fix. She was only a few years older than me,
Chapter 20
Chapter 20: Ask Him About Mira I stood at the gate with the message glowing in front of me until my eyes started to burn. Behind me, refugees kept flowing through the walls, and nobody noticed that the Overlord of Sanctuary had stopped moving. *Ask him about Mira.* Anselm was gone. I could not ask him anything. But I could ask the one person who had actually been there. I did not tell Selene where I was going. I told Lirien to keep counting the new arrivals, and she gave me a long look and said nothing, which was how I knew she had seen my face. The infirmary was warm and quiet. The healing circle in the floor glowed pale blue, and Niko was asleep curled against my mother's side with his mouth open. I almost turned around. He looked so peaceful that I hated myself for what I was about to do. My mother was awake. She had been watching the door. "You met someone," she said. "How do you know?" "The Bond Link. Your heartbeat jumped about ten minutes ago and has not slowed down."
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