“What?” Sadina asked her mom. Everyone had gathered now but she still wasn’t saying anything. Something was off. She looked at Isaac. Was he sweating?

  “We need to talk about the trip.”

  Minho adjusted the gun strap around his shoulder, and for the first time Sadina felt nervousness coated in fear, not anxiety. Something was definitely about to happen. Sadina looked to her mom for support but she appeared more tired and defeated than when Wilhelm and Alverez died.

  But she finally stepped forward and stood straighter. “I have an announcement. I wanted to wait to share until we were all . . . ready.”

  “What are you talking about?” Sadina snapped at her mother, like only a daughter could. Her mom’s stance and body language only added to the fear. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m so sorry, Sadina.” Her mom looked at her as if she were supposed to know what that meant. Sadina turned to Isaac but he just stared at the ground. “I won’t be traveling to Alaska with you all.” She avoided her own daughter’s eye contact.

  Sadina froze, top to bottom, with a stunned sickness. Then she began to tremble with anger and hurt.

  Words poured out of her. “What’s the point of a vote if you’re going to make your own rules as you go, Mom? We voted. Majority wins. We’re going to Alaska. All of us.” She tried to be verbally cutting as she spoke.

  “It’s not because I don’t want to go, but Isaac and I have decided—”

  “Isaac?” Sadina’s torment shifted to her old friend. What in the hell was going on? Isaac’s only response was to look at Sadina’s mom as if he wanted her to give an excuse. But no excuse could settle the fire in Sadina’s stomach.

  “We’re going to the Villa,” Isaac said unapologetically, and that hurt more than the rest of it. As much as it had hurt to see his hand fly up for the Villa when they voted all those days ago. She searched for answers to make this make sense, but she couldn’t. Even the way Isaac and her mom stood five or six feet away from the group seemed like an ill omen, like they had already split apart. Why didn’t they show any emotion? Regret? Remorse?

  She tried to use reason. “Timon and Letti said the Villa was bad. They saved our lives to get us away from the Villa!” She was yelling by the end and turned to Trish for support.

  “Yeah, we all promised we’d stick together,” Trish said, somewhat pathetically.

  “It’s our only chance,” Isaac said to the ground.

  “Chance at what?!” Sadina stepped forward, demanding that they tell her their full plan, and in the moment she completely forgot the others were standing there. They were all so quiet, all anticipating the same thing. Answers.

  “I’m so sorry, sweetie,” her mom said, tears in her eyes as she pulled the scarf from her neck and revealed the nastiest, reddest rash Sadina had ever seen. She trembled with disbelief.

  “Oh good God,” Roxy sputtered.

  “Ms. Cowan!” Miyoko cried.

  Sadina felt her whole body shake as if Minho had blown the horn of the Maze Cutter again.

  “It’s not the Flare. It can’t be.” Her mom rambled on, trying to reassure her that everything was okay, that they’d meet up again soon, but Sadina heard none of it. She knew the truth. Her mom’s eyes looked hollow. Everything was far from okay.

  The knife that he’d forged wasn’t sharp enough to cut skin or kill a slug, but it was sharp enough to carve something into tree bark. He traced the point of the blade across a downed tree while the others gathered around Cowan and Sadina. He didn’t need to witness the long goodbye and he didn’t know what to say, anyway, so he just sat back.

  Cowan’s rash looked worse than it did two days ago. Even that morning Isaac had still held out hope that maybe it would fade. But no, it was worse. There was no other plan, now. This wasn’t going to be some breakaway adventure where Cowan and Isaac just waited behind for everyone to rejoin them later. This was a rescue mission. He needed to figure out how to get Cowan to the Villa.

  Minho kicked up sand with every step as he walked over to the downed shore log. “If I knew saying goodbye could take a whole day I’d have made you do this announcement yesterday.” Minho sat down next to Isaac.

  Isaac never felt jealous of Minho, not until this moment. There they were, around the same age, with the same goal: to go to Alaska and protect Sadina, but only one of them would be getting up off the log to do so. He hated thinking of all the things he’d miss out on, and what awaited him on his new path, and he felt empty. “She just needs some time to process.” He gestured at Trish consoling Sadina by the remnants of last night’s campfire. “It’s not easy saying goodbye to a parent when you might never see them again.” He wasn’t sure if Sadina was lucky for the chance to say goodbye to her mom, a chance he’d never had, or if that made her unlucky.

  “I wouldn’t know,” Minho said as he looked out at the ocean.

  Isaac pushed his knife deeper into the log and removed chunks of bark in a specific design that would last long after he was gone. “Sorry, life doesn’t always make sense.” He didn’t know what was worse: never having parents to miss like Minho, or Isaac having the best parents in the world and knowing exactly what he missed when they left. “If you did know, you’d understand . . .” He waited for Minho to say something cold and soldierlike, but he just looked out at the small waves as they crashed against the boat. The soft clapping sound reminded Isaac of life back on the island and how he used to watch the waves hit the rocks along the cliffs. He wasn’t just missing home, he already missed everyone who reminded him of home. Dominic, Miyoko, Jackie, Old Man Frypan, and of course Trish and Sadina.

  Minho picked up a stone and began sharpening his own knife. “The rock has to be porous for this to work.” He looked up at Isaac and his newly forged blade. His pathetic attempt. “I don’t know if it’ll work with yours.”

  “Any other advice?” Isaac meant it sarcastically but it wasn’t received that way.

  Minho used quick short strokes of the rock. “Watch for Cranks. Don’t trust anyone. Always assume the person you come upon is going to try to kill you. Because out here, they will.”

  Isaac looked down at his carving and thought about everything. He’d miss Old Man Frypan’s cooking. He’d miss Roxy being snarky. He’d miss the group campfires.

  “Here, take this.” Minho handed his freshly sharpened knife to Isaac. “I know you’re not good with guns, but you’ll need something out here more than an art tool.”

  Isaac took the better blade. The weight of it felt like a force to be reckoned with. It sure beat the one he’d tried to hammer up on the fly. “Thanks.” Isaac sat with a sense of disbelief and something like grief. Emptiness and loss watching the others. He was losing everything he’d ever known all over again, and that’s its own kind of grief. “If things don’t go well for you in Alaska, will you promise me something?”

  “What’s that?” Minho asked.

  “If things turn sideways, promise you’ll come back down the coast and check this spot right here for me. I’m not sure about the Villa, and if something happens to Cowan I’ll be . . .”

  “You’ll be fine,” Minho said.

  “I don’t know about that. We could get to the Villa and it could be empty. Or worse, it could be filled with Cranks.”

  Minho leaned over to see what Isaac had carved into the log. Isaac used the sharper knife to improve it. Now his message could stay marked in the tree forever. Minho motioned to the left side of his neck with one finger. “You go for this spot, here. Any man, Crank, or animal will be gone in a second.”

  “And what if I can’t get a good go at the neck?” Isaac thought about the half-Cranks he and Jackie had faced.

  Minho stood up from the log and walked around to Isaac’s back, tapping spots on the lower back to the left and the right of his spine. “Then you get him here,” Minho dug in with his knuckles, “or here.” Kidneys. They’re full of blood. You hit that spot, either side, and they’ll be dead within minutes.”

  Even the knuckles had hurt in those two spots, so Isaac couldn’t imagine getting stabbed there. He committed it all to memory. “Okay, so if things don’t work out for either of us, we’ll meet back here?”

  “Sounds fair.” Minho sat back down on the log. Although it wasn’t a promise like Sadina had made Isaac, he’d take it.

  “Thanks for this,” he said as he tucked the knife into his pocket.

  “No problem.” Minho leaned over again to see Isaac’s fresh carving. “Now, what the hell is this supposed to say?”

  Isaac traced the deep grooves he’d made into the wood with his fingertips. He didn’t expect Minho to understand the symbol of water below a sun, with an arrow pointed in both directions from the sea to the sky.

  “This is my promise,” he said.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Words of Wisdom

  No hay dos sin tres.

  Ximena’s Abuela had sayings that became like prayers to their small family. Always repeated with an urgency that felt like a stern, ominous warning. And even though her grandmother was far back at the village now, Ximena heard the wonderful woman’s words echo in her mind as she stopped in her tracks on the desert. Heat rained down on her and Carlos like hot, invisible rain.

  No hay dos sin tres.

  There is not two without three.

  Something can happen once and be not of worry, but if something happens twice, it will surely happen a third time. All bad things happened in threes. Ximena wondered if good things were the same—if maybe good things happened in a sequence of three all the time but we were too distracted or too unimpressed to notice. Ximena looked for the good and the bad in everything, but the echo of her grandmother’s adage at the sight of another dead and bloated jackrabbit landed the omen square in her stomach. Within the next day or two of walking, she’d surely stumble upon another one.

  “Shame we didn’t get here sooner, we could have had supper.” Carlos jabbed at the tiny corpse with the pointy end of his walking stick but she’d have rather eaten rat meat. She could never eat rabbit without thinking of its pounding heartbeat. Anytime she managed to catch one back in the village, the poor little thing’s heart raced faster than it could hop.

  “What do you think is killing them?” she asked Carlos.

  “Could be anything. Snake. Bird of prey.” He continued walking, but Ximena stopped to examine the rabbit on its back, moving it to its side with a rock. No visible blood. No holes or cuts to its body. Just dead. Muerto.

  “A snake or a bird eats its prey after they kill it. Looks like it’s been here for maybe two days.” She shook her head and wondered what her Abuela might say about two dead, blackened rabbits. All things in nature held a language, a symbolism that her grandmother seemed to have memorized. Ximena stared at the ratty fur waiting for some bit of information or wisdom to come to her. Was this a warning from Creation?

  “Sometimes animals kill just to kill,” Carlos said from ahead and Ximena pulled herself back to her feet to catch up. She hadn’t minded not having kids her age to play with growing up, and even now Carlos as her only friend didn’t bother her, but her only friend was often wrong. It wasn’t that he was stupid, it was that he let hope outweigh his critical thinking. He hoped nothing mysterious had killed these rabbits, leaving their carcasses to rot, so he reasoned it away.

  “Animals kill to eat. They kill out of instinct to survive. Killing just to kill—you’re thinking of humans.”

  “Ah, Ximena, always the wise one.” He smiled as if neither of them knew how truly murderous humans could be.

  “People are inherently evil. You know that.” Carlos was trying his best to ignore reality, but she couldn’t let him. Not anymore. Not while they were out in the middle of the desert all alone. She pushed him to confront what those in the village tried so hard to cover up. “The Hollowings.” Ximena insisted, “People are doing that, not animals.”

  She waited for Carlos to reply, but he only responded with the same rehearsed thing that all the adults seemed to love repeating. “The Council of Elders said it’s wolves. Wild wolves.”

  “Wolves are wild. You don’t have to say ‘wild wolves,’ it’s redundant. And I think you know wolves couldn’t slice a human open with a clean square cut. Wolves don’t have thumbs to pull out organs. And they wouldn’t leave all that meat behind.” Ximena waited for Carlos to respond, but he didn’t. He walked like a man on a mission, and she hoped he was just trying to protect her. She had enough doubts without having to distinguish the truth from the lies. She didn’t need protection. She needed the truth. “Do you really think we’ll find them? It doesn’t feel in my heart as though we’re getting any closer to them.”

  “You and your feelings. Of course we’ll find them.” He added no additional reasoning.

  Ximena had thought that once they started the search for her mom and Mariana that she’d feel better. Like all of Creation might play a game of Hot or Cold with her and shout through various signs, caliente, caliente.

  But their search was not a game of Frío o caliente.

  Even if it were, surely two dead rabbits in two days were a sign from Creation that they were cold. Very far from finding her mother and even further from finding out the truth. And just then, Ximena’s entire will to take one more step in the hot desert sank to the bottom of her feet. That’s it. ¡Dios mío! . . .

  The reason she didn’t feel any warmer, any closer to finding her mom and Mariana the more they traveled up the California Baja Peninsula could only mean one thing and it wasn’t good. She thought back to when she first told Abuela about leaving to look for her mother. The old woman hadn’t been shocked or scared, just serene. Ximena hadn’t understood the calm reaction at the time, but it all made sense now. Just like how the adults responded to the Hollowings. As if Abuela already knew, deep in her own bones, the dark truth but wanted to protect her granddaughter from pain.

  Two dead rabbits.

  Not being able to feel her mom’s presence, her existence.

  Ximena knew the truth already.

  Her mom and Mariana were dead.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Wild Animals

  The animal was a beast.

  Mikhail carried the wild pig on his shoulders, bound by its feet with a rope that wrapped around his right hand so tightly that it rubbed his skin raw. The boar wiggled and squirmed like one might when they were about to die. Understandable.

  Mikhail’s back already panged from the quickened pace. He needed to arrive at the Golden Room at true noon, the same time he always entered the Remnant Nation’s most important site. Consistency created trust with the Grief Bearers. The Great Master would appear at the same time if he decided to grace them with his presence. The Grief Bearers collected each day to see if he might show. Mikhail never showed his face, his presence cloaked in dark wool.

  Mikhail shifted the pig’s weight to distribute it across his broad shoulders, and the pig squealed right in his left ear. If those squeals could have been words, they would have been, STOP! Put me down! But there was no stopping what Alexandra had put into motion.

  Mikhail walked the abandoned tunnel underneath the Remnant Nation. A tunnel system none in the Nation knew about. A tunnel that allowed Mikhail to sneak in and out of the Nation’s path, past the prisons of Hell and into the trapdoor within the Golden Room of Grief. Above ground, the infamous Orphans lined the walls of the fortress exactly as trained, ready to shoot without warning. Without question. Without explanation.

  The Orphans he collected.

  The Orphans he trained.

  He stopped to shift the weight again and to tighten the rope before continuing down the tunnel. Mikhail needed the wild pig alive as a sacrificial offering. He’d offer it to the Grief Bearers who would then offer it as a sacrifice to the Flare. It didn’t matter what sense it made. Rituals didn’t make a lick of sense to him.

  The Remnant Nation had spent its entire existence preparing for battle, and now that the long-awaited time was here, it needed to be marked with a sacrificial feast. Ancient armies of old had sacrificed animals before a battle, smearing their blood on the altars of their worship, on their walls, on their faces. Mikhail would show the Remnant Nation how to do the same. And then he would march them all to war, where many of them would die a death far less dignified than the pig’s. What a vicious cycle. A truly tired cycle. Men feasted on the dead flesh of animals only to become the dead flesh on which the animals later feasted.

  War didn’t make sense. It didn’t need to. All Mikhail needed to do was to overtake New Petersburg. End the Evolution once and for all. He couldn’t worry about the amount of death that lay ahead: animals, men, half-Cranks, and Orphans.

  “Almost there,” he said to the pig, and the wild animal quieted down. With every step closer, Mikhail felt a sensation of finality. In an infinite world with infinite possibilities, few things felt final. Even fewer things felt final to Mikhail since coming back from The Gone. A miracle. A curse. How could something be both things?

  His life was his own but at the same time it was never his own. He saw everything in contradictions. His brain worked differently than Alexandra’s, whose mind only allowed her to see what she wanted to see. Mikhail is erratic, he can’t be trusted. It never offended him because he knew her brain and her intuition battled each other. Mikhail wasn’t erratic. He wasn’t an unpredictable mess without any direction or consistency. He was quite direct and consistent with his plans for the Remnant Nation. His plans were to eradicate the people of Alaska.

  She, the Goddess, obsessed with correcting him on his mis-use of vocabulary, was at the fault of her own assumptions. Her ego made her intuition less powerful, and her ego was the exact reason the Evolution would never work.