“What’s that supposed to mean?” the man named Timon asked. “What’re you talking about, Letti?”

  Jackie really wanted to hear the answer to that, but she noticed something creep over the railing of the bridge, right above the bank that sloped up to that spot. It was a man, dripping wet, a giant tree branch clutched in one hand. What the . . .

  She’d scarcely noticed him before the man became a blur of dark movement. He flashed across the two meters or so between the railing and where Letti stood, who noticed him at the very last second. Too late.

  With a savage brutality, and strangely without making the slightest sound, not even so much as a grunt of effort, the man swung the club of wood and smashed it against the side of Letti’s head. The wet thunk of it was a sound Jackie wished she hadn’t heard. Several people in the group let out a sharp scream at the sudden attack.

  Letti collapsed to the ground in a heap, her bloodied head coming to rest just inches from where Timon looked on in complete shock. Everyone stood still, frozen by the abrupt, violent turn of events. The man who’d bashed Letti’s head was breathing heavily, and he threw away the thick branch he’d used as a weapon. The clatter of it against the railing of the bridge was like a bell, tolling.

  He looked up at them. He was soaking wet, dark hair plastered to his head, a mishmash of clothes sticking to his very fit body. He had dark eyes that somehow still shone with an intense light.

  “My name is Minho,” he said, quietly, almost speaking to himself.

  He’d been through some crazy chunks of minutes in his life—especially in the last several months—but Isaac thought that maybe the last few minutes had topped them all. He’d been so overwhelmed by the events as they took place that he’d stood in one spot, looking from person to person as their part in the play came onstage. And now some crazy man had jumped over the railing of the bridge like a monkey and bashed Letti’s head in with a giant stick.

  And then he’d said his name was . . .

  “Minho?” Dominic repeated. “You’re named after the Minho?”

  Isaac looked at his friend. “That’s the first question you have?”

  As for Minho, himself, he ignored them all and went to Roxy, pulling her into a hug as strong and genuine as the one Trish had given Sadina. Enough to squeeze every last drop of air from her lungs. As a son would hug his mom, Isaac thought with a tweak of pain.

  Timon the Gentle Giant seemed as lost in the last few moments as the rest of them. He’d crawled over to the very spot from which their newest visitor had leaped onto the bridge, leaned his back against it, and was staring with lifeless eyes at his partner, slack on the ground. Her chest moved up and down, still alive, but her bloody head sure didn’t look too good.

  Someone needed to take charge of all this madness and figure things out, but Isaac didn’t feel like he was that person. He stepped over to where Sadina was whispering something to her mom.

  Poking her on the shoulder until he had her attention, he said, simply, “Will you do something? Please?”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  Isaac shrugged in frustration. “I don’t know, but something isn’t right. Letti said that she’d done her job, that this is exactly what was supposed to happen. What did she mean?”

  Instead of answering, Sadina turned to her mom. “You’ve been a boss for years. Time to earn your money.” She smiled as she said it, and Isaac realized she didn’t care what was going on. She’d been reunited with Trish and her mom in one fell swoop and the lady who’d tormented her was lying on the ground with a dented head.

  Ms. Cowan was ready, taking on the mantle.

  She walked over to where the man named Minho and his—mom? grandma?—were standing side by side, several feet onto the bridge. On the way over, Ms. Cowan leaned over and picked up the gun that Letti had dropped. She shoved it in her back pocket as if she knew exactly what she was doing. Isaac knew the woman had never shot a gun—or even held one—in her long life.

  “You said your name’s Minho?” she asked the man, whose expression was caught somewhere between dark brooding and relief. “And you’re Roxy?”

  Roxy was the one to answer. “That’s who we are and we’ve been traveling for weeks to find a better place. Looks like we took a wrong turn. Mind telling us who all these people are? Why that nasty woman pulled a weapon on me? It’s a good thing Minho showed up because not a one of you lifted a damn finger!”

  “She had a gun,” Ms. Cowan replied, calm soothing her voice. As if that were answer enough, she then walked over to Timon, squatting and shrunk against the railing. It was the first time Isaac had ever seen him look small. “And you? I hear your name is Timon? You chose the wrong daughter from the wrong mother to kidnap. What the hell is going on? Why’d you take them? Why’d you kill Kletter?”

  Surprising everyone watching, she then kicked Timon in the leg, though it barely budged in response.

  “Explain yourself!” she yelled, then kicked him again. The trace of calm from seconds earlier had vanished in the smoke of rage.

  Timon wearily gazed up at her. “Lady, I’m as confused as you are. I didn’t kill your friend, for one thing. And another, I came on this mission to bring your daughter back to people . . . People who need her to do good things. Not bad things. Good things. Other than that, I have no idea what’s going on. Letti was hiding something, that’s for sure.”

  Ms. Cowan didn’t respond, but she also didn’t take her eyes off the man. She was almost shaking with anger. Isaac wondered if maybe someone else should’ve taken charge, after all. As if in response to the thought, Old Man Frypan appeared from the back of the group. He was a moving statue of wisdom and experience, and they all knew the things he’d been through long before a single one of them had been born.

  Although he was visibly wearied from the weeks of marching and the day of running, his voice came out steady and strong as he addressed Timon.

  “From what I’ve heard so far, young man, one thing sticks out to me like fire in a cornfield. Something that sounds all too familiar and makes my hackles rise to the moon. What the hell you want our Sadina for? What do you mean they need her to . . . to do good things? Speak, boy, and don’t lie to a man who’s on the wrong side of ninety. Got no time for it.”

  Timon finally seemed cowed by someone. “The Godhead. They sent me. I came all the way from Alaska—they knew what was going on down in California. They knew about Sadina, about her ties to . . . back then. The Godhead know everything. Why do you think they call them the Godhead?”

  “Don’t get smart with me,” Frypan shot back, making Isaac want to pump his fist. “What’s this fool nonsense you’re spouting? What Godhead? How in the real God’s name could they possibly know about Sadina?”

  Timon appeared genuinely miserable, perhaps wishing that he’d been the one conked over the head. “Listen. We know about Kletter, the place they call the Villa, the voyage to the island. The Godhead probably had something to do with it! They don’t tell me stuff. But if you don’t realize there was something bigger behind that trip to the Munie island then you’re as big a fool as I am. The Godhead need her for the next stage of Evolution.”

  Old Man Frypan grew visibly frustrated. “Anybody else want a turn at kickin’ this big fella? The more words that come out of his mouth the less he makes sense.” Isaac almost volunteered—although he didn’t altogether hate the man. Letti had channeled most of his hate in her direction.

  “I know exactly what he’s talking about.”

  All heads turned to the one named Minho. Isaac swore the young man had grown a few inches taller and miraculously dried off from his unfortunate spill into the river.

  “Yeah?” Frypan replied. “Then I’d love to hear it.”

  Minho looked so serious, so dangerous, in that moment, that Isaac took a step back.

  “I came from a place called the Remnant Nation. We know all about this Godhead, stationed up in Alaska. You could say they’re our . . . our sworn enemies. I’ve been taught from the first memory to my last that we should hate them. They represent the Flare and everything that comes with it—they want to accept it, embrace it, manipulate it, make it work for us and not against us. My people only see the evil in the Flare, devoted to eradicating every last speck of virus from the world. You’re talking about two religions here, both in a race to the end. And one won’t rest until the other’s gone.”

  Dominic sighed and whispered under his breath, “I was really hoping for a happier story than that.”

  Old Man Frypan pointed down at Timon. “So you two are mortal enemies? Is that what you’re telling me? After all the crap that’s hit this world?”

  Minho shook his head. “I didn’t say that, sir. I didn’t say anything like that. I happen to think for myself and I have reasons for being out here. Those reasons are my own and not to share.”

  “Trust me,” Roxy added, patting Minho on the arm as if proud of him. “He’s as good as they come, and if you gotta choose a side, I’d choose his. Not that . . .”—she waved at Letti on the ground, gave her a disgusted look, then waved at Timon—“not the ones with guns who run around threatening people.”

  Isaac couldn’t have agreed more.

  Old Man Frypan was about to respond but then stopped, his mouth halfway open, the words frozen on his lips. He looked around him as if a fly had buzzed in and was driving him crazy.

  “What’s that noise?” he asked.

  As if a lever had been pulled, Isaac now heard it, too.

  A thrumming sound. Deep, vibrating the air, coming from all directions at once and growing in volume. It was like the land beneath their feet had turned into a giant piece of metal and someone had struck it like a gong. Isaac could feel the trembling in his feet, in his ears, in his bones. He and the others were like children looking for a lost pet, slowly spinning to look in all directions for the source, stumbling into each other, asking the same questions.

  What the hell was that noise?

  In a matter of seconds, without any one individual pointing it out, they all naturally turned toward the east, from where it had become obvious the noise was coming. Shadows blotched the dusky, overcast sky, but these were no clouds. At least a dozen dark shapes hovered above the horizon as if by magic, flying toward the bridge from the distant mountains. Although they appeared small at first, almost unmoving, they were growing in size and obviously flying in low.

  Isaac knew it wasn’t magic. He’d been taught his history. He knew of such things, machines defying gravity—balloons, planes, helicopters, bergs, spacecraft. But never would he have guessed as a child that someday he might see one, himself. Or a dozen, as he saw now, of varying sizes. Most were wide, round, metallic, maybe the size of two or three yurts back home smashed together. A couple of them were much larger than the others.

  “Minho?” Old Man Frypan asked. “Timon? Either one of you know anything about this?”

  The cacophonous noise had grown, gradually until it seemed like it had been there all along, the roar of the river times a thousand. The machines were almost on them, impossible slabs of metal shooting through the sky. Isaac, in a sudden and inexplicable fit of bravery, ran up to the man named Minho and grabbed him by the shoulder, forced him to turn and face him.

  “What are they?’ Isaac yelled. “What’s happening?”

  Minho met his eyes, stunned, lost. He didn’t answer the question but he did respond, saying the same thing twice, barely loud enough to be heard.

  “They knew all along. They knew all along.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Machines of the Earth

  They hadn’t seen the real sun even though it had risen hours ago—and the fake one barely gave any light at the moment. She sat on a chair and her pilgrims sat on the ground, their heads bowed. Above them, the great stone ceiling of the cavern hung like heavy clouds—but never moving, always thick and dark, always reminding you that a single crack of nature and the world might come tumbling down and crush you.

  “Have you seen enough?” she asked, her voice sharply echoing amongst the remnants of the Maze despite how quietly she’d spoken. All around them, monoliths of broken rock and pillars of shattered cement lay scattered like the building blocks of a huge child. Her newest servants—as devout as the Evolutionary Guard—had barely been able to keep their eyes inside their sockets with all the gaping they’d done during the walk to the Glade of old.

  Whispers of “Yes, Goddess” and “Yes, oh Holy One” skittered through the air like the ragged footsteps of mice. Even Mannus, her horned friend who was so vital to the upcoming days’ plans, tried to act the part, although he tossed a quick roll of the eyes when possible.

  Before them, directly at her back, lay the wide-open Box, its rusted metal doors slid into the recessions hidden under the stone floor. The revealed hole was dark and deep, not showing the slightest hint of what lay below. It didn’t matter. Every person on the ground at her feet knew that it was the greatest of blasphemies to open the Box. They had been taught their entire lives that it was to be sealed forever.

  “Do you believe me?” she asked, even quieter this time.

  The same whispers of affirmation cut across the vastness of the cavern.

  She had them. Simply allowing the pilgrims to see the ruins of the Maze would’ve been enough to buy their eternal loyalty, to take her every word as scripture, her every command as law. They would do anything she asked, without exception. And one day, although they didn’t know it, she was committed to rewarding them with the closest thing to life eternal that mere mortals would ever know again.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  She almost jerked her body, almost gasped. Almost. But she didn’t.

  It was Nicholas, First of the Three, Second to None. Or, as she liked to think of him, the Ugliest and Dumbest of Them All. She wondered if he knew that he had less than three days to live?

  He had surprised her—but that didn’t mean she wasn’t prepared. She was always prepared.

  She turned her body in the chair, saw him standing on the other side of the dark chasm of the Box. “Thank you for joining us,” she said.

  “Joining you?” he barked. “What . . . Who are these people? What’s going on?” He could only show so much anger, only reveal so much truth with actual pilgrims in his presence. She knew that deep down he was already planning a brutal confrontation once they were both in private.

  “You’ve made your decisions,” she said calmly, counting through the digits in her mind even as she spoke. “You’ve made your exceptions to the things we’ve preached for decades. I accept those, as I ask you to accept mine. Do you agree?”

  She hoped the odd, slightly awkward line of questioning would throw him off. She could see the effort he made to maintain his composure, relying on the Flaring discipline as much as she.

  “Just . . . explain,” he said.

  She was happy to. “I’ve decided to bring several pilgrims under my direct control, to show them things that no one else can see. They’ll be able to testify, to preach, to quell the rising curiosity of the other followers in the city. Since you opened the Box, I need to have them, to help me move in the direction you’re planning for.”

  There it is, she thought. If he didn’t deny it, openly, right now, the pilgrims would know for certain that Nicholas had been responsible. He’d given her a bonus. His annoyance might as well have been written on his face with charcoal.

  But he did his best to recover. With hands clasped behind him, he walked along the edge of the Box until he’d reached her, where she still sat, now facing her new devotees. She didn’t rise to greet him, nor did she bow her head, and this upset him—to do such a thing with pilgrims present. But now those pilgrims would see that in her own mind, and therefore in their own, collectively, she was already their new God.

  Nicholas addressed them. “I’m . . . humbled that all of you would be here, to see the magnificence of the Maze, where all things began. Although I wish Alexandra had given me warning, I accept your pilgrimage. Your God is pleased. Before you decide to spread the word, I ask for time. The Godhead must discuss these things and come up with the best plan. Do you understand?”

  He directed this last question at Alexandra, who merely looked at him and nodded.

  Nicholas then did what he used to do all the time, once upon an age. He stepped through the small crowd of followers and touched them, lightly, once on the forehead, once on the nose, once on the chin. He told each pilgrim in turn that he loved them, and that someday soon the Evolution would accept them all into its graces. Then he left, not meeting Alexandra’s eyes even once since she’d nodded.

  I’ve got you, she thought. After thirty years, I’ve finally got you. Maybe she’d have them cut off an ear or two and turn them into holy relics. Hell, maybe she wouldn’t stop there.

  Alexandra was having too much fun. But she knew, somewhere on the periphery of her consciousness, that all of this was to hide a pain that had been trying to break through, break out, crack the surface for a long time. A pain she hadn’t thought of for many years. Why, now, did it come to her? For the thousand thousandth time in her life, she pushed it back into the darkness.

  Then she stood up and spread her arms to the sides.

  “Pilgrims, arise.”

  The airships hovered above them, at least a dozen of the things, the hum of their engines vibrating Isaac’s skull, the blue flames that kept them afloat unlike any fire he’d ever seen. Air swirled in great pockets, blowing his hair and clothes one way and then blowing them another. He still stood next to Minho, who merely looked up at the flying machines with something like dread. Isaac figured this wasn’t a good place to be, but that to run at this point would be as fruitless as using a towel while still in the ocean.

  Nearby, his friends huddled in small groups—Trish, Sadina, and her mom; Dominic, Miyoko, and Jackie; Alvarez and Wilhelm; Carson and Lacey. Old Man Frypan stood apart and alone, his face unreadable as he peered up at their heavenly visitors.