“Here we are.” Carlos pointed ahead to a building with columns in front, but it didn’t look like what Ximena remembered. The Villa seemed so much bigger, and scarier, when she’d been little. The mansion in front of her looked worn down and weak. Concrete crumbled on the steps leading up to the front door. She headed that way.

  Carlos grabbed her arm and stopped her. “Not that door.”

  “Why?” Ximena waited for Carlos to point to another entrance but instead he just looked into the trees to the left and the right. He wouldn’t let go of her arm. “What?” she asked again. Carlos pulled her by the wrist to the side of the Villa. Her foot slipped on the knotted roots of a dried-up bush. “¿Qué diablos?” She looked at Carlos for an explanation.

  “They have security,” he said in a whisper.

  “In the trees?” She watched as he scanned the whole property with his eyes, keeping his body tight against the Villa. He couldn’t tell her about this on their long journey? It would have only confirmed her doubts about the trustworthiness of Annie and the Villa, and Carlos probably hadn’t wanted to hear miles and miles of Ximena’s questions. “What’s going on? You’re acting like they’ll shoot us for trespassing.”

  Carlos didn’t say anything, which told Ximena everything.

  He waved her to follow behind him along a thin path in between more dried bushes. Ximena took the knife she’d taken from Annie and lifted it out of its leather sleeve. “But you worked here, too. Isn’t there some sort of password you can give them?”

  “It’s more of a process than a password.” He carefully stepped closer to the back of the building. “I don’t know if they still have traps, so we have to—”

  “Traps?” Traps were for animals, not people.

  Carlos turned to her. “The work they do here is very important, Ximena. It needs to be protected.”

  She sighed. She’d heard her whole life about how important the work at the Villa was, but she had yet to see the impact of that importance. She only saw the ways it affected her own village negatively. She matched Carlos’ steps as best she could until they turned the corner of the house and reached a door painted all black. The paint was chunky as if someone had painted over it in layers. Sloppy. If this was a sign of the work the Villa did on the inside, then her thoughts about the Villa would stay unchanged. Carlos knocked once, hard. The crack of sound echoed around them as if the door was made of metal. Why did the Villa have metal doors?

  Carlos rocked back and forth. He only did that when nervous. “Think they already know about Annie?” he whispered as if someone might hear him through the steel door.

  “No. If they did, she wouldn’t still be there. They wouldn’t have left her there, not like that.” Ximena steadied herself as the door opened. To her surprise, someone from their village was on the other side. Ximena recognized her features, but couldn’t remember her name. “Diena?” she guessed.

  “Danita,” the woman said without any warmth. She eyed the two of them up and down.

  “Hola, ¿Podemos . . . podemos entrar?” Carlos asked, but Danita shook her head.

  “Tenemos que hablar con la profesora Morgan ahora.” Ximena insisted they speak to Professor Morgan, but Danita started to close the heavy black door. Ximena stopped her with the same hand that held Annie’s knife. “Annie Kletter, Ellas están muertas.”

  Danita paused. “¿Ella esta muerta?”

  Ximena nodded.

  “Podemos entrar?” Carlos asked again motioning to the door.

  It had been years since Ximena had seen the inside of the Villa. Danita led them through the lower rooms to the main floor without a word. Ximena would have expected questions about the village and her family back home, but Danita seemed only focused on the task at hand—finding Morgan. Carlos held his bouquet of red clover as if he might see his wife at any moment, but Ximena wasn’t even looking at the faces of workers and scientists around her. She was too busy examining the machines and instruments that changed room by room. The Villa had grown in its capabilities, greatly, since she’d been here last.

  They reached the main floor and Danita turned to them, “Wait here.”

  Carlos nodded. Ximena’s memories of the Villa came to life when she looked over at the glass-cased room built within the lab floor. A room she knew well. It was the one they’d built for her after her mother insisted Ximena be on the same floor of the lab as she worked, not below with the rest of the subjects. She started to walk over to the glass box but Carlos grabbed her wrist again. He motioned with his eyes to the two men inside. Ximena hadn’t noticed them before.

  Two men, one old and one young, sat with their knees folded into their chests. They looked tired, haggard. Or maybe it was defeat. She remembered well how the glass box they called a ‘safety pod’ made her feel the exact opposite.

  The young man stood and made eye contact with Ximena.

  She quickly looked away.

  “Carlos, Ximena, what is this news about Kletter?” Professor Morgan walked in from the hallway, and just hearing her voice made Ximena shiver. Morgan’s hair was just as blonde as Ximena remembered and her hands just as boney.

  “We found her body, about two miles from here, south. In the narrows.” Carlos put his backpack down but still clutched the red clover. “Can you let Mariana know I’m here?”

  “Mariana was with Kletter.” Morgan said it without emotion, but Carlos acted like he hadn’t heard, still holding the bouquet of weeds as if his wife would be there soon. “She took a research group with her to find the descendants of the Immune. You should know this.”

  Descendants of the Immune? No, her mother would have told her if that’s where she was going. “Where’s my mom?” She realized Annie’s knife was still in her hand and she gripped it tighter.

  Morgan carefully approached Ximena and helped her put the blade back into its sheath. She hated that her mind and body still followed directions from Morgan so easily. It had been years, but just like that—Morgan had disarmed her. “Your mom was with Mariana and Kletter.”

  “But we found Annie. Mom and Mariana weren’t there.” Ximena realized they hadn’t checked inside the haunted house. They should have. Why didn’t she? She looked at Carlos, “We didn’t go inside that house.”

  “They wouldn’t stay there.” But that wasn’t what Ximena meant. What she was trying to say was, they should have looked inside the house for more dead bodies.

  “Well, they’ll turn up,” Morgan said, as if Ximena’s mom and Mariana were just a pair of lost dogs who wandered from the pack. “We have four of the group they found here, from the island.” She motioned with her eyes to the two men inside the glass room.

  “Those are the immunes?” She looked back at the room. Both of the strangers were dirty, sickly. Something wasn’t right. “If my mom and Mariana went looking for them, with Annie, then how are they here and Annie’s dead? My mom wouldn’t have left a mission.” Professor Morgan didn’t respond. Ximena turned to ask the two men herself, but Carlos stopped her again.

  “Ximena.” His sharp tone reminded her of Abuela letting her know when she was out of bounds. But why weren’t they as worried as she was?

  Morgan finally spoke, quietly. “They told us that Kletter was coming, right behind them.” She stepped closer to Ximena and Carlos. “Was she dead long?”

  Ximena nodded. She had never seen a body so decomposed. Being out in the open certainly hadn’t helped.

  “How long do you estimate?” Morgan turned to Carlos as if he knew, but he hadn’t seen any more dead bodies in his life than Ximena—and he’d barely glanced at Annie’s. He wasn’t an elder who conducted burials, had no measure of decomposition. He was just a man looking for his wife, holding a bouquet of weeds and too much hope.

  Ximena took it on herself to guess. “The flesh was liquified. Bones.” She was no longer a child to be set aside in a glass box.

  Morgan nodded slowly, only once. An up-and-down motion that somehow made Ximena feel heard. Respected. “They know more than they’ve told us. We need to question them carefully.” She motioned to the lab techs in the background. Danita walked back over.

  “I’ll help,” Ximena said before thinking. Morgan looked impressed, perhaps seeing potential. But it wasn’t about that—Ximena needed to know what these men who’d traveled with Annie knew. She needed to find her mom.

  “Join us, then,” Professor Morgan said. “Danita, open the door.”

  PART FOUR

  The Limits of Paradox

  Are the thoughts that run through my head, again and again and again, the most important or the most meaningless? The less I think about something, the more thoughts and images seem to come along. Even in the darkness of my mind, I see them. I hear them. I feel them.

  Where are they coming from?

  —The Book of Newt

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Flare Above

  She paced back and forth on her balcony, squeezing the cup of tea to keep her hands from shaking. For the first time in her life, she’d had a dream that was so visceral, so real to life, that it caused her to feel genuine fear. The cold Alaskan night air dried the sweat from her face. She had no doubt in her mind, now. Soon she’d be welcomed into complete madness.

  She recited the digits, but she couldn’t empty herself of the dark, lingering feelings of the dream. She remembered every moment, as if it had imprinted itself deep within her cells: hunted down by a metal machine, fire falling from the sky, arrows plunging into bodies.

  Alexandra took a sip of tea.

  It’s not fire, it’s just the northern lights that have returned, she told herself as she looked out to the sky. But even she couldn’t ignore the red parts of the Aurora Borealis that had grown in strength over the last few days. Red was not a calming color. It was not a color of Evolution, it was a color of danger. The color of fire. Of War. Get it together, Alex.

  The Flaring Discipline be damned, the last thing she needed was going mad like Mikhail with his constant talk of dreams and visions. Nicholas did this to her. He must have known she’d try to take over and poisoned her so that she’d slowly go crazy. That must be it? She set down the tea and pushed it away from her along with the Crank-headed thoughts. No, she thought, that’s just the madness talking.

  Paranoia and fear can turn a person inside out.

  That was it. It was simply the paranoia from earlier, the Pilgrim shouting in the streets of Alexandra’s guilt. She heard it, Flint heard it, everyone heard it. The war she’d dreamed of was just a war within herself—her subconscious mind alerting her conscious mind of the arrows pointed her way. She needed a plan to calm the situation. She looked down at her tea. She smiled to herself. What calmed her would calm the entire situation.

  She knew exactly how to put out the flames of paranoia and accusations.

  She grabbed her mustard-yellow cloak and what else she needed from the apartment, then left, headed to the Guardroom.

  Alexandra went through the digits as she walked between bushes and brush in the midnight Alaskan air, timing them with her steps. The sky above helped to illuminate the very plant she was looking for: bog rosemary. It grew from the ground with spiky arms to the heavens. Some of the herbs produced flowers, but despite their bog-ridden beauty, she needed only the leaves. After finding it, she snapped off several arms of the plant until she had more than enough rosemary needles, and shoved them into the depths of her cloak.

  She walked quickly back toward the Guardroom as she developed her plan. Would her entry be smoother with a disguise? No. The Evolutionary Guard had been on heightened alert since Nicholas’ death. She’d need to enter the Guardroom as the Godhead she was and quell any suspicions for her late night visit.

  “1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 . . .” She whispered without thinking. The digits were more than just nature’s favorite numbers—they constituted the golden ratio, the spiral that held the start and the end of every single life cycle within them. Trees grew their branches to the specs of the digits. Flowers bloomed seeds to the spiral of the ratio. And Alexandra would help the world evolve to its purest sequence, just as nature intended.

  Nature was the great equalizer.

  In a matter of hours, she’d address the Pilgrims and all those in New Petersburg with her announcement: the official start of the Evolution. Never mind her own evolution or whatever the fear growing inside her should be called; she couldn’t give it a name other than what it was: Madness. She’d push this nightmare aside and speak to the people in the morning. Delivering hope and solutions to the Pilgrims would be the easy part; they worshiped her and feared the Flare. Convincing the Villa to get the first round of the Cure dispensed, on the other hand, would take some creativity. She’d worry about that later. One plan at a time.

  As she approached the Guardroom—the building in town that most resembled the Maze—she waved at two Evolutionary Guards. Not unlike the Maze, this place held its own kind of prisoners.

  “Goddess, are you okay?” They rushed to her side. It pleased her to know she still had their loyalty despite the crazed rumors of the Godhead killing their own.

  “I had a terrible nightmare and needed to come before morning. The woman who shouted from the streets about Nicholas’ murder? I need to see her.” Before she’d even finished, the Guards ushered her inside the heavily fortified walls of the building. They were all too eager to appease her.

  “She’s in the back,” one of the guards said.

  The musty air of the Guardroom choked Alexandra. She coughed and coughed. Mold. These older buildings were filled with it. “Is it possible to get some hot water?” She cleared her throat from the thick air that the Guards were probably used to.

  “Of course.” One of them led her back while the other went for the water. Alexandra thanked them and followed the Guard through the intricate paths of crumbling arches. She tried to hide her disgust at the state of the Guardroom. It smelled like a warm toilet. Cobwebs gently swayed back and forth in single strands as she walked under them. She wouldn’t be staying long, but she hated that she had to come at all.

  “Here you are.” The Guard motioned to a woman behind bars, sleeping on a filthy floor.

  Alexandra nodded, putting on her best face of grief and desperation. She held her hand over her heart as she studied the woman’s sleeping face. The poor wretch had thought it blasphemy to play out the betrayal of Nicholas at such a holy time, but there’d never been a more fitting time for betrayal. Alexandra woke up the woman with slow, loud claps for her abysmal performance in town. Startled, she snapped to attention and shuffled to the back of her cell.

  She had no pillow, no bed, no pot to piss in.

  “Wha—what are you doing here?” The Pilgrim’s empty hands reached below her.

  “I just wanted to applaud your performance. You’ve got the town in quite a stir over the Godhead turning on their own.”

  “I—I didn’t mention you or Mannus,” the woman whispered, trembling from head to toe.

  Alexandra met her absurdity with silence. She would remind the Pilgrim of what it meant to be devout. To have faith. Honor. After a full, uncomfortable minute, Alexandra spoke. “I think it’s terribly unfair that they put you in here for seeking justice in Nicholas’ murder.” The Evolutionary Guard arrived with her hot water. She nodded for him to leave her alone with the prisoner.

  “What do you really want?” the unfaithful Pilgrim asked, barely lifting her head.

  Alexandra mixed the bog rosemary into the water for tea. She stirred it and stirred it until the smell of rosemary needles intoxicated the air. The prisoner’s eyes widened when instead of sipping the brew, the Goddess offered it to the Pilgrim. “I want you to return to your faith. That is all.” The woman hesitated to take it but Alexandra insisted. “A Goddess is nothing without her people, and you are special to me even if you feel your purpose has been overlooked.”

  She accepted the cup. “Thank you. They’ve given me nothing all day.” She sipped the bog rosemary tea. “The air in here is very musty.”

  “Dreadful. That will soothe your soul.” Alexa watched as the Pilgrim drank the tea a few sips at a time. She told her the story of the Maze Trials, one she knew by heart. A story of faith and deceit. The Goddess recited all of her favorite parts loud enough for the Evolutionary Guards to hear, and when she was done, she left the Pilgrim and the Guards warmly.

  There would be no uprising. No rogue Pilgrim. Not today.

  Because within six hours, the bog rosemary would release its andromedotoxin to its fullest effect. The Pilgrim would start to have watery eyes and a runny nose that slowly turned into low blood pressure and vomiting, eventually progressing to convulsions and paralysis. By the time Alexandra addressed the town tomorrow at noon, the woman’s physical body would appear as crazy as her mind. Spasms. Slurring. If the woman’s tongue worked enough to form any words at all, no one would believe a single thing she said.

  The Berg half-crashed, half-landed in a space well hidden by tree cover, smoke pouring out the back end. Colors spoke to him and sounds took shape as he floated in and out of consciousness. His fever raged. Maybe that little bugger did stab him closer to the kidneys than he’d thought. Everything around Mikhail moved in slow motion. He watched six Bergs fly overhead in war-formation, and the vapor trails spinning out behind them formed into letters, then into words, but in a language that he couldn’t read. And then the vapors from the Bergs turned into colors, and the colors hardened into the Alaskan night sky with the colorful Aurora Borealis.

  Madness.

  Mikhail laid back in the captain’s seat. He knew better than to close his eyes with so many physical woes, but he couldn’t trust his sight and he could only think of visiting the Infinite Glade. Maybe this time would be the last time.