Sadina tucked The Book of Newt into her satchel. “We don’t need weapons.”

  As if her very words triggered the entire changing of the world, the skies darkened. Above them, approaching from the wooded horizon inland, were six Bergs. Bergs! Six of them. Then the sound caught up, shaking the air and the land, rocking the boat. It had all happened so fast.

  “What’s happening?!” Miyoko shouted, directed at Minho, dropping the palm mats she’d been defying orders to bring.

  “Shit!” was the Orphan’s reply. He grabbed his armory bag. “Orange!” He motioned something to his longtime companion, a sign language that Sadina didn’t understand.

  “Do you know who that is, son?” Roxy asked. “Last time we saw those things, it wasn’t good.”

  “Not sure.” But Sadina saw a watery look in his eyes that worried her. Something like fear, so unusual for him. “It’s not good, you’re right. Reminds me way too much of the Remnant Nation’s war formation. Everyone grab a weapon.”

  Of all the things running through Sadina's head lately, war was not one of them. The island where they’d grown up was so peaceful and dedicated to generational growth that war wasn’t even in their sphere of thinking. What would Old Man Frypan say if he were here? Probably something like, nothing good ever happens in Alaska.

  “Here.” Minho handed Dominic a small knife no bigger than the ones he’d been scaling fish with. “Don’t be scared. Maybe they’ll fly right over us. Or even better, seems like they’re heading north, not right at us.”

  The boy shrugged, trying to hide the tremble in his shoulders. “How’d you know I’m scared . . .”

  “Just a wild guess,” Minho responded, and then he handed a small gun to Sadina. She knew absolutely nothing about how to use it.

  “I don’t want it.” She tried to give it back to him, but he pushed it against her.

  “Armory is an extension of your arms,” he insisted, placing the gun in her right hand and showing her how to hold it correctly. “Respect. Control. You can handle it.” She looked over at Dominic with his knife and wished she had that, instead. But Dom never had control, likely would shoot his foot off.

  Sadina met eyes with Trish, and Trish nodded as if she could hear what Sadina was thinking. “Wait.” Sadina tried one more time to give the gun back to Minho. “You’ll be with us, you can protect us. I don’t wanna kill anybody!”

  “I can only use one weapon at a time,” Minho said. “Everyone listen up. We’re going to make a pack-run for the woods and go as far in as we can and then slightly north once we’re under cover. Keep quiet and keep alert. I don’t think the Bergs will spot us or care about us. Not yet, anyway.”

  Sadina didn’t know what that meant, exactly. She put the gun in her back pocket but it felt like it was weighing her down in more ways than one. She wished Minho could’ve said something a little more encouraging like, don’t worry everything will be okay. Her mom would have if she were there. But Sadina was never more aware of the danger all around. “Trish,” she reached for her hand as they left the ship. “You okay?”

  Six more Bergs whipped past them overhead, a little closer this time. Miyoko covered her ears and asked, “How many of those things are there?”

  “That makes twelve,” Roxy said as she strapped a long gun across her chest and a knife around her waist.

  “Are you okay?” Sadina whispered to Trish again.

  “I don’t know what to think . . .” Trish watched in fascination as the Bergs flew farther north. “But wherever you go, I’ll go.” She clasped her fingers around Sadina’s and held them tight. Sadina was thankful to feel something other than fear in that moment, and she squeezed back just as hard. She whispered her response into Trish’s ear.

  “Wherever you are, I’ll be.”

  Bergs. Lots of Bergs.

  Six of them. They appeared as suddenly as a stroke.

  Dizzy from the spectacular, horrifying sight, she almost had to grab on to Flint for balance. The sound of the flying machines was like anger from the ancient gods, displayed with thunder and lightning. Her ears ached from it, the noise much worse than the maddening tone that had inflicted her of late. Perhaps it had been a warning all along. But what good was a premonition if she could do nothing to stop it?

  Six more Bergs appeared. Twelve!

  Her vision flashed red.

  Just as the monsters of metal, exhaling blue fire like dragons of ancient lore, spread out in the sky above, the people of New Petersburg dispersed through the streets in a mad panic. As if her body had taken charge, taken over her troubled mind, Alexandra abruptly realized that she, too, was already running for cover, her Evolutionary Guard and Flint right beside her.

  Her feet pounded the ground like never before.

  A wild, foreign feeling of fear rushed through her.

  She turned to her Evolutionary Guard and shouted over the Bergs above, “We have to get back to the—”

  One of the Guards dropped to his knees.

  “Get up!” They had to get away from the city. A mild grunt escaped the Guard’s lungs as he collapsed fully onto his stomach. An arrow stuck out from his back.

  “Goddess!” Another one of the Guards pulled at her, but she looked up, tracing the arc of the arrow. A Berg, as loud and bright as the sun, hovered above them; Alexandra swore she could see a child holding a bow. A child? Is that all it took to kill her strongest Guard? Panic filled her like an aurora in the night sky.

  The remainder of the Guard yanked her into a building to escape the crossfire, then pushed her through the empty bakery, all of them running to nowhere. But the Berg was targeting the Goddess with more than just arrows.

  Explosives. Bombs.

  Walls crumbled around them, the world becoming dust and noise, cracks of cement and the warping of metal. And death. Several Guards crushed.

  She knew nothing of wars. For years she’d played nice with Nicholas and Mikhail so that tensions never escalated. As she scrambled to avoid the falling debris, choking on the dust, it hit her like its own explosion.

  Mikhail.

  Somehow, in his Crank-riddled mind, he’d been able to orchestrate this.

  Two Guards pushed Alexandra out the back exit. She coughed and gasped for air as they emerged into a city full of flames and destruction. She pulled her cloak tight around her as if it had magical powers of protection.

  “Get me to—” But when she turned around it was only Flint behind her.

  “They—they . . . ,” Flint stuttered.

  “Nevermind! Come on!” She ran, and Flint followed. She tore through the south streets, farther from the child army and farther from the Bergs. She zigzagged and dodged things falling from the sky, cinched her hood around her face so that no one could see it was her—their Goddess—running away from her people. Gunfire rang in every direction. She considered fleeing to the ruins of the Maze, but if she fled below ground it would surely be her burial site.

  And so, she ran.

  She ran, Flint beside her, weaving between the Pilgrims who chose to stand their ground like maniacs and fight for their land, and between the bodies on the ground that lay already dead. She jumped over a woman on the street, eyes glazed over, who she’d seen earlier shouting for justice. Flaring justice, flaring justice.

  The Flare be damned.

  The Evolution be damned.

  Mikhail be damned.

  She saw a black cloak that just for a moment made her think Nicholas had returned from the grave with the armies of the dead, seeking revenge.

  Mannus.

  He turned to her with the dead stare of a man crippled by terror. He was alive, but his mind seemed on the edge of flight, the escape of madness. And then she remembered.

  The boat.

  Docked along a southern port from when they’d returned from the Villa.

  “Flint, there’s a—” Alexandra stopped at the sight of her faithful servant’s expression, crooked with pain. They locked eyes for just a moment before he gave her an apologetic look and fell. His knees hit the ground, a single red arrow jutting from his neck.

  Flint.

  All these years, she could never even be bothered to use his real name. His dying eyes searched her face and the greatest shame she’d ever known washed through her every cell.

  “I’m sorry . . . ,” she mouthed to him. And then he was gone.

  The only thing remaining in all the world was for her to run.

  Goddess Alexandra Romanov ran.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Dispensing Disbelief

  Endless training.

  Constant threats.

  Everything the Orphan experienced in his life had led to this moment, a war that he’d doubted at times would actually happen. But the bullets firing off in the distance convinced him it was real. Would the Godhead even survive an attack like this? No ragtag Alaskan army of Pilgrims could ever be a match for the Orphan Army. Minho continued to lead the group inland, through forest, over hill and rockslide. Far enough to be safe, far enough from the attack until things calmed down.

  “How long does something like this last, anyway?” Miyoko asked while looking through the binoculars. Minho knew she wouldn’t be able to see anything. The tree cover was too thick.

  “From the history books, wars can last months . . . years . . . decades,” Roxy said. Minho would have to to ask for one of her grandpa’s war stories later, but for now he wanted silence. He needed to hear what was happening in the distance.

  Orange took her binoculars back from Miyoko. “It won’t last longer than a day. This skirmish will be over by sunset or tomorrow’s sunrise.”

  Minho had to agree with her, especially from what he’d heard about the people in this city of Gods. Lacking weaponry and its people unskilled in the ones they had.

  Dominic held up his knife like a candle. “I just want to point out that I was the only one who voted to go home.”

  “What’s going to happen . . . ,” Sadina asked in a whisper, walking slower than the rest of them.

  Minho certainly didn’t love the answer to that question. He could only think of two possible outcomes, and figured he’d better be honest with her. “Either the Remnant Nation will take over the city of New Petersburg and kidnap the Godhead or the Remnant Nation will take over and the Godhead will be dead.”

  The group got quiet.

  War raged on in the distance.

  Their building had as many bedrooms on the upper floors as it did safety pods on the floors below, and it didn’t take Ximena long to find the small room that had belonged to her mom. She sat down on the bed and looked out the window at the dusty sunset, wishing she could go back home and tell her Abuela about everything: Kletter dead, her mom and Mariana buried on the island of the immunes, how she couldn’t bring herself to tell Carlos until she knew more.

  Until she had a plan.

  Estar entre la espada y la pared, her Abuela would say. She was in between the devil and the deep blue sea. A rock and a hard place. Ximena wanted to run back to her village, through the desert and the littering of dead jackrabbits to her home and curl up in her favorite blanket and just mourn everything. Drink tea with her Abuela and spend time with those in the village who she had left. But that wasn’t a solution, it was what her mom would call escapism, and she knew that. The world wouldn’t get any better by people hiding under blankets.

  That was one of the few pieces of advice from her mom that still stuck in her brain. As soon as Isaac said the words out loud confirming her mom’s death, it was as if all of the precious memories had evaporated in an instant and Ximena couldn’t grab on to anything.

  Carlos appeared in the doorway. “You disappeared right quick?”

  “Yeah. I’m just tired.”

  “You’re disappointed.” He wasn’t wrong, but he didn’t know the full extent of that disappointment, and she wasn’t going to share it all just yet. She knew that once Carlos found out the truth that his grief would overwhelm him to a point of no return. It wouldn’t just be sorrow for Mariana’s death but also for the life they’d planned to have. The baby. Everything. He’d be inconsolable.

  Ximena spotted a water container on the dresser and handed it to Carlos. “For the red clover flowers you picked.” Although she knew Mariana would never see the sweet sentiment that Carlos brought for her, hope was important to Carlos.

  “Thanks. Hey,” he said excitedly, tipping the water at her like a toast. “Got the dispenser fixed.”

  She didn’t know what the dispenser was, and she didn’t care. “Good job.”

  “You coming down for dinner?” The words reminded her of her mom, finally, and she was glad for it.

  “You’re calling lunch dinner now?” she asked. “You’re working for the Villa one day and they got you changing already.” She suddenly remembered Kletter’s skeletal body and thought she’d probably never eat again.

  “Yes, at the Villa it’s called dinner and at the Villa we respect tradition.”

  Ximena gave him her best sarcastic smile. “I don’t care if it’s lunch, dinner, breakfast, supper. I’m not hungry.”

  “Okay, but don’t miss the dispensing,” he said. “I know it sounds lame, but this is history, they started working on this before you were even born.”

  Ximena nodded. She tried a more genuine smile for Carlos and his work, but she knew all too well the things that had started before she was born. Not a single one of them good.

  Ximena tried to portray excitement to Carlos when he showed her all the hard work he’d put into the hydraulic thingy, even if she didn’t have much belief in the Villa anymore. As far as she was concerned, working for the Villa was like working for the devil. La hierba mala nunca muere, Abuela would say in defense of the villagers who did just that: the devil looks after his own. But Annie Kletter was something worse. She’d failed to protect the people under her wing.

  But Carlos beamed with pride. “You’ll see. The whole Villa will see today. It’ll work, I know it will.” She’d never seen him so taken by one of his own achievements.

  She responded half-heartedly. “I’m glad you could fix it, if it means there’s hope for the future.”

  “This isn’t just hope for the future, Ximena, if this works—it’ll fix some of the errors of the past.”

  She had no idea what he meant. As they left and walked into the main lab, she saw another young girl her own age, with Professor Morgan. It shocked her so much she almost stumbled. Ximena felt an instant connection to this human standing in front of her, merely because they were the same age. How silly, yet how remarkable a feeling.

  “Ximena, good morning,” Morgan said. “Before you do rounds in the basement, I want you to take Jackie here and put her in a safety pod down with the others. She’s healed enough that she can reunite with the group.”

  Dios mío. She was one of the immunes. “Sure,” Ximena said, and her eyes landed on Jackie’s grass-braided bracelet. Exactly like the one she’d found near the scene of Kletter’s murder. “Where’d you get that?” She checked her back pocket, half-expecting it to be gone, stolen. Still there.

  Jackie touched the bracelet on her wrist, “I made it. With my friends.”

  “Oh.” Ximena didn’t know what to think of that response. “I found one just like it. Near Annie’s body.”

  “Who?” Jackie frowned.

  Morgan didn’t seem to care about bracelets right then. “Put her in the back pod, the furthest corner. The front pod will be for the rest of us when we come down later to test.” The professor smiled. Morgan never smiled.

  “Come down later to test?” Ximena asked. She had never once in all her time at the Villa seen any of the lab techs go into a safety pod. They had people like her go in and out with cots and amenities, cleaning, whatever was needed. It was as if the scientists themselves were afraid of the pods. “What do you mean? The lab techs, too?”

  “All of us.” Carlos was practically skipping. “To watch the hydraulics in action.”

  He was way too excited about whatever was about to happen. It made Ximena nervous. She looked behind her shoulder at the others in the lab, all of them shuffling around, busy busy. They had a buzz about them. ¿Qué estaba pasando?

  “Just come with me,” Ximena said to Jackie, then led her down the hallway and then the stairwell. With every step Ximena took, her stomach tightened. Something bad was going to happen. Maybe it was because she had never before seen a kid her age, here, or because the lab techs and Carlos were losing their monkey minds about this test they were going to do. Even as they reached the last step to the basement, she couldn’t let the feeling go. She pulled Jackie into a corner.

  “What are you doing?” Jackie asked.

  “Shh. There aren’t any cameras in this spot.” Ximena pointed to the rounded safety viewers in other places. Safety pods, safety viewers, everything was meant to make guests feel safe—but Ximena knew it was the exact opposite. Everything inside the Villa was a risk. The scientists simply tried to minimize the casualties involved. “I need you to be honest with me.”

  “Okay,” Jackie whispered, then shrugged. The immunes were too trusting. Too weak. Too kind.

  “Annie—” Ximena corrected herself, “Kletter. Who killed her?”

  “Oh, um . . .” Jackie smacked her head in a funny way, as if they hadn’t just met. “I can’t think of their names. The gentle giant and the weird lady with him. They kidnapped Isaac and Sadina and cut Kletter’s throat. It was horrible.”

  Her story matched the others, and she certainly didn’t seem the murdering type. But there was something else Ximena wanted to know. “And what about the crew on the ship with Kletter?” She’d only gotten so much out of the other immunes: That her mom didn’t suffer, that they buried her on a plot of land with honor, but she needed to know more—like why Annie killed eight people, and how.

  “Oh, that Kletter friend of yours was something else. Gave that whole crew a sleeping drug and then shot them in the head. Right in the center.” Jackie tapped her forehead.