This is hallowed ground, you know, she thought to herself. The Maze. Where he lived. And where she lived. And oh, where old what’s-her-bucket lived and where old what’s-his-hatchet died a gruesome death. And the whole thing collapsed in a magnanimous display of bravery and sacrifice and honor and some other bullpucky, as her grammy would’ve said.

  Alexandra let out a snort of derision, hopefully echoing to every curved corner of the gigantic cavern. She could only maintain her reverence for so long, and the expectation to perpetuate the charade around the other members of the Godhead pissed her off to no end. She loved—absolutely cherished—her Evolutionary ascension and role in this movement, and totally agreed with the direction they’d taken over the decades. She just wished people would lighten the hell up every now and then. She was no Athena. Mikhail was no Hercules. And . . . and . . . He was sure as shit no damned Zeus.

  Well, she thought, I should’ve just stayed home. I’m not in the mood for this.

  But then, she smiled. If she’d sat this one out—something she never would have done and she very well knew it—she’d be back in her rooms thinking about all the exciting things she might miss.

  So, here she was, looking at a vast field of ruins, over seven decades old. There was a distinct path through all that twisted metal and cracked stone and broken cement and strewn machinery that somehow still sparked now and then. She knew the path. Two others knew the path. One had walked its holy treads sometime during the night.

  And that pissed Alexandra off the most.

  She started walking, passing underneath an archway of cement splintered with steel rebar, poking in every which way like metal spears that felled a great antediluvian beast.

  She headed toward the Glade.

  The Orphan lay curled in bed, the blanket pulled tightly over his head despite being drenched with sweat. He didn’t want others to see his agony. His guilt. His shame.

  He’d slipped again in the cafeteria—had thought of himself as Minho, as worthy of having a name. It was a blasphemy that would crush the hearts of those who’d come before him. Those who had trained him. Those who had died, giving him the opportunity to become an Orphan in the first place. He was a wretched embarrassment to his Orphan siblings, asleep in their bunks. All around him, in dozens of beds, lined up like tanks waiting to take off for war, were people who’d, at best, spit on him if they knew, kill him at worst. Nah. Definitely kill him.

  He’d been born for this. Raised for this. Trained for this. He was an Orphan.

  An Orphan has no name. An Orphan needs no name.

  He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t lie here under his hot-as-hell blanket and sweat to death letting the weight of the entire universe weigh him down in misery. After peeking over the edge of the blanket for watchers, he swiped the scratchy wool off of his body and sat up, resting his bare feet on the cool stone floor. Elbows on knees, face resting on hands. He rubbed his eyes and forehead. What could he do? He couldn’t stand one more minute in this bed or in this barracks. He had to get out. Now.

  A pox on this.

  The Orphan stood up, grabbed some clothes out of the small trunk at the foot of his bed, and quickly dressed, trying to stay as quiet as possible. If anyone asked, he had to take a dump. Not many people would wanna tag along for that adventure.

  He made his way to the door, passing eight or nine beds on the way; a few tossers and turners gave him a look but didn’t say anything. Outside the door, a sentry simply nodded his head, half asleep as he tried to read a dusty old book. The Orphan didn’t understand why he was nervous—for one thing, he hadn’t set out to do anything against the rules. For another, what could he do? Run around naked and scare people? Their weapons were locked away when off duty, and if he so much as carried a knife he’d be banned for life or executed as an example. Nah. Definitely executed.

  And so, he relaxed. He just needed air. A break. Reset his mind and rededicate his life to the cause to which he’d been born and donated. This nonsense of calling himself Minho had to end before it got so big in his mind that he’d never be able to hide it. And not only from himself.

  The Shaftfall. Yes. That’s where he’d go. Perfect.

  Walking through the corridors of the barracks in that direction, he passed quite a few people, surprising him. The job of protecting an entire nation had no reprieve, he reckoned. It only helped to dampen his worries that others might be alarmed at his insomnia. He moseyed, he puttered, he kept to himself, enjoying the exercise, the stone, the flames of torches, the almost-friendly faces. The smell of body odor, not so much, but he’d gotten used to that years ago. He reached his destination.

  The Shaftfall was the only place in the entire sub-basement where you could look directly at the sky—albeit through a vertical tunnel of rock that measured at least two hundred meters in height. It was part of a vast ventilation system that ensured people like the Orphan could breathe in and breathe out. At the moment, water fell from far above, a steady sprinkle that splashed in tiny explosions across the glistening black rock of the floor. The Orphan went to the far side, loving the sweet chill of the rain against his skin, and sat down with his back against the curved wall of the shaft. The fresh air, the drizzle, the walk—all of it had invigorated him, helped him recover from the crushing doldrums he’d felt just a half hour earlier.

  No one questioned him. No one bothered him. He closed his eyes.

  Time passed.

  A soft cry woke him from a half sleep in which he’d just begun to fade from the world. At first he thought it was the inkling of a dream, but after rubbing his eyes and letting out a brisk yawn, he heard it again. More than a cry, now. A scream of pain. A frantic shout for help. Shrieks of terror that suddenly cut off, far too abrupt to be voluntary. Then a steady, miserable sobbing.

  The Orphan’s instincts had ignited like a struck match on kerosene.

  He’d already reached a small access tunnel to his right, one of a million such openings throughout the fortress. He had to duck but that didn’t slow him down. Running at almost full speed, his ears guiding every step, turning left, turning right, going straight, whatever brought him closer to that pathetic cry for help.

  He burst through an entrance to another vertical shaft, much narrower than the one in which he’d been resting. Whimpers came from a small tunnel above his head, one level up. Without hesitating, he leaped and grabbed the bottom edge with both hands, hauled himself into the dark hole in one swift motion. A man knelt there in a pool of filth, a small, pitiful child lying prone next to him, in the worst shape the Orphan had ever seen another human so tiny. Bloody. Bruised. Beaten to the point his own mother couldn’t possibly have recognized him. And the pustule of a man had his arm raised to strike another blow.

  Anger exploded within the Orphan, a thousand fiery pounds of dynamite rage.

  He grabbed the man by his tattered shirt, lifted him off the ground, slammed him against the wall. With the ceiling low, the stranger’s head cracked against the jagged stone, a sound the Orphan knew would haunt his dreams, a sound that made his nerves sizzle. And made him happy. Holding the man’s neck with his left hand, the Orphan punched him in the face with his right. He pulled back and hit him again, with all the weight of his muscles and a hard, clenched fist. Again, then once more. Things creaked, and things crackled, and things shattered. The Orphan let go and the man collapsed in a broken heap onto the floor.

  Heaving with each and every breath, he looked down at the horrible man’s victim. The poor kid was badly beaten, but alive. Thank the Cure, alive. Their eyes met.

  The Orphan knelt in the cold, squishy refuse, readying to lift the small body. “It’ll be okay,” he said. “He’ll never hurt you again. What’s your name?” He didn’t really expect an answer—the boy was barely conscious. But the kid surprised him.

  “Kuh . . . Kuh . . . Kit.” The boy sputtered, mere grunts through the pain. “What’s . . . yours?”

  “My . . . ?” The Orphan went from surprise to shock. Downright gobsmacked. This was not something you asked an Orphan. He found it hard to speak. He couldn’t quite catch up with what his lungs demanded.

  “What’s . . . your . . . name?” the boy repeated. He was a fragile, terrible thing to look upon.

  “My . . .” Run, he thought. For some reason, he wanted to run. Away from this. From all of it.

  “Please . . .” The boy’s eyes had closed, his breathing gone shallow. “Name . . .”

  Why! Why did he want to know so badly? Why would this shattered child use his last remaining strength to ask the question that tormented his life!

  The boy coughed, cracked open his eyes. Pleading. “Name . . .”

  The Orphan looked down at him, ashamed of the spite that filled his chest, bulging up in his throat like a cancerous lump. But he finally answered the wretched kid to shut him up.

  “I don’t have one.”

  As she walked through the ruins, it was hard to envision what had once been.

  Stone, everywhere. Cement, everywhere. Broken steel, everywhere. All of it covered in the dust of decades. As is so often the case, life had figured out a way to survive—vines of ivy wormed their way through the countless holes and crevices and cracks. The only reason she could actually see any of this—instead of the eternal darkness of most caverns—was due to the Godhead’s decision to reignite the fake sun that had once shone upon the Maze. That had been a monumental task, achieved only by the greatest of efforts, a task worthy of beings who had the hubris to call themselves Gods. How ironic that the actual power came from resurrected solar panels, fed by the real sun—the first deity humans had ever worshipped.

  Still, she had mostly walked in shadows, the ruins of the Maze like a toppled forest of stone and steel, towering above her.

  The Maze.

  What a wonder of architecture and technology it had been. So many devices to deceive the eye. So many corners to turn, so many paths to the unknown. Much had changed, and much had not.

  She came upon the final stretch of immense rubble that marked the entrance to the Glade. Great, moving walls had once stood here, now reduced to broken blocks of ruin. Just beyond it, a vast expanse of emptiness waited for her. She stopped in the darkest shadow she could find, in sight of the Glade, and looked for Mikhail. It didn’t take long to spot him because he was exactly in the spot she’d feared.

  Kneeling, head lowered, hands clasped. Kneeling at the edge of what had once been known as the Box, for obvious reasons. Flat metal doors, even with the ground, could be slid open to reveal a large steel cube beneath the surface. It had once been a lift of sorts, but had frozen forever in place from rust and grime and warping of parts. The horizontal doors still functioned, albeit by manual labor, due to many repairs and a lot of grease. Those doors were—at least for the moment—closed. There were things in that Box that should not be . . . unleashed. There were secrets that should not be shared. Alexandra had hoped—and planned—on living the rest of her life without those doors ever being opened again. She would’ve been perfectly happy never seeing them again.

  And yet here she was. Here, Mikhail was. Kneeling in reverence.

  The fear she’d felt earlier struck her again, right in the heart, like a hammer on hot flesh.

  She steadied herself. This wasn’t like her. She was a member of the Godhead, second only to one being in their known world. She’d completely mastered the Flaring discipline, and it shamed her that she’d let herself get in such a state. Quickly going through the mathematical digits and the breathing exercises, she calmed every part of her body and mind. Mikhail was beneath her in the hierarchy.

  Alexandra became herself again.

  She left the shadows of the rubble and walked briskly into the openness of the Glade, heading in a straight and confident line toward Mikhail and the Box. The weak light of the false sun lit the way.

  “Mikhail!” she shouted, manipulating her voice with command even though it would have no effect on her counterpart. “What could possibly be going through your head? Coming here? Without even telling me? Stop acting like a damn nun and get off your knees!” She didn’t slow down as she spoke, marching as if into battle.

  Mikhail didn’t move in the slightest, his training too strong to react to her provocation.

  She finally reached him, came to a stop just a few feet away from his prone body.

  “Mikhail,” she said, on the brink of striking the man, hard. “You need to tell me what’s going on. Please tell me you didn’t have another vision. Please tell me you’re not here to open that Box and start a process we have no need to start. Something we won’t be able to stop.”

  Mikhail still didn’t respond—didn’t show the smallest sign he’d heard her. He was a tall man, bulky with muscle despite his age. His gray hair was slicked back, mostly full, but she could see the beginnings of a bald spot right at the crown. He had a smell that she couldn’t explain, and even now it assaulted her senses. If the decaying of a soul had a scent, Mikhail exuded it in spades. She’d never been able to put her finger on it exactly, but she just really didn’t like this man.

  “Mikhail,” she said. “Mikhail!”

  “Alexandra.” He spoke so softly, with so much control. “I’m glad that you came. Please. Join me in prayer. Things are about to happen. I’ve had another vision of the ship, floating upon the ocean, heading here. It brings change and death.”

  She couldn’t take her eyes off of his sprouting bald spot. “Mikhail, it’s just me. There’s no one else here. Stop the charade. I’m here and willing to talk. Willing to listen. Visions, prayers, gods and demons, whatever you want. But we need to step away from the Box. We need to be many, many steps away from the Box. Deal?”

  He let out a sigh, the most condescending of sounds she could imagine. Then he relaxed his hands from their clasp of prayer, let them fall to his side. His head rose to stare straight ahead. Finally, testing her patience—a patience developed by decades of painful practice—he slowly turned toward her and let his gaze find hers.

  “We can talk,” he said. “But I want to promise you something.”

  “And what is that, exactly?”

  He got to his feet, so that now she had to look up at him. Up at his face, an angular stack of brows and cheekbones and jaws, his skull far more prominent than seemed natural.

  She let out her own sigh. “What, Mikhail? Seriously. What’s going on?”

  “This is my promise,” he replied. “After we talk, and I tell you what I’ve learned, you’ll agree with me that we need to open the Box.”

  “Mikhail, enough riddles. Just tell me what the hell is going on.”

  He pointed at the sky. At the Heavens.

  “He’s back.” A pause. “And others are coming.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Theater of Slumber

  Four days had passed since the boat’s arrival. The longest four days of his life. He was there, had watched it creep to shore, had been the first to meet the woman named Kletter. And yet no one deemed him worthy of sharing the slightest bit of news. He was going insane with the absolute, desperate want of information. Anything.

  Rumors upon rumors spread across their community like the spray of salty droplets after a massive wave crashes against the shore. She’s crazy, she’s evil, she’s a witch, she’s a nobody, she’s the ancient Ava Paige herself. Not a thing he’d heard so far made an ounce of sense. But that didn’t stop them, four days of frustrating blather.

  He thought of himself as a pretty important human. Didn’t everyone? But when it came to the island and the Congress and decisions that mattered, Isaac was a nobody. Barely twenty, and not even a very good blacksmith if he had to be honest. Improving, but kind of sucky. But man, did he love it. He was busily beating a piece of hot iron with something approaching glee when Miyoko came to get his attention. She ended up throwing a bent, discarded nail at his back because apparently she’d called his name several times without a response.

  “Hey, what’s up?” He slid the hot piece of metal into a cooling bin—the work-in-progress was supposed to be a spoon but looked more like a paddle. “Did they decide yet?”

  She made an impatient twirling gesture for him to finish up already and come outside the Forge.

  “Captain Sparks was at the meeting!” he protested. “I’m supposed to run the place until he gets back.”

  “Isaac, get your ass out here. They called an island-wide conference to make an announcement. Just lock the place up and turn the fires off so it doesn’t burn down.”

  He frowned. “Turn them off, huh?”

  “Yes. Hurry.”

  He frowned even more frownier. “Do you know how fires work?”

  Thirty minutes later they passed the secondary school then came upon the big pavilion that had been erected nearby—a huge awning with dozens of picnic tables. Isaac had managed to temper his fires and safety-inspect the Forge before leaving, and then he and Miyoko had sprinted the mile or so to town. It was customary to have a community meal after big deliberations by the Congress, something about healing wounds and creating solidarity after the leaders had spent hours or days on end yelling and swearing at each other. Isaac was anxious to hear what had been discussed and decided about the starving lady who’d shown up on a boat. But, as Dominic always said, a person should never, under any circumstances, turn down free food.

  It was already crowded, so Isaac and Miyoko didn’t bother finding their friends. Miyoko found an empty spot near the outer edge of the pavilion. The tables had stacks of food running down their centers—several variations of bread and biscuits; whole fruits; blocks of cheese; baked potatoes and vegetables; a few platters of cooked lamb. That last one you had to eat sparingly or you’d get the evil eye from every old person on the island.

  Isaac had worked up a mighty sweat and burnt lots of calories hammering away at the Forge. He practically shoved the food into his mouth—his teeth, tongue, and throat labored double-time to keep up. Miyoko gave him a look of utter disgust a couple of times, so he slowed down a bit. He was just tearing into a grilled lamb chop—which he’d saved for last—when Trish came up from behind and put a hand on his shoulder.