She knits her brow. “I didn’t know you had a brother.”

  “Well, I’d never met him before. He’s lived a pretty sheltered life, but he’s smart—book-smart, I mean. Plus, he’s so open. Nothing seems to bother him. He’s the polar opposite of me. He kind of reminds me of you, actually.”

  “Then I’m sure he’ll be an excellent Acolyte and an even better Judge.”

  I can’t help but laugh at her taunt. I know she only half means it as an insult. The other half is a compliment she’s giving herself. If Sarah’s lacking in any virtue, it’s humility, but she’s earned the right to be proud. The woman is good at everything she puts her mind to, and her memory is practically photographic.

  I remember the day she showed me around the Gate for the first time. We were both kids, and she was rattling off facts like the tour was a competition she meant to win. “The Gate is a 15,000-ton 610-foot behemoth that never makes port. It’s built with 520 airtight, steel cells and is powered by two A1B nuclear reactors that offer more electrical capacity than a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. It houses more than 1,000 crew, twelve classrooms, eight gyms, a massive armory, two swimming pools, a state-of-the-art shooting range, and six separate dining areas.” I’d been watching her closely as we walked down the narrow halls of rivetted metal to see if she was secretly reading off some hidden notes. She wasn’t.

  I smile at the memory of her younger, more enthusiastic self. “Do you ever think about what we missed as kids?”

  “No.” She arches an eyebrow. “What’s got you so sentimental all of a sudden?”

  I shrug. “It’s just nice to be home.”

  “Home,” she scoffs and turns back to the sea.

  In the vastness of the Gulf of Mexico, it’s easy to forget your worries. Before us, the deep blue sea meets dark clouds on the horizon. The farther out we go, the calmer the gulf becomes, and soon enough, I see the Gate loom up before us. Its hexagonal ADAPTIV panels make it look as much like a giant metal beehive as anything.

  After boarding, I follow Sarah to the library. The scent of metal and oil in the halls is to us what freshly baked cookies must be to normal people. It takes Sarah a minute to notice I’m behind her. She keeps throwing looks over her shoulder as we walk, like I’m stalking her and she’s worried I might play some kind of prank. I don’t blame her. I rarely go to the library. I’m always too exhausted from work or training to read.

  The Gate’s library is enormous, but I’m determined to find what I’m looking for. I peruse the metal shelves while Sarah sits down with a brick of a book at one of a wooden study table. It doesn’t take her long to realize I’m completely lost. “Go on,” she says. “Ask. What else am I for if I can’t be a walking, talking catalog?”

  “The Sun Also Rises,” I say. “By Ernest—”

  “Hemingway. Yeah, I know. We don’t have it.”

  I frown down at her. She’s rarely wrong, but… “Are you sure? It seems like the kind of thing we would have. Classic and all that.”

  “Cain doesn’t like it. Says it’s too antisemitic. Although, I question why he doesn’t have a problem with some of these others. Maybe he just hasn’t read them.” My disappointment must show because next, she says, “Why are you looking for that book specifically? Is there a clue in it or something?” She sits up straighter. “Did we get another riddle-case? I love riddle-cases.”

  I hate to disappoint her. “No. No riddles. I found a copy in a café and started reading it, but I lost it on the way to the Gate.”

  “Typical.”

  “I wanted to find out whether Robert Cohn ever made it to South America.”

  “Can’t help you there. I never got around to Hemingway. But why are you reading classic lit all of a sudden?”

  I shrug. “I told you. My brother’s book-smart. I thought it would help me relate to him better. What’s that you’re reading?”

  “Oh, this?” She glances down at the monstrous book lying open in front of her. “It’s Don Quixote. Trust me, you’re not ready for Don Quixote.” She stands, walks to the shelves, and pulls down several books without even having to look for them. “Start with the basics. This is the stuff they make regular kids read in school. You know, kids like your brother.”

  My brother’s hardly a kid, but I don’t bother to correct her. She shoves a stack of books into my arms, and I glance through them. One cover draws my attention more than the others. It’s just a woman’s eyes and lips floating in the sky over some kind of amusement park. A shooting blue firework looks like a teardrop against the woman’s features. I pull a face at it, and Sarah laughs.

  “The Great Gatsby’s as good a place to start as any,” she says. “Some people call it the ‘Great American Novel.’ It’s about careless rich people and the poor people they run over on their way to parties.”

  I laugh through my nose at her description. I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but Sarah has a way of distilling complicated things to make them easier for other people to remember. “Thanks,” I say and turn to go.

  “Hey, Eden,” she says just as I reach the door. “What’s your brother’s name?”

  “Orion. Orion Bachman.”

  “I hope Cain lets him join.”

  “Me too,” I say, but I’m not sure I really mean it.

  * * *

  Even though it’s late and I’m exhausted from the trip back, I can’t seem to fall asleep. Insomnia is rare for me. I typically wear myself out all day and crash in the evening. Now, for some reason, my head is full of Robert Cohn, who noticed his life passing by without him and wanted to go to South America to experience something real, something new. I can’t help comparing myself to him. As much as I’ve traveled, I feel like I haven’t really seen anything of the world. I’m always focused on the mission. Get in. Get the artifact. Get out. Maybe kill a few guys in the process, I don’t know.

  I roll over and switch on my reading lamp. My stack of books sits on the nightstand beside me. I rifle through them for something easy and pull out a book of short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. Someone else left a bookmark, so I open to that page.

  It’s a story about a crazy person who insists he isn’t crazy. He’s murdered his elderly roommate—over some cataracts, I guess—and hears the old man’s heart beating long after the body is buried under the floorboards. This was not the right story to start with. I’m certain it’s nothing my brother would have read growing up. He’s too sheltered. This is more like something I would have been given to read, something meant to desensitize me. I’m not disturbed by it. How can I be disturbed by a bedtime story ten times tamer than my life? There’s just… something about it I don’t like. It isn’t the death or gore that bothers me. I think it’s the twisting of reality. I think it’s the hallucination that throws me off.

  When I finally fall asleep, my nightmare confirms my suspicions.

  * * *

  In the dream, I’m not yet fourteen, having trained non-stop my first six months on the Gate. Joseph Cain should be the father I never had, but he lacks the warmth and protectiveness of a parent. When we spar, he dresses like a gentleman in a blue, tailored suit with his face freshly shaved and his hair parted and combed to the side. He never seems unsure of himself, not even when he’s hitting me. He punches me like he would punch an actual enemy.

  It isn’t until I start punching back that he praises me in his soft, Scottish accent. “Good lad… Don’t hold back… Excellent… Dodge it… Follow through.”

  Cain’s voice is in all my nightmares. I hear him briefing us before a mission—the map reconnaissance, the rehearsals, like we’re only putting on a play. I hear him tell me what to do as we march quietly through the forest—our safest point of entry, our best cover.

  It’s my first mission, and it’s supposed to be an easy one. Some hippy commune claims to have found the Blood of Mary, or their leader has, anyway. They’re relatively harmless, but Cain fears they won’t remain that way with an artifact in their possession. He calls them flower children, which reminds me how old he really is. They’re supposed to be having a music festival in some disused fields they’ve rented from a rancher.

  Cain wants us to infiltrate the group, identify the Blood of Mary, and take it from them. If the blood is a true artifact, it will contain a new kind of microorganism. This is where miracles come from, I’m told. The House of David has been studying artifacts longer than I’ve been alive. Every single miraculous artifact is contaminated with these microorganisms. They’re neither bacterial nor viral, and they behave in unpredictable ways. I swear I heard Cain utter the words quantum entanglement while discussing them once, but I have no idea what it means.

  When we reach the edge of the forest, Cain hushes us and gestures his orders. “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane plays over loudspeakers. We expect the entire commune to be sky high on whatever drug they’ve taken this time around. They won’t even notice we’re strangers. That’s the reason none of us are carrying obvious weapons. I have a knife tucked under my shirt, but I probably won’t need to use it. This really is the easiest mission the House has ever undertaken. I should count myself lucky it’s my first.

  We ease our way to the top of the hill and look down at the festival. There’s a stage with a man in white sitting in what can only be described as a throne, but it’s made of twigs and branches all poking out like thorns. The field in front of the stage is filled with all kinds of colorful flowers. Where are the people? I can’t help but wonder.

  I’ve never seen so many different kinds of flowers in one place before. The colors are bright and unusual, not like the wildflowers I would expect to see in an open field like this. They had to have been cultivated. I chuckle to myself because the cultists really are flower children. If growing fields of non-native species is the worst they’ve done, I hardly think we should consider them a threat. But Joseph Cain does not look pleased. The crease between his eyebrows is deeper than I’ve ever seen it. He gestures for the Judges and Acolytes to move in, and I follow right behind.

  The song is playing way too loud. I can’t see over the music. Wait… That can’t be right. But I can’t see anything. I can’t see the other Acolytes cover their mouths with their hands and gag. They look like they’re going to throw up, but why? All I smell is roses. All I see is music. And the flowers stirring in the wind.

  As we get closer, I hear Judah Joy, the oldest and most experienced Judge, mutter, “Jesus fucking Christ.” And that, for some reason, triggers reality.

  There are no flowers here, not a single one. The colorful spots in the field are just the clothes the cultists were wearing when they… did what? They’re dead. They’re all dead. And the stench the other Acolytes reacted to was vomit and shit. I swallow my own bile as we push forward.

  Judah shouts back to Cain, “They’ve all been poisoned! Call the cleaners! It’s too late!” Then he murmurs, “We’re too late.”

  We move closer to the stage, and the music starts to skip on the last three words of the song. It goes on and on and on. I reach in my belt and pull out my knife.

  “Find the Blood of Mary,” Cain demands. “Don’t leave a drop of it behind!”

  “I think they drank it,” Judah says.

  “Check the stage.”

  We do as we’re told. The man on the throne of sticks and twigs is dead too. His hands hang over the arm rests like he’s giving his dead followers some kind of benediction. There’s a large glass vial on the stage under his right hand. Judah picks it up and examines it, sniffs it. It’s mostly empty, but there’s a drop of brownish, oily liquid clinging to the bottom. The music continues to skip on those last three words. It sounds like it’s getting louder and louder.

  “Someone turn that shit off!” Judah shouts, pressing his hands to his ears. “I can’t stand to hear another bar of it.”

  Something purple crawls toward me. I back away when I see it’s a boy about my age. He reaches out for help, retching and gasping. The front of his tunic is soiled with red-tinged vomit. He takes hold of my ankle and gazes up at me.

  Cain is screaming my name. The loudspeakers repeat the same three words. The boy heaves onto my shoes—only he isn’t a boy anymore, is he? He’s a hyacinth, a beautiful purple flower. The scent of him is glorious, like perfume on a summer breeze. And I realize, suddenly, the only right thing to do is cut the flower and take it home with me. Give it to Sarah, maybe. I reach down with my knife and separate the blossom from the stem…

  * * *

  I never wake screaming. I never scream at all. People call me fearless, but it’s more paralysis than bravery. When my mind goes back to those dark places, I just shut it down. I become a programmed person, a robot of a man. I get up, ready myself on autopilot, and make my way to Cain’s office. When I reach the door, Joshua Honore opens it in my face.

  Joshua is a tall man with long dreads, a trimmed goatee, and a distinctly Caribbean accent. For some mysterious reason, he always smells of women’s deodorant. He’s still an Acolyte at thirty-nine because he’s not a great tactician. The man was born to follow orders. That’s not a put-down. When you’re out in the field, you want a man like him working under you. He gets things done, which is why the other Judges frequently poach him from Judah.

  He winks. “Got sent to the principal’s office too, eh?” His laugh is always loud, but I never mind hearing it. “What’d yuh do this time, Dowler?”

  “Found my new Acolyte,” I say.

  “Ooh! Presenting him to the boss, are you? Good luck.” He saunters off as I step into Cain’s office.

  The room isn’t inviting, but it’s not meant to be. Joshua wasn’t calling it “the principal’s office” for nothing. Everything in Cain’s office is meant to intimidate, though it’s been a long time since the old man has intimidated me. Ancient charts line the walls, and a model of the Gate sits on the shelves beside his books. I’ll bet none of these books can be found in the library. These he must keep to himself.

  “Come in, Eden,” he says. “Sit down.”

  I obey automatically.

  “I hear you did not successfully retrieve the Chains of Peter.”

  Thanks, Sarah. Well, Cain would have found out sooner or later—better from her mouth than mine, I guess. “That’s correct, sir, but I think I know where they’re hiding.”

  “Then why have you returned without them?”

  “Because I have a proposition to put to you first.”

  He leans an elbow on his desk and rests his chin on his fist. “Shoot.”

  I’m not sure why I’m finding this difficult, but I am. If I say it aloud, that means it’s real, and there’s no going back once something becomes real. I cringe at the memory of the hyacinth. “I found my brother—my half-brother. We have the same father.”

  Cain nods. “I’m familiar with your father.”

  “I know.” I clear my throat a few times. “My brother’s smart, I think. Way smarter than average. He’s had a good education and a good childhood. I want to invite him to work as my new Acolyte. I could use some brains on my team. The House always seems to recruit broken kids. Why not bring in someone whole for a change?”

  Cain arches one bushy brow. “You mean sever a perfect child from his perfect life and make him risk everything for the House of David? Does that really sound wise to you?”

  “He’s not a child,” I say, although I’m not sure that’s a selling point to Cain. “He’s an adult. He’s graduating from college in a few days, and I figure that’s the right time to bring him in. You know, like a regular job. Then he can make the decision for himself.” It’s a decision I never felt I truly had. How could a thirteen-year-old drug runner say no to Joseph Cain?

  “We recruit broken kids on purpose, Eden,” he says in his most condescending voice. “You had nothing to lose. The House could only improve your life. A young adult with the whole world in front of him… What makes you think he’ll even accept your offer?”

  “He’s bored out of his mind. I can see it in his eyes. Nothing challenges him. He’s not living up to his potential. Don’t you think a new perspective could give us some fresh ideas around here? He’s had a good life. He’s emotionally stable. We need some people who are emotionally stable, don’t we? We’re all so fucked up.”

  Cain laughs. “Speak for yourself.”

  “What?” I snap.

  He clears his throat and waves a hand as though he could shoo his insult away. “Never mind, lad, never mind. I’m willing to consider your proposal, but I want you to think it over, too. Decide why you want your brother working for the House. Is it for the House, or is it for you? And keep in mind, I chose you because I saw the pain in you. Your pain helps you to empathize with others. There’s no guarantee your brother shares that trait, especially if he’s been coddled from a young age.”

  “I don’t think pain is necessary for empathy, and I don’t think empathy is necessary for effectiveness. Have you ever even tried recruiting a well-adjusted Acolyte?”

  Cain leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. He’s honestly considering the question despite the fact that it was meant to be rhetorical. “Sarah is as close as I’ve come, to be honest.” He scratches his chin as he thinks. “And the only reason we brought her in was because her grandmother insisted.”

  “Well, there you go,” I say. “Recruitment within families. Worked out well, didn’t it? I mean, Sarah’s one of your best Judges.”

  “But she could have been happy,” he muses. I don’t think he’s really talking to me anymore. He’s staring at the ceiling, deep in thought, and I can’t help wondering whether he’s right. Would Sarah have been happier outside the House? Could she have lived a normal life, had a normal job, maybe even a family? But this is Sarah we’re talking about. She’s not normal herself. There’s no way she would be content with a normal life. And Orion’s about as far from normal as she is.