anyway. And if they went down to lower elevations, they would need Beater walls, just in case, and they were right back to the same problem.
Sammi wondered if they should have just picked someplace on the way and made the best of it, like so many other people had done. Only…she’d seen what happened on the islands. At the mall. Before that, at the school and the library and almost every other place she could think of since the Siege. If the Easterners thought the only place to make a new life was up north, at least until someone figured out a way to get rid of the Beaters once and for all, then Sammi had to admit they were probably right.
They crested a ridge and there, on the other side, was a scattering of farms with a few buildings at the center making a tiny town. And in the center of that was a sweet little white church with a spire on top, looking like a postcard against the blue blue sky.
“It’s so pretty,” Sammi couldn’t resist saying.
“You think? I’ve been in a hundred of those,” Sage said sourly. “That’s a Methodist church, bet you anything. They go in for the wooden pews. No cushions.”
“Huh,” Sammi said, as they trudged on.
Sleeping in a wooden pew didn’t seem like the worst thing in the world. Nadir might say one of his pretty Muslim prayers-that would be kind of nice.
She knew it was all the same God, just different ways of talking to Him. But in a way, it would be better if there was a whole team of gods they could pray to. Sammi had a feeling they were going to need all the help they could get.
Chapter 43
IN THE VESTIBULE of the old church Cass found a bride’s dressing room. It looked like it had once had some other function; perhaps it was a supply closet before a steady stream of city brides discovered this perfect little setting that practically guaranteed enviable photos, with the drifts of wildflowers and the mountain backdrop. All those brides…they’d adjusted their veils in the mirror, checked their makeup, quelled their nerves and stepped out with breathless anticipation in their satin high heels and French manicures and updos constructed with a hundred tiny hairpins. All of this to launch marriages that, more often than not, would end in tears and bitterness and regrets.
Nevertheless, here she was, alone in the twilight of an early March day in the year 2022, wiping a year’s worth of dust from the mirror, regarding her reflection and thinking about love. When Ruthie was born, Cass had sworn off all love but that which she had for her daughter. Back then it had seemed that her damaged heart would have to struggle the rest of her life to be worthy of her daughter, that it would have to work overtime learning the lessons of devotion and faith and support. But all of that had come instantly, hard, crushingly, the moment she held Ruthie in her arms.
Then there had been Smoke. They’d come together in the threat of the unknown, first loved each other while on the run and then-when she’d rescued Ruthie and they were safe at last-clung to each other and built something real from the tender shoots. They’d had three months together in the closest thing to bliss that Cass had ever known. She’d been shocked to discover that she had learned to trust him; at the end of each day he came back to her and that was a sweet miracle, that alone was enough.
But then he’d left her. It had to be: he could never have been at peace knowing he hadn’t tried, that he hadn’t avenged the loss of those he cherished. Smoke could not have continued to love her if he hadn’t made the quest. And now, finally, after this journey, Cass accepted it. She’d forgiven him for leaving, he’d forgiven her for Dor, and she trusted that he was ready to love her again.
Why, then, was she hesitating?
Cass leaned closer to the mirror, dust motes swirling prettily in the last beams of fading light, and looked at herself critically. She was different-different than she was a year ago, different than she’d been after the attack, even different from the start of this journey. There were the obvious things: they were all thinner, their bodies pushed to the limit each day, with little to eat other than kaysev. But the changes that eluded her, things she noted as one sees shadows from the corner of one’s eye, were as compelling as they were subtle.
Her eyes were still the startling clear green of those few who survived the fever, her pigment altered forever. But there were depths to them, a weariness accumulated from all the stories of hurt and loss that she’d not only witnessed but lived through. Phillip, Jasmine, Terrence…all the lives she’d moved through had changed her, both hollowed and intensified her.
Her hair was startling, too. It had grown long and thick and fine, silvery-white strands supplanting her old honey blond. At times she thought it looked like a botched dye job, but in this mirror it looked startling and lovely, like an ice queen from a book of European fairy tales, flowing around her shoulders and tumbling over her forehead no matter how many times she pushed it back.
But even these were not what she was looking for. Cass was convinced there were answers to be found in the set of her lips, the cant of her cheekbones, the fine lines that had appeared on her brow. Somewhere inside her was the knowledge of whether she could truly ever be with a man, and if so, who she was
But the harder she looked, the more it eluded her.
There was a soft knock at the door, and it creaked open.
Smoke.
“Okay if I come in?” he asked. “I’ve got room service.”
“Oh, are they serving dinner?”
“Yeah, if you can call it that. Kaysev again. But I have something special…” He rattled something in his pocket, and took out a small can of smoked almonds. “Not even opened.”
“Oh wow, where on earth-”
“Nadir gave it to me. He’d been saving a few things for tonight. He and Dor and Bart are drinking twelve-year- old scotch right now, if I’m not mistaken. I asked him if it was okay if I took mine to go.”
“Oh.” Cass’s mouth watered at the thought of real food, but she hesitated. “I guess someone probably told you by now. That I was drinking again.”
“And that you stopped.”
“It’s been hard.” That was an understatement; a dozen times each day she yearned for the sharp taste of the first swallow, the oblivion that followed.
“Which is why I’m here and the bottle’s not.”
Cass smiled. “Thank you,” she said softly.
Smoke sat down on the upholstered bench, and Cass sat next to him. He popped open the can, but for a moment neither of them moved to eat.
“It’s not going to work out between us, is it?” Smoke finally said quietly.
Tears sprang instantly to Cass’s eyes. “Oh, Smoke…”
He closed his hand over hers and squeezed gently. “There’s something I need to tell you. Something I did, Before.”
Cass blinked and looked at him carefully. His face was lined and scarred, and the past months had left a permanent wistfulness that lifted when he smiled, but always settled back into place afterward.
As long as Cass had known him, he had been a man of secrets. He’d told her only that he’d done something that he could never make right, but it was clear that guilt and self-recrimination were never far from his mind. She often found him staring into space, or soaked with sweat from a workout that was never hard enough to drive the memories away. She’d asked him to tell her what was wrong a hundred times, a thousand, but he’d always brushed off the question, saying it was nothing, or not saying anything at all.
And only now, when she’d finally let go of her need to know, was he ready to tell her.
“You don’t have to do this,” she said softly.
“I’m not telling you for your sake. I’m- I need to. For me.”
Cass swallowed. Now that they were on the brink of it, she wasn’t sure she was ready to know. But she owed
