Altered

war ended quickly. Hitler, the man who started it, had no one to fight, and there were bigger problems to grapple with here.”

“They picked who got to come along.” The unfairness of it grates against my sense of justice.

“They assumed the war would destroy the rest. The few records that have stood the test of time indicate that the war lasted for several more years, stretching out almost an entire decade. The Icebox was less affected as most of the fighting continued in what was known as Europe,” he says.

“Was known as Europe?”

“We have enough information to conclude that most of it is gone now. A large portion of Arras’s population came from Europe, as many of the Allied troops hailed from there. The rest imploded after they left. And of course, many died during squelched riots. The survivors were driven into the Icebox.” Dante keeps his eyes on the screen while he tells me this. He relates it like a newsman on the Stream.

We watch the few remaining images flit across the screen. The program ends with a happy family—two parents, a daughter, and a son—beaming out at the audience. I wonder who they were. And whether they thought this would consign them to immortality, and how they would feel to see the theater sitting in a ruined world. An empty, forgotten Earth.

As the last image vanishes, the lights in the theater come up. I blink against the brightness. Kincaid stands and politely claps.

“I hope you found that informative.” There’s something weary in his voice, a heaviness that doesn’t suit, and I realize the film has moved Kincaid to tears. He’s touched by something that happened hundreds of years ago.

“I think it raises more questions than it answers,” I say. I bow my head a bit in an attempt to hide the surprise I can’t quite wipe from my face.

“It’s the story of how our worlds came to be.” Kincaid spreads his hands. “You cannot expect one film to explain everything.”

TWELVE

DANTE FOLLOWS ME OUT OF THE THEATER, but Jost keeps a protective arm around my shoulder. I know I can’t avoid Dante forever, and now that I’ve seen the film, I shrug off Jost’s arm and kiss him swiftly on the cheek. He doesn’t like it, but he gives Dante a terse nod and leaves us, heading back into the main house while Dante and I tarry on the stone path. The lights have dimmed to near twilight, but I can see the outlines of the wild plants and hear the trickle of the nearest fountain.

“Have you told anyone about us?” Dante asks me.

I shake my head. “I wouldn’t know what to say.”

“I can barely believe it myself,” Dante says.

“But you suspected it. Why?”

“You said your last name was Lewys and, well, because of your mother,” he says.

“You know her?” I ask.

“Of course, she’s your mother.”

I’m having a difficult time composing sentences, and thoughts, for that matter. It doesn’t make sense. It’s not possible. “So you knew her.”

“Yes,” Dante confirms.

“But Benn Lewys was my father,” I say, trying hard to sort this in my mind.

“Benn was my brother,” Dante says.

“He didn’t have a brother,” I say.

“No, his brother left.” Dante blinks several times as if resetting himself. “I left, because the Guild was coming after me.”

It doesn’t explain anything, especially not his claims about his past—our past—or how he wound up on Earth. Still, my mother hinted at this, so I concentrate.

“But,” I say, struggling, “you aren’t old enough to be my father.”

“About that,” he says, scratching his temple.

“Yes?” I prompt.

“Things are different here.”

“Do you have time machines?” I ask sarcastically.

“We don’t need them. Time doesn’t flow rapidly on Earth like it does where we came from. Arras is a construct, so its time is not bound to the same physical laws that time on Earth is. For every month that passes on Earth, a year passes in Arras. So if you’re sixteen years old—”

“It’s only been sixteen months since you left,” I say. If he’s right, then half a year has passed on Arras since we left. It will be spring again, and Amie will graduate primary academy soon.

“I feel like I’ve barely been away, but here you are. I didn’t know,” Dante says. “I wouldn’t have left Meria if I had known she was pregnant.”

He wants me to understand. He wants forgiveness.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. My words are glass, smooth and cold, and I know he can see right through them. “You still left her.”

You left me, I add silently.

“You don’t understand. Meria refused to come with me,” Dante explains. “She didn’t want to run. I showed her the mark of Kairos so she could come if she changed her mind.”

“Why does this matter?” I ask, gesturing to the techprint—a symbol that’s lost its original meaning to me. Now it’s another secret—another lie.

“Credentials,” he says. “It’s not just the mark, but also the information the techprint contains. Most refugees and dissenters hide theirs along their hairline.”

That’s why the girl checked our necks, but because my father had burned mine into my wrist she almost didn’t see it. “Why is mine here?”

“Priority access,” Dante says in a grim voice. “If you’d made it out that night, our channels would have rushed your clearance. Kincaid’s men in Arras verify information, but the placement of your techprint would have granted you priority passage through a loophole.”

“A loophole?” I ask.

“It’s an exit from Arras. It’s how most refugees make it to Earth.

“I told Meria all of this. If she had left…” He pauses and searches my face as though he wants to tell me something, but he changes the topic instead. “You can’t imagine what it was like. A girl with fiery hair walks into my life with that mark, and you’re so like her, but—”

“My father marked me, not my mother,” I interrupt.

Betrayal flits across Dante’s face. His voice is raw when he speaks. “She must have told him about it.”

He’s hurt that she revealed his secret to her husband. His brother. “Yes,” I say, “because she loved him. Because he was a good man.”

“I never said differently.” But his body is saying it now. Every expression, every gesture, every pause is wounded. But then his posture changes, shrinking down before me. In my short time at the estate, Dante has never seemed vulnerable.

“I knew you the second I saw you,” he says. “I couldn’t explain it, even to myself.”

“That’s why you invited us back to the safe house,” I say.

“At first I thought you were Meria, altered a little, toying with me.”

“Mom wouldn’t do that,” I say defensively.

“The spitfire I knew would have, but I figured out pretty quickly you weren’t her,” Dante says.

“When you saw me kissing Jost.”

“I wouldn’t have put that past Meria, but no, I knew it wasn’t her. It was obvious you didn’t know me, but when you showed me that techprint and started telling your story—”

“You realized—”