positing everything from a cataclysmic spasm in the universe to a creator placing it here, placing us here. I’ve seen in Arras what comes of the idea of a creator; I like the idea of randomness better. That we are born of infinite possibility and fade back into the fabric of the universe to feed new life. That the moon perches overhead simply because, and nothing more. I don’t want to live my life at the hands of another, I want to live my life now, deciding my own fate.
Whatever lies ahead of us on Alcatraz could change everything, but I choose the path of self-determination. Whether we find the Whorl—if we accomplish the separation of the worlds—I will listen to myself. My fingers find the techprint on my wrist.
I’m not meant to remember who I am. I have to
Alcatraz Island is full of men and women with scarred skin that shimmers and shifts. It’s not the decrepit old facility we expected. It’s full of white light that bounces off metal tables and blank walls. There are no bars on the cells, only thick glass. The prisoners beat against it, lick it, scratch at it, leaving bloody streaks from deeply torn nails behind, but we can’t hear them. We hear only a low hum from the energy powering this place. It must take so much of it, I think. The hum grows louder until it’s pulsing thick in my ears and I can feel it there in my head, under my skin, behind my eyes. I try to shake it out but it won’t fade. I tug on Dante’s hand. He’s closest to me, but he keeps walking forward, down a hall toward the black doors at the other end. He can’t hear me in here either. I cry out, but I can’t hear myself over the pounding in my ears. Around us more Remnants gather at the transparent walls of their cells, and they start thumping against the glass. Their faces constrict into masks of ferocious concentration. Their hands are balled in fists. I don’t have to hear them, because I can feel it. The ground beneath me shakes and concrete pillars spit dust over us as though the prison will collapse at any moment.
I run to Jost and pull on his arm, warning him to hurry, that they’re going to break loose. But when he turns around his hair grows lighter, and he morphs into Erik. I scream.
“Ad!” Dante’s call startles me from the dream and I arch in my seat, running a hand over my bleary eyes.
“You were asleep,” Erik says. He’s grabbed on to my seat, clutching it for balance.
“It was a nightmare,” I murmur, my mouth full of cotton.
“No one here to drug you,” Erik says with a wry smile, but it’s too soon to laugh about Kincaid’s betrayal.
“You want to stop for a second?” Dante asks, pulling Erik back in his seat. “Walk around?”
I shake my head. I want to put distance between Kincaid and the horrors of the estate. I want to move forward. More than anything I want to get to the Whorl—my future—and get on with it. I’m not eager to have total control of Arras, but I can’t let someone else have it either. Certainly not Kincaid. The Whorl will give me a chance to right so many of my mistakes.
The world outside the crawler is dark with night, and above us the sky is black and full of stars and milky bands of light. The ocean laps against the road, and I can see where parts of the pavement have crumbled and fallen into the sea.
“You think that bridge is safe?” Erik asks, his focus ahead on the faded burgundy bridge in the distance.
“Probably not,” Jost answers. “But we don’t have to cross it anyway.”
He takes one hand off the wheel and points outside to something planted firmly in the ocean—a towered compound rising up from the water. The familiarity of the stone towers unnerves me.
“What is that?” I breathe.
“Alcatraz Island,” Dante says. “It was a prison before the Exodus. The Guild keeps the Whorl there now. That man who came through the loophole—he found out about it.”
“After all these years,” I say, staring across the ocean, “you’ve found it.”
Jost slows the crawler when we reach a patch of shoreline that’s intact. It’s full of rocks and long, winding grass.
“High tide,” Erik informs me, helping me out of the back of the crawler.
“How do you know?” I ask.
“Fisherman’s son,” he reminds me. “The water has risen as close to the shore as possible. When the tide goes back out, the shore will stretch farther out.”
“What’s underneath it?”
“The water? Rocks and seaweed and seashells.”
“Seashells?”
“You’ve never seen a seashell?”
“No, I have. On the Stream, at least. But I’ve never seen the ocean until now.” The fake one programmed into my window screens at the Coventry don’t count.
“I never taught you to swim.” Erik’s words are an apology as he sweeps a finger along my jaw.
I bite the inside of my cheek, daring to say the thing I shouldn’t. “You will.”
I wander down to the fringe of the water with Erik, wishing it was daylight and warm enough to slip my toes in and feel the sea. The water goes on forever, at moments peaceful and then bursting with a wave that washes down with mighty force, nearly reaching our feet.
“It’s beautiful,” I murmur.
“I ran from my village,” Erik whispers, “but I never stopped missing it.”
“Was it like this? The Endless Sea?”
“Yes and no. It was calmer. Why control the ocean if you can’t
“Why control it at all?” I wonder aloud as I stare at the magnificent, powerful waves. I can imagine how lovely the ocean’s strands would feel on a loom, strong and slick and ancient, but they can’t compare to standing here, looking out and never seeing where it ends.
“Mind giving us a hand?” Jost calls, and I turn to see he’s spread a thick plastic sheet on the ground.
“What’s that?”
“Our raft. I mean, if we’re still going,” he replies, pain edging into his words. Is that what it will always be like? Hurting him to exchange a few words with Erik? Would it be better to hurt Erik by ignoring him to spare Jost? Behind me the ocean laps on, beating against the shore in rhythmic bursts, reminding me that I’m small and insignificant.
Erik and Jost set to work, inflating the raft until it’s a large boat that, to be honest, looks a little flimsy considering we have to get out past these waves.
“How will we get out there?” I ask, staring at the frail raft.
Jost and Erik exchange a look, a first since we fled the estate. The fact is that the ocean is their territory and there’s no sense denying that now.
“We’ll push you out,” Erik says.
“How?” Valery asks, alarmed. She’s been quiet most of the trip, but I don’t blame her for speaking up now.
“You’ll sit in the raft and we’ll swim it out,” he replies.
“Is that a good idea?”
“I’ll help,” Dante volunteers.
“You spend much time in the ocean?” Jost asks.
Dante shakes his head. He’s their equal in size and strength, but even I know that doesn’t mean he has the skill to navigate this water.
“We can do this,” Erik assures us. “Fisherman’s sons, remember?”
I swallow and force a nod. I like this idea less and less, but I have to trust that they have the skill to do it. Meanwhile Dante passes foam suits to us.
“Put this on,” he orders. “That water is cold enough to kill you if you go in.”
If we go in, I think, I’m not worried about the cold. But I struggle to get my suit on. In the end, Valery and I help each other with the difficult zippers on the thick, fitted suits. Jost and Erik have theirs on before we’ve sealed the sleeves, making them waterproof. When the suit is on, it flexes enough for me to move, but it’s tight.
“And once we’re out there?” I ask, forcing myself to think ahead. I don’t like the idea of sitting in a raft while two of the people I care most for in the world drown.
