in the last hour.
“Look, I’m fine. Could you please just tell me where my brother is?”
“I don’t know your—”
“Roe. James Roe. He has trouble breathing. He should be here somewhere. You have to—”
“Cal?”
James was running down the aisle toward me. He was still in his valet’s uniform, its blue lines pressed just as neat as they were the last time I had seen him.
“James? What are you — are you okay?”
“Uh, you’re the one in the infirmary, Cal.”
James nodded to the companion and she drifted away to another patient. He sat down on the edge of the empty cot next to mine.
“I came here looking for you,” I said. “You weren’t at Lighthouse and then—”
“I had to stay late with Monroe. Why did you think I was in the infirmary? And what happened to you? Your arm—”
He reached for my cast and I pulled it back. “It’s nothing.”
James laughed, putting an accusing finger in my face. “It was that Rottweiler again, wasn’t it? The same one that knocked you down on the last work detail Quarles sent you on.”
I paused, remembering my cover story for the last couple days. “The detail was fine. I just… I had an accident, that’s all.” James narrowed his eyes at me, but I pulled the sheets back on the cot. “Look, forget it. Let’s get out of here, okay?”
“I think they want you to stay till morning.”
“Seriously?”
“You’re aware that you puked all over Beacon Quan when he carried you out of the Lighthouse, right?”
“I don’t actually remember puking.”
James threw the blankets back over me and helped me sit up.
“You been to the barracks?” I asked.
“No. Why?”
I scanned the infirmary floor. Two companions and a citizen medic were at the far end of the room. They were presided over by a single beacon who looked busy with some paperwork. I slipped my hand beneath the sheets and into my pocket.
“Give me your hand,” I said.
“Why?” James asked. “Is it a bug? Are you going to put a bug in my hand again? Honestly, Cal, that stopped being funny when I was five.”
“Just do it.”
James held his hand out and I pushed the inhaler into it, closing his fingers around it fast. He drew his hand back to his waist and opened it.
“James, this is — where did you get this?”
“It’s not contraband. Don’t worry.”
“Then how—”
“I got it from Monroe.”
“From Monroe?” James looked from the inhaler to my cast and the bruises. His face went gray as ash. “If this is what it took to get this, then you should take it back. I don’t need it.”
“Oh, really? You and the beacons gonna pray the asthma away?”
James gritted his teeth. His fingers went white, curled around the inhaler.
“You’re Monroe’s favorite, Jim. The guy couldn’t tie his shoes without you. I promise, it didn’t take anything more than me asking nicely to get the meds. All this… it’s nothing you have to worry about. I swear.”
“Nothing that’s going to get you in trouble?”
“Scout’s honor, little brother,” I said, holding up my busted left hand.
“You were never a Boy Scout,” he said. “I wanted us to be Scouts, but you said it was for weenies.”
“I know. It was a mistake. You would have fit right in.”
James tucked the inhaler away, but his face was still scrunched up and dark, his lips tight.
“Come on,” I teased. “James…”
“I just don’t want you to get off Path again.”
“I’m not. Look, come here,” I said, waving him over. “Keep it between you and me for now, but there’s more, okay?”
“More what?”
“I’m meeting with Captain Monroe tomorrow.”
“So?”
I glanced back at the beacon, who was still absorbed in his paperwork. “We’re getting moved up.”
“Moved up?” James said. Then it clicked. “You mean…”
I nodded. “I told you you’re his favorite.”
“But—”
“We’ve been here six years now, James. With everything you do for him, it’s not even that far ahead of schedule.”
James still looked wary, but I could tell there was excitement bubbling underneath it.
“When?”
“Soon, I think, but I’ll know more after the meeting tomorrow. We’ll talk between breakfast and morning Lighthouse, okay?”
I almost laughed at James’s openmouthed speechlessness.
“Who’s the best big brother in the entire universe?”
“Well…”
“How about within a five-foot radius?”
James finally laughed but a companion cut it off, appearing just behind him. He nodded and she stepped away.
“Cal, I don’t… I don’t know what to say.”
“Music to my ears. Just go home and start packing our things.”
“Want me to lead a prayer before I go?”
James had his copy of
“It’s okay, Jim,” I said. “No one’s looking.”
There was a second’s pause and then something inside of James seemed to shift. “Yeah,” he said, snapping the book shut. “Right. Of course. I’ll see you later, okay?”
“Get some sleep,” I said.
“You too. And try not to puke on yourself again.”
“I’ll do my best.”
James tucked the book back into his pocket and walked away down the line of beds. Companions moved through the infirmary, snuffing out candles. I lay back on my cot, staring up into the dark, fantasizing about what job I might get once we were citizens. Surely they wouldn’t make me keep mucking out the dog kennels with Quarles. That was a novice job, and a bad one at that. Could I be a cook’s apprentice? A mechanic? It seemed impossible.
Of course, whatever duty I pulled, the important thing would be me and James in our own room in the citizens’ barracks — two beds side by side, with four walls and a door. Inside that room, there would be no beacons, no Lighthouse, no Army of the Glorious Path, just us.
I tried to banish my impatience for the morning with a prayer of my own, one that was composed of a single word written in stone.
5
