The train moves forward. Once they pass the platform, Aris takes a seat. She looks at her left hand, the one she punched Thane with. The pain in her fingers increases. She cradles her injured hand.
“Are you okay?” Metis asks.
“I’ll be fine,” she says. “The ring bruised me, I think.”
A loud guffaw escapes her. The situation is so absurd it feels surreal. Metis looks at her as if she has gone insane.
“I’m sorry. I just . . . it’s just . . . Oh, never mind,” she says, wiping a tear off one eye.
“Who was that man?”
“Thane. I used to work with him at the Natural History Museum. Until I learned he was spying on Benja for the Interpreter Center. He wrote the report that advised the Interpreter to erase Benja’s dreams. There were others on his list. I don’t know if they’re all Dreamers. I didn’t see you on it. But Thane was probably the one who found you. He’s very smart.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”
“I didn’t know you were a Dreamer and the Sandman until recently.”
She gives him a look that ends his questioning.
Metis gently touches her hand.
“Ow. That hurts,” she says.
“I hope you didn’t break any bones.”
“Even if I did, it was worth it. I’ve wanted to do that since I found out what he did to Benja.”
The brightly lit train travels at top speed through the dark tunnel deep underground. The only sound is the soft whir of the train. Aris stretches out on the seat with her head on Metis’s lap. The last few days seem like one long endless day. They were always on a train, coming from or going to somewhere else. Exhaustion weighs heavily on her shoulders, but she cannot sleep.
In the hours when the mind is foggy, Aris feels it is at its most imaginative. To the hazy brain, the subway tunnel could be anything. Outer space. A wormhole. The birth canal. She pictures them traveling through time, only to emerge hundreds of years from now in the future. What would that world be like? Would there still be the Four Cities and Tabula Rasa?
A thought comes to her. “The flowers they stole. They make Absinthe, don’t they?”
“They’re called hypnos. A hybrid the Crone created from a few species of flowers. They only grow at her cottage.”
“How would the Interpreter Center know about it?”
He shakes his head. “They must know more than I thought they did.”
“How do you make Absinthe with it?”
“You use the oil extracted from the flower. It’s pretty complicated, and each batch takes half a month.”
“So who’ll make it now?”
“No one. I made the last batch needed for the meeting before Tabula Rasa. But now that it’s stolen . . . I suppose the Crone could tell the new Sandman the instructions, but they’d need water from the mountains.”
“What?”
“In the spring when the snow melts, the water travels into the creeks at the nature preserves in all the cities. It won’t be spring until after Tabula Rasa.”
“Why melted snow?”
“The processed water we drink in the Four Cities has too much salt.”
She remembers Benja saying the water she gave him after he took Absinthe was salty.
A thought comes to her. She sits up. “I asked the Crone if Tabula Rasa can be stopped, but she didn’t tell me.”
“She doesn’t readily give answers. Not often anyway. It used to really bother me. But I just figure it’s her way of telling you to find out on your own.”
“Do you think it can be stopped?” she asks.
He turns to look at her. “Do you want to stop it?”
The question is one she cannot easily answer. Tabula Rasa has robbed her of memories of Metis and everyone she knew. It took away every bit of knowledge she had of herself. She had to discover who she is and rebuild a new life around the new person she’s become. Even so, Aris still believes it does more good than harm.
“I don’t know. It controls my fate. Starting me at zero every four years. But it brought peace to our world. I don’t think I can be the one to make that decision. It would affect more than just me. And I don’t think I should make it for someone else. How about you?”
Metis sighs. “We’re taught that attachment is bad. And sometimes I feel selfish for wanting you by my side for the rest of my life. It’s desire and greed. It’s everything we’re told is the bane of humanity. And there’s truth in that. Because I can honestly say at this moment that if someone were to make me choose, I would sacrifice everyone in the Four Cities to save you from harm.”
“That’s horrible,” she says.
“I know,” he whispers.
“If someone were to make you choose, I would really prefer you spare the Four Cities,” she says. “I don’t think I could survive the guilt.”
“That’s your logical side thinking. I have that ability too. To weigh the pros and cons. To understand and see the value of each life being equal. To know that trading many lives for one is not a fair exchange. But in practice, my heart would win out every time. I’m not capable of choosing others over you, no matter how many,” he says and pulls her tight against him.
“That’s a scary thing, isn’t it?” she asks, leaning her head on his shoulder.
“Let’s hope no one will ever make me do the choosing,” he says.
Silence shrouds the train car. Questions pile on top of one another like dead leaves in her mind. Aris stares out at the gray tunnel wall and pretends she is floating on a raft along a river. It calms her.
The train slows down. A feeling of déjà vu hits her. They were here just a week ago to say goodbye
