SUNRISE. I HAVE TO KEEP moving. I stagger downhill, knowing I won’t last long if I don’t find water. The air clear of winter’s low-lying clouds, I can see the rounded tops of the mountain range disappearing into the northern horizon. The City clings to the side of one of those mountains. And if I can find the river, it will take me back. Back to the Reds, to Traitor’s Arch. Back to the people who weren’t shy about why they wanted to kill me.
Back to Tai-ge. Back to Mother. Maybe waking her up will stop people from killing one another, stop SS. Or maybe it will just stop them from killing Tai-ge, keep him off the list of people I loved who are now dead.
When I finally stumble into the river’s smooth-rolling current, I sit, mindlessly running a stone along the sharpened edges of my metal stars. Unprotected and Outside. Howl still has the knife that Tai-ge gave to me, my only weapon stolen even before we left the City walls. My stars will have to do as a defense, the edges honed until they can cut. A brief image of me attempting to stab a gore with my tiny pin flashes before my eyes. I shake my head to clear it. What else can I do?
Food finds its way to my lips when I remember that I am supposed to eat, though the first time I look in Sole’s borrowed pack for sustenance, my hands find the book Howl gave me instead. The one with the sleeping princess on the front, and the promise of a happy ending. I can’t even touch it, staring down at the glint of gilt on the front cover until I can force my fingers to zip the pack closed.
What would a happy ending mean to Howl, anyway? Happy the way Zhinu and Niulang were? Separated by a wall of stars in the sky, seeing each other behind the sun’s back with help from a world’s worth of confused birds? Or perhaps just a life—any life—would be happy for him as long as his lungs still move air in and out of his body and his heart still beats, regardless of who around him has gone silent.
Every day the sun watches my slow progress along the river, and every night the moonlight is the same, stolen from where it should belong. I find myself looking over my shoulder as I walk, expecting Howl’s white smile and Kasim’s boisterous laugh to emerge from the trees at any moment, the two of them ready to drag me back to the tubes and knives. Why haven’t they caught up with me yet?
Finally, a shadow blocks the sun rising over my lonely hammock. The flap that protects me from rain, insects, and my nightmares is stenciled with a human outline. It wrenches back to let in the full blaze of pink morning sun. A crane startles from branches above us at the quick movement, wings stainless white against the patchwork sky. The person’s face is obscured by the black curls of a gas mask, but I recognize the green Menghu jacket buttoned up to her throat.
She doesn’t cut me down immediately, head cocked as though she’s not quite sure what kind of butterfly she’s found in this strange cocoon.
I’m glad it’s over. No more running, no more pretending. I don’t have to think anymore. I don’t have to breathe.
I reach my hands out, wrists together so the Menghu can tie them. “What took you so long?”
She tears the gas mask from her face, letting loose a cascade of blond curls. “What did they do to you, Sev?”
June.