IN THE GENERAL RUSH TO get out of the Sanatorium, we manage to sneak into the Third Quarter. Dr. Yang’s entrance to the old City takes a few minutes to relocate, but the tired Third workers, ruffled by the sounds of sirens coming from the Sanatorium, don’t pay us much mind. I leave Peishan tethered to a pipe at the bottom of Dr. Yang’s ladder with Sole’s borrowed pack, the younger children hiding under June’s open wings. June agrees to wait for me down in the dark, this particular mission better done alone. The Second Quarter is easy to reach from here, a ladder leading up only a few houses away from my destination.
It feels like years since the night we played that last game of weiqi, though it’s only been a couple of months. I climb through the window into his room, the same bloody redness overwhelming the place as if the murderous hand of the City has pawed through all of my friend’s things.
The first hour prickles with anticipation as I wait for the door to swing open. I smooth down the uneven remains of my hair, one side curling up by my cheek, the other brushing my shoulder. He’ll give me a hug and tell me how glad he is to see me and then we’ll run to tell his father about the invasion. The second hour of waiting is harder, wondering what will happen if it’s someone else, his mother or father who finds me. The third hour I spend lying with my face on the carpet, smoothing my hand back and forth to make designs in the short fibers. Wondering if Tai-ge even lives here anymore, if he’s even alive. When the door finally clicks open, my stomach flutters with nerves, my head light with exhaustion.
When Tai-ge’s tired eyes light on me, he stiffens, his mouth hanging open. But he doesn’t rush forward, doesn’t hug me or even say my name. His brow drops, anger curling through his handsome face like a plague. He glances out into the hall, softly clicking the door shut. Back against the door, he focuses on the floor. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t just shoot you.”
I guess disappearing with an execution order on your head says something about your guilt. But he isn’t calling for help, either. “Because I am here to save you,” I say. I can’t put it any more simply than that.
His hair is longer than I remember, full mouth tightened like a vise against his jaw in a skull-tight stretch. “From what? Another bomb?” He lowers himself down into a chair, eyes finally meeting mine.
“They are going to attack. I don’t want you to die. Please come.”
“So you are one of them,” he says. The pain in his face strikes me like a physical slap.
I shake my head. “No, I . . .”
Tai-ge stands back up, cutting me off. “I thought it was a propaganda campaign to stop complaints down in the Third Quarter. Send Fourths Outside where they belong to do hard labor. Traitors can never be rehabilitated. Leave honest work to the Thirds, fighting to the Seconds, and let the Firsts take care of us all.” He laughs without a speck of humor. “I tore the Hole apart, accused the First Circle of kidnapping you.” His fists hit the wall in frustration, voice dripping with pain. “I attacked the head Watchman over in the Sanatorium when he wouldn’t let me in.” He turns around, grabbing my arm in a bruising clutch. “And here you are. Alive and well.”
I don’t move away, grabbing his shirt to pull him in close. His shirt is creased and smells of stale coffee and a tinge of something harder. His muscles tense, and it’s as if I’m hugging a statue, an unforgiving boulder. I look up into his face, but the soft, serious Tai-ge I know is lost in granite. “I didn’t have anything to do with the bomb on the bridge that night. Howl . . .” I choke on his name. “Chairman Sun’s son . . .”
“It’s easy to blame the dead.”
I take a deep breath, letting it out slowly to soothe the pricks of anger threatening to rip through my blanket of calm. “You don’t truly believe I’m guilty or you wouldn’t still be talking to me. You were with me when the bomb hit. It fell from a plane.”
“A rebel plane.” He angrily pushes me away, and I trip over the carpet and fall into his desk chair.
A rebel plane? I clench the chair’s armrests, my fingers turning white, breath trapped in my chest. “You know the war is a front. You know Kamar isn’t real.” When he doesn’t answer, the air presses in on me, panic brewing deep in my chest. Tai-ge lied to me. At this point, is there anyone left who hasn’t lied to me? “You know about the Mountain. And the defectors. And reeducation camps all around the City for traitors like me and Outsiders that the City manages to pick up. All this time, you knew, and yet you let me believe my mother sold us to some foreign invading army?”
“It isn’t that different, Sev. What happened to her was just. The camps, all of it, are the way we keep this place safe.”
It is different. I want to yell it at him, but I ask a question instead. “What about me? How is condemning an eight-year-old to half a life for something her mother did justice?” The words burn off my tongue in rapid succession. “I met a girl in the Mountain who had been in a labor camp since she was two. How is that just? You tried to beat your way into the Sanatorium—do you even know what they do there? The City isn’t about safety, it’s about cheap labor, about thousands of lives at First disposal. That’s why there are people out there fighting the City, Tai-ge. They want something better than this.”
“Don’t try to tell me you know more about the City than I do.” His voice is quiet now, dangerous. “You are only alive because I kept them away from you. I thought you were innocent, and you weren’t. That bomb was meant to kill me, and you just stood there and waited for it, joking with me in the moments before I was supposed to die. You were going to be a martyr, just like your mother. Taking down the General’s son.”
I should have expected this. But I can’t leave him here, even if he lied to me. I can’t lose one more person. I have to make him see. “Tai-ge, I do know more about the City than you. The rebels don’t have access to helis or planes. There’s no way they could have bombed the bridge, and there’s no way I would have stood there waiting for them to kill you. This place is bombing itself to—”
“That doesn’t make sense. I don’t want to hear any more of this.”
“You are my only family. You are the only person I trust, in the City or Outside. You know me. And I’m telling you that I don’t want you to die. I didn’t on the bridge and I don’t now. The whole City is about to become a battlefield. I don’t want anyone to die, and you can help me stop it.”
He turns to face me, the movement so slow I wonder if the world has come to a screeching stop around us, focused on this one moment. “I would have done anything to protect you.” He slumps against the bed, burying his face in his hands. “But I can’t believe you now. Don’t make me call the Watch. Just leave.”
“But, Tai-ge—”
“Get out, Fourth.”