IT WAS PROBABLY DARK OUT BY NOW, but from where Ruby and Simon were sitting—in one of the windowless conference rooms in the underground headquarters—it was impossible to tell. They’d been there for nearly an hour at this point. The receptionist, Summer, who—coincidentally—was hoping to one day become an expert on the vernal equinox, had shown them how to work the remote for the television.
But they were having much more fun poking around the walls, where instead of photos, there were clear boxes that looked somewhat like fish tanks, only each had a miniature version of a kind of weather inside it. Simon was particularly intrigued by the lightning box, and he kept pressing his nose to the glass to make his hair stand on end from the static electricity. Ruby sat underneath the one that was snowing, watching the flakes building up into drifts halfway up the frame before they all melted and the whole thing started over again.
The door to the conference room was closed, but they could hear footsteps and voices outside, a flurry of activity that had begun moments after the needle spun for Otis. When the commotion in the compass room had died down, there was an unmistakable wave of relief that seemed to pass over everyone, even those who had appeared to be most loyal to London. Ruby could almost see them relaxing again, a weight falling off them after four long years.
Otis had looked more surprised than anyone, and even as the crowd started to drift over to congratulate him, to ask him questions, to beg for favors and make requests, he simply stood there rubbing at his jaw, a look of utter bewilderment on his face.
“He’s probably just worried he’ll have to start working in an office again,” Simon told Ruby now, drawing back from the lightning box, his hair still frizzy.
“What makes you say that?”
“He told me he liked being on the road.” He flopped down onto one of the rolling chairs, then pushed off the table, making it spin in circles. “That he liked riding trains and seeing the country and not being tied down. That’s what he’s been doing for the last four years. Going from place to place, helping out at disaster sites.”
“Really?”
Simon nodded. “Cleaning up storms, rebuilding houses after hurricanes, things like that. Oh, and replanting that forest in California.”
“What forest?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.
“The one that burned in the fire,” he said. “The one where Sophie died.”
Ruby watched her brother lean back in the chair. Just an hour before, Simon had been the key to everything, and now he’d been shuttled in here so they’d be out of the way while everyone else got things done. Ruby couldn’t believe how fast it had all changed. She waited until Simon had finished rotating and the chair was still. “Are you sad that it wasn’t you?”
He gave her a long look, then shook his head. “I mean, it was fun to think I might be that important,” he said. “But I’m actually sort of relieved.”
“It would have been a lot to deal with.”
“A lot,” he agreed. “Besides, I’d rather be up in Wisconsin with Mom and Dad than have to worry about all this. Wouldn’t you?”
Ruby didn’t have a chance to answer because the door to the conference room swung open and Daisy poked her head in. “You two doing okay in here?”
They both nodded, and she slipped inside, collapsing into one of the other chairs at the conference table with a little sigh.
“It’s been a long day,” she said. “I feel like I got your note at the garage about a month ago.”
“Is it weird being back here?” Ruby asked.
“It is,” she said. “But I’m glad I came.”
Ruby smiled. “Me, too.”
“Where’s Otis?” Simon asked. He’d grabbed a pencil from a canister in the middle of the table and was now absently doodling on a piece of blue paper. Ruby could see that he was sketching out the little emblem on the pins, the storm cloud and lightning bolt. When she looked over at Daisy, Ruby could tell she’d seen it, too.
“He’s dealing with some things,” she said. “There’s a lot to do.”
“Is he happy?” Ruby asked. She knew it was an odd question—there was a weather disaster to stop, and an office full of people to direct; London was still out there somewhere, and who knew how many other Storm Makers were still loyal to him. Yet the compass had spun for Otis, and in all the chaos of the day, all the madness, it seemed a kind of miracle.
“I think he’s mostly surprised,” Daisy said, swiveling in her chair. “Everyone is. I mean, this was what we all expected to happen four years ago, but now…”
“Four years ago, like when London got picked?”
Daisy nodded. “The two of them were so talented,” she said, gazing at the snow frame on the wall. “They were so far above anyone else, and with both of them flaring up around the same time, best friends and everything? It was like they were celebrities. The rest of us were always completely fascinated by them.”
Simon was listening raptly, the pencil still in his hand, and Ruby tried to imagine them together: Otis, with his weather-beaten face and wrinkled hat, and London, with those dark eyes and even darker suits. Something about the image just refused to match up.
“But even before Otis married Sophie,” Daisy continued, “they started to grow apart. London began hanging around with some other guys, the kind who got a real kick out of their powers and didn’t exactly use them responsibly. They started helping London with his first disasters, back when not everyone would bow to his pressure yet.”
Ruby frowned, and in the brief silence, they could hear a tiny rumble of thunder from one of the frames, no louder than the purr of a cat. Daisy shook her head, as if to loosen her thoughts.
“Then Sophie died, and London blamed Otis, and it got worse between them. But when my father had his heart attack, and it was time to choose a new Chairman, everyone sort of expected it to be Otis. Of the two, he’d always had a slight advantage in power, and he was the one everyone really wanted. He just seemed more like a leader, you know?”
They both nodded; they did know.
“But he disappeared after the fire, and it was London who was chosen. Some people think it was rightfully so; others think maybe he somehow rigged it. And some believe he was just so charged with grief from Sophie’s death that it was enough to move the needle on its own. But either way, the compass chose him, and the rest, as they say, is history.”
“It should have been Otis,” Ruby said, a spark of anger rising inside her.
“A lot of people thought that,” Daisy agreed. “From the moment London started, the whole Society was divided. And even though most of them—the ones who believed in Otis, and who believed in my father before that—ended up eventually being forced to go along with London’s plans, they were always hoping for change to come. So you can see what it meant for Otis to walk back in here today. What it meant that he was finally the one chosen. They’ve been waiting all this time. Since the day London became Chairman.”
“Which is when you left,” Simon said, and Daisy nodded.
“Which is when I left. I never trusted him. Neither did my dad. And I had a way out. I had the garage, and a whole other life. So I left.”
“And Otis?” Ruby asked, though she already knew the answer.
“There were rumors about him from time to time, that he was traveling the country, helping people in the wake of natural disasters, cleaning up after London’s messes. But he didn’t come back until now, until he found Simon. It’s like he couldn’t. Like he wasn’t ready yet.” She paused and shook her head. “It’s like all that time, he was trying to make up for the one person he couldn’t save.”