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WE ENTERED the land of the Lost, once again, through the Clock Tower’s portal.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to the chill of the place or its lifelessness and lack of color.
I gauged Calla’s reactions with caution. This was the first time she’d visited Susana after having been set free. She saw it for the first time with the eyes of someone no longer Lost.
Her eyes watered. When she found her breath, she said, “I have to help them. All of them.”
Plaka placed an arm around her and led her away. As I watched their retreating forms, I wondered why Nick, Ray and I were there. How were we supposed to help? We didn’t have the Remnant Transporter talent. All right, maybe Nick was worth something because he had control over the most direct route between the Clock Tower and Susana. Presumably, he could help both Calla and Plaka transport silhouettes back and forth more rapidly by opening the portals.
Was Ray supposed to record all of this with his brain? I supposed I could do something similar with the travel glasses, but my World Building talent was useless here. I’d already reached out and tried.
“Valcas!” Plaka’s voice came from across the way. I jogged to catch up.
He and Calla stood near a man who was being attacked by a pair of Chars. I knew how this would work. Plaka would place his hands on the man to calm him down enough to learn his name and the person he’d been searching. Then he’d travel to find silhouettes that could help accelerate the man’s healing and bring him back, to free him from the Lost.
I stood by, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. Finally, I threw up my arms. “What am I supposed to do while you and Calla transport silhouettes and heal?”
A tinge of darkness reached Plaka’s eyes. “Do you doubt me? Calm down and listen, Valcas. I have thought this through; I have a plan.”
“What could I possibly do here? My talent is use—”
“Enough!”
All went quiet. Even the flashes of light momentarily paused.
“When we finish our task of freeing the Lost, we will set fire to this world. We will cleanse the land.”
If he saw my look of confusion, he ignored it. I tightly set my jaw and focused, hoping that at some point his plan would make sense.
“As we have learned from our escape from the Fire Falls, Uproars resist fire. If there are any left after the Lost have been freed—and their Uproars have been extinguished—I expect that the strays will flee. Perhaps The Chars will too. When they are gone and Susana is empty, assuming there is anything left, it will need to be refilled.”
Nick looked down at me at the same time I began to understand Plaka’s plan. “It will need to be rebuilt. And for that to happen, we need a World Builder, someone who can fill the void so there’s no longer a place for the Lost.”
“What do I build?”
“Anything you want, Valcas.”
Hope dawned. The possibilities were endless. But—the blood drained from my face. “I was penalized as a child for World Building without the TSTA’s permission. They would never approve this.”
“It’s not like it would be your first infraction, friend.”
“Or the second, or third,” I said, resisting the grin that threatened to form; amusement felt inappropriate in the place of the Lost. “But I refuse to burden my mother with whatever outrageous price the penalty for the infraction may be. The mission they would send me on could be far worse.”
Calla either hiccuped or quickly smothered a scream. Whatever it was didn’t look comfortable. “Not another mission. No. We’d have to find some way to pay.”
I massaged a knot that had formed between my neck and shoulder blade. Another infraction for a good cause that would lead to another unjust penalty. Just what I needed. And I still had my own Chars to worry about. It seemed I would never escape the path to becoming Lost. We didn’t know if Plaka’s plan would even work.
I looked to Calla and Ray, trying my best to focus on them and to ignore the pain building behind my eyes. Both looked depressed. Plaka seemed pensive, but now haunted, as if his plan had not been foolproof, after all.
But Nick was smiling. “I don’t think you’d need to bother your mother about this, even should the TSTA slap you with the harshest of penalties.”
“That’s kind of you, Nick. But I can’t expect you to hide me at the Clock Tower. I don’t doubt it would work, but then I’d lose my freedom.”
I beheld Calla, returning her look of sorrow with mine. I couldn’t expect things to work out between us. But in the event that we were to grow close again, staying with Nick at the Clock Tower meant I couldn’t give her the type of life she deserved. I understood Ivory’s problem with Nick’s proposal. In some ways, a life of hiding was no better than a life in Susana. It wasn’t much of a life at all.
Nick chuckled. “That’s one idea, friend, but not what I had in mind. I was thinking more along the lines of funding, a loan of sorts.”
***
PROBLEM SOLVED. AFTER graciously thanking Nick for his generous gift of money—should it be needed—I learned the other part of Plaka’s plan for me. He asked me to accompany Calla while she transported silhouettes. Ray tagged along with Plaka. Nick scuttled back and forth as needed to help facilitate transport through the portals.
The effort was well planned and ran smoothly. We grew more efficient with each round, with Ray and I recording details about the Lost who began speaking—their voices, their names, what they looked like, their specific bodies of water, their home worlds and who they’d been searching for. Being able to play back the information with certainty, and quickly, was crucial to helping Plaka and Calla focus on which silhouettes to select, from where and from what time periods.
Before long, the Lost reduced by half, and then by another quarter. Susana seemed emptier somehow, more desolate; and yet, less desperate.
Calla adapted rapidly, embracing her talents and providing comfort to the Lost. Some of the men and women recognized her from when she’d resided with them as a prisoner of Susana. Seeing her walking among the Freed gave them hope. It also may have sped up their progress.
Several of the travelers that Calla and Plaka set free were people I recognized, travelers I’d met as an accused who faced hearings at TSTA Headquarters, travelers who—like myself—had been ordered to seek the Lost as payment for their infractions. Travelers who themselves had become Lost.
One by one, the silver waters of Susana dried up, and the horizon darkened given the decrease in Uproars and their flashes of light. The Chars reduced in number as well, disappearing as those they tormented became Freed. It was truly spectacular to behold.
Each time a Lost became Freed, he or she either came back to life or disappeared unto death. The living went with Nick, who helped port them home, wherever and whenever that may be. Tingles of hope and uneasiness crawled through my spine every time someone became Freed who should have died according to his or her timeline. The shimmering edges that spread across the individual’s form, the glittering light and the realization that hit when the person was no longer there.
But nothing was as remarkable as when one of the Lost asked for Ray, by name.
A young woman, near in age to Calla, wrung her hands while standing near a lagoon. Thin layers of sand separated silver edges of the lagoon from a shade of a larger body of water that was no longer there. Her hair, blonde tinged with shadows, twisted to her waist. Her body was just as wiry. She stared, studying the pond as if trying to remember each detail, the placement of every drop of water collected inside.
Plaka calmed her to the point where she stopped wringing her hands. Disturbed by her intense focus, he passed his hands across her face in an attempt to break her gaze, to grab her attention.
She looked through him and arched a brow. “Ray?”
Ray, who’d been recording a man next to us and his silver body of water, turned. His mouth hung open for a brief moment, before he ran and wrapped his arms around the young woman who’d spoken his name.
“Lily.” He said the name tenderly, not just once, but repeatedly.
Nick nudged me. I wondered if he was thinking what I was—that this Lily could be a love interest of Ray’s, from the past. He’d never mentioned her name before. But then Ivory hadn’t mentioned Nick or his alter ego, Travertine, either.
Ray smoothed Lily’s hair back from her face. She stared at him with the same intense gaze he used while recording. He gave her the same smile he gave Calla, a friendly one. But not one of passion. I regarded the pair more closely. He was several inches taller. His eyes were dark blue. Hers were softer, lighter. They seemed alike somehow, but I couldn’t quite place why.
Tired of my own inner speculation, I asked, “How do you know Lily, Ray? Why is it that she was searching for you?”
He took a deep breath. His face was stricken, even though all of us knew Lily would be fine, that she would heal and be set free. Just like all of the Lost in Susana.
“She’s my older sister, by fourteen minutes.” He swallowed before continuing. “We haven’t seen each other in more than a year, Earth time. She’s a Detail Technician, like me.”