NEIL SKIRTS AROUND THE BARRIER and dives over to Kiara. I’m right behind him. There’s blood trickling from her mouth, and she stares up at us in a daze of pain and confusion. If a powerful healer like Kiara is bleeding, this has to be the work of the Morati, who can apparently make anyone believe anything. The skin on my neck prickles, and I turn my head to scan the immediate area, but there is no one.
“What happened?” Neil kneels beside her, his hands hovering like he doesn’t know if he should touch her. “Is there anything we can do? Where are the other healers? You need a healer!”
She coughs, grabs Neil’s forearm. “Keegan. Where is he?”
“I don’t know.” Neil materializes a pillow and props her head on it, trying to offer her a small comfort. I take a corner of the blanket she’s lying on and press it to her abdomen, where the most blood is.
“Protect. Him. Promise me.” Her eyelids flutter.
“I will,” Neil promises. “What happened?”
“All the healers. Have been murdered.”
“Who did this to you?” I ask her.
Her head lolls to the side, her strength at an end. “Angel . . .” The word is so soft, I almost don’t even catch it. The light leaves her eyes, and I watch helplessly until her body disappears, gone now. Maybe gone forever.
“Did she say ‘angel’?” asks Neil, his voice wet. He stares in disbelief at Kiara’s bloody handprint on his skin, and falls back against the wall of the booth.
I materialize a cloth and wipe the blood from his arm. “I’m so sorry.” I can’t believe Kiara is gone. She was strong. I could never thank her enough for saving Neil’s life. Was there something I could have done to save hers?
I shiver. Standing up, I survey this section of the fair. The healers’ booth is not only at the very edge, but there are several empty booths between it and the next closest, a poorly constructed hovel occupied only by the caretaker representative that we talked to a few moments ago. Now he lies in a green hammock, his attention elsewhere.
Kiara said they didn’t get many visitors down this way, and she wasn’t kidding. When did the attack happen? Most people would fade out rather quickly if they had injuries as serious as Kiara’s, but Kiara was a powerful healer. She might have been able to hold out for hours.
“The Morati killed them. We have to tell Libby about this.” Neil gestures wildly at the red blanket, now stained dark. “They specifically targeted the healers. You know what that means.”
I do. It means Level Three is even more dangerous for everyone now. Without the healers, we’re more vulnerable than before. Maybe it means the Morati are planning large-scale attacks. The Morati’s ultimate goal is to ascend all the way to heaven, but how does weakening the people here help them do that? Julian might know.
I should have told Libby about Julian’s visit. It’s not that I think he did this, but he is still Morati. I’ve protected him because of our bargain, and because I care about him more than I dare to admit. But now that all our lives hang in the balance, I can’t rationalize keeping his presence here a secret.
If he’s truly innocent, if he works with Libby and Furukama and helps them as much as he can, they’ll have to treat him fairly. They wouldn’t expose him to brimstone and make him sick. Maybe once they capture the Morati, they’ll also let me question them about my stolen memories.
But considering Libby’s insistence on detachment, I’m deluding myself if I think for a second that they would allow me any access at all. It comes down to a choice: a chance to view my memories or a chance for everyone’s safety. Obviously, the latter is much more important.
“Um . . . Neil . . . I need to tell you something.” I’ve been dreading this conversation about Julian. Neil is not going to understand why I didn’t alert the authorities immediately.
“What is it?” he asks warily. “We need to find Libby. Now.”
“Well . . . ,” I begin, but I’m cut off by a girl’s screams. I whip around. The girl stands in shock just outside the booth, staring down at the red blanket. She sees me, gulps, and runs back toward the fair. She stumbles and flies to the ground, and begins to sob and point toward the healers’ booth. Toward me. My shirt is covered in Kiara’s blood, which has sunk into the weave of the cotton fabric and caked into an ugly brown.
Soon enough the girl’s hysterics attract the attention of the security force, led by Autumn and the guy with the silver belt buckle who came to my room while Neil was in a coma.
“What happened here?” Autumn guides us out of the booth onto a patch of trampled grass behind it. I give her a report of how we found Kiara and what she said about all the healers being killed by an angel.
“It’s terrible.” The shock of it all is clearly etched on Neil’s face. “I owe Kiara my life, and now she’s gone.” He sinks down onto the stump of a tree.
Silver Belt Buckle escorts the shocked girl away while the others roll out yellow-and-black crime-scene tape to cordon off the area from the rubberneckers who’ve already started to gather, wide-eyed and curious.
Autumn lets out a piercing whistle. “The career fair is over. Curfew is in effect until tomorrow, as of immediately. Please return to your rooms.” The Careers shutter their booths with worried glances. A trickle and then a flood of fair attendees bump into one another in their haste to get back to the dorms. I reach for Neil to return to our rooms, but Autumn calls out, “Stay for a minute, will you?”
She returns to my side. “Did Kiara say who did this? Give a description?”
“No. She was really weak by the time we found her, and then . . .” I trail off. It’s surreal to be talking about Kiara’s death to someone who was murdered similarly and in my own bed.
Autumn shakes her head. “It’s okay. I’ve come to terms with the way I died. It has only made me tougher.”
While Autumn gathers evidence, I sit next to Neil on the stump and put my arm around him. Kiara’s death has hit him harder than I would’ve expected, especially considering they barely knew each other. But then, I’m starting to see several new sides to Neil. It must be all the upheaval and change he’s gone through lately. As someone who moved a lot, I’ve come to expect change, sometimes even crave it. But Neil spent his whole life in the same town, his days set to a familiar rhythm. No wonder he’s so moody.
Libby arrives and consults with Autumn. As Autumn hurries away, Libby approaches us. “I understand you found Kiara.” She offers her wrist to Neil to help him stand. He takes it and scrambles up, flustered.
“What will we do? Now that the healers are gone?” Neil is visibly calmer, almost as if Libby’s touch took away his sadness. She fixed my hearing, so it’s possible that she can affect emotions as well.
“I’ll have to train new healers,” Libby says. “I’ll brush up on my skills and take over the program. It’s a priority now.”
Kiara mentioned that Libby had once been a healer. It’s a good thing she switched careers, or she’d be dead now. “But won’t that make you a target? And anyone you train?” I ask.
“You should know as well as anyone else that sometimes the good of the many comes before the good of the few,” Libby says.
Guilt hits me hard. It’s time to tell her about Julian.
As I glance over at the healers’ booth, the security force starts to run toward Eastern Avenue. There’s a commotion at one of the distant booths. “What’s going on over there?”
Libby follows my gaze. “We’ve found one of the Morati.”
“You have? That’s great!” Neil says.
I paste on a bright smile. The capture of a Morati means we’re all safer, which is the best news of the day. It also means I don’t have to turn in Julian, and Neil won’t be disappointed in me. But how did they capture one? Libby told me that they hoped I would be the one to find the Morati, and then they managed it themselves after all. It’s doubtful I’ll get the chance to grill their prisoner about my stolen memories, which is a shame.
The group of security officers strides toward us. They form a tight circle around a prisoner and are at high alert, all ramrod-straight postures and shifty eyes. Autumn argues with Silver Belt Buckle, and she’s vibrating, as if she’s trying her best to maintain control over her reactions.
“He’s not responsible for this, Brady!” Autumn shouts. “Let him go.”
The prisoner’s head finally becomes visible.
Julian.