CHAPTER 40

I woke up in a cabin, woozy and disoriented, stealing shallow breaths so that my chest wouldn’t hurt so badly. I wanted to sleep longer, but every part of me ached. Outside, the sky was the deep, dark blue that preceded sunrise.

Rose was beside me, one thick bandage tied around her neck and another across her chest and around her torso. Her face was bruised.

She saw me watching her and frowned. “That bad, huh?”

I leaned over and kissed her gently on the cheek. “You’re alive. That’s what matters.” My mind flashed back to the night’s events. In the almost silence, it was difficult to imagine everything that had happened to us. “Where’s Griffin?”

Rose tilted her head away from me. “They put him in a cabin with Nyla.”

“They’re in quarantine—”

“No. Ananias says it’s just so they can observe them more easily. The incubation period is three days.”

Three days until we’d know whether they were going to live or die. Less, really, because they’d both been bitten the day before.

“If he’s the solution . . .” Rose began, but she didn’t finish the thought. Until we knew for sure, there was always the other possibility. And what about Nyla?

“I have to go see him,” I told her.

“I know.”

She reached up and placed her hand on my cheek. I leaned in and kissed her, first on the cheek, then on the lips. She swallowed hard, and as our lips came together again, she opened her mouth. I opened mine too, and for a precious moment there was no ship, and no Plague, and no enemies or pain or death. It was just the two of us.

I left the cabin and staggered along the corridor. I knew where we’d taken Nyla the night before, but when I opened the door, Griffin was alone, sleeping. Apart from the blanket covering his chest and upper legs, he was naked. Every exposed piece of skin was covered in scratches and bite marks. It took me back to the room with the glass cube, and the sight of the rats crawling all over him.

Were we measuring his life in hours or days?

I’d promised to keep Griffin safe. We’d left Roanoke so that he might live normally, away from the pirates who’d risked everything to capture him. In the end I’d sacrificed him to Chief instead. Everyone else might have believed in a solution, but all I could see was a boy in pain, flesh scarred, body infected with the Plague.

“I’ll look after him,” said Nyla.

I hadn’t heard her enter. She looked so well, it was impossible to believe she might be sick too. “How do you feel?” I asked her.

“Scared.” She padded across the floor and knelt beside Griffin, watching him. Looking back, it was impossible not to wonder if she’d used their friendship as a way to learn about us, to find our weaknesses. But the way she gazed at him now was genuinely caring. She was as scared for him as for herself.

“I’m so sorry, Nyla. I wish there was something we could do.”

“You rescued us from Sumter. That’s enough.”

I touched the wound on my stomach. Another scar to add to the collection. “So I found out about Jerren’s element. What’s yours?”

She didn’t look up. “I don’t think I have one. Jerren started twisting sound when he was young. Mom and Dad warned him to keep it a secret, so he did it in private. Then one day, he saw a bunch of guys hurting Mom. He didn’t even think about what he was doing. He just turned sound on them until they knew something was wrong. It distracted them long enough for Mom to escape, but when they worked out it was Jerren doing that, they went after him. Dad threw some stuff on a sailboat and we all took off. He said it was better to die together than to sacrifice a child.”

“Did a clan ship really rescue you?”

“Yeah. It’s incredible, but true. After that, Mom was convinced that we were destined to go to Sumter. That it was meant to be.”

The door creaked open and Jerren joined us. “I heard voices,” he said. Leaning closer to me, he added, “You look terrible.”

“Unlike you,” I replied, admiring his sling.

“Flesh wound, fortunately.”

“We’ll both have scars.”

He shrugged. “Alice likes them, right? Could work in my favor.” He glanced at his sister, and peered around the door to make sure that we weren’t being overheard. “Is Griffin really the solution?” he whispered. “Back in that room, they were ready to risk everything on him surviving the Plague.”

I had no answer for that.

“I mean, I hated Chief for what he did to my family, but he was still the smartest man I ever met. The most cautious too. I can’t believe he’d have risked everything unless he knew somehow.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Jerren closed the door and sat with his back to it, blocking anyone from joining us. “Look, there’s something I need to tell you. Alice says . . . you need to know.” He gave a frustrated sigh. “You know that Dare came here about a month ago. Not a surprise, really—he stopped off every year to trade food and materials and news. But this time was different.”

“How?”

“Well, we’ve always known the pirates had an island base in the Atlantic Ocean. Kell reckons some of them are married. But this was the first time Dare brought a woman with him. Just one. And she was . . . strange.” He clasped his hands together. “The men all stayed away from her, like they were frightened. At first, I figured she must be Dare’s wife because she was about the same age. But the way they acted around each other . . . no way they’re married.”

“But you don’t know for sure.”

Still seated, Jerren shuffled forward. “One night, she came to see Nyla and me. It wasn’t an accident, either. She wanted us to be alone. She started asking us questions: Where were we from? How did we get to Sumter? What were our elements?”

My pulse quickened. “You must have done something.”

“No way. Nothing. She just . . . knew. And so we told her everything. We didn’t even care if she passed it on to Chief, because we’d given up ever escaping. But when we were finished, she told us to be ready, that help was coming. She told us we weren’t alone.” He took a deep breath. “After Dare left, everyone was talking about the woman. Kell told me he’d seen her before, years ago. Back then, Dare had called her the solution.”

I struggled to keep my voice even. “How long ago did Kell see her?”

“About thirteen years, he said.”

“Did the woman touch you?”

He nodded. “She held our hands almost the whole time. It was weird at first, but also kind of nice. Our mother used to do it. Maybe that’s why we let her. She stared at us too, like she was looking right inside us. And even though I’d given up hope, I knew everything she said was the truth.” He shrugged. “It was a miracle. I really believe that.”

Yes, it was a miracle. A seer around Dare’s age, mistaken for the solution and brought to Sumter thirteen years ago. What had Kell told us? It was simple math to work out that Griffin was the solution.

The woman had to be my mother. But she’d died the morning after Griffin was born. Murdered by her own brother, Dare.

That’s what my father had told us, anyway.

Another memory returned then: of standing on a water tower on Roanoke Island, watching the pirates disembark in groups. I’d hoped that they would lead our families off the ship too, but Dare had kept them locked up on board. There hadn’t been any women among the crew, I was sure of that. I’d have noticed straightaway.

Or would I?

The pirates had lowered a large wooden box into a cutter that day. They’d done it gently too, reverently, as if there were something or someone important inside.

Someone like Dare’s sister.

“Are you all right, Thomas?” Nyla’s voice was full of concern.

No, I wasn’t all right. The day I’d seen the wooden box, I’d described it to Tessa. Had she foreseen who was inside? Is that why she chose to stay on Roanoke Island?

My head spun. I was so tired, and the hope I’d felt at hearing Jerren’s words already felt like old news. The only thing I knew for certain was that I’d had a chance to kill Dare, and I’d left him behind instead.

I made a vow then: No matter what happened in the future, if Dare was alive, I would find him. And I’d make him pay for everything he’d done.