“Has anyone figured out who’s not here?” Lani asked. “Samheed, for one.” She seemed a bit worried, understandably so. “Who else is missing from our team?”

“Fifer,” said Seth. “And Aaron.”

“Octavia’s not here, is she?” asked Claire, scanning the room.

“No,” said Henry, who was sitting with Thatcher and the rest of their family. “Clementi is missing too.”

“What about Fox and Kitten?” asked the ostrich statue grumpily. “Everyone always forgets the statues.”

Claire looked like she wasn’t about to take any sass from the ostrich, as she’d been the one to note Ms. Octavia’s absence a moment ago. But Gunnar Haluki nudged her, so she closed her lips firmly and ignored the bird instead. “Does anybody know what caused the tube system failure? I can’t even get Earl to surface on the tube’s blackboard. I don’t know if all of the blackboards are broken too, or if Earl is under Frieda’s command not to speak to us.”

“I was hoping you’d know how to fix it,” said Carina.

“I have no idea how,” said Claire. “This has never happened before.”

“I assume something must have gone wrong with the main tubes,” said Lani.

“Yes, it has,” said Sean, looking up from his seat nearby. “Two of the tubes were already destroyed—did anybody else notice that when we were fighting? I was trying to figure out a new plan of escape and saw that the control panels were smashed.”

“Monsters,” Claire muttered. “Why did they have to destroy everything? What’s the point in doing that? After everything Artimé has done for them—it’s just absurd. And uncouth. My father would be horrified, and so hurt.”

“It doesn’t make sense, especially since they decided to take over the mansion,” said Seth. “What good does that do? Talk about a lack of foresight. Now they’re stuck with the ruins.”

Sean smiled grimly. “And we’re stuck in here.”

“They had enough foresight to organize and trap us,” said Ibrahim glumly. “Florence is going to be livid when she finds out.”

“Where do you think the others are?” asked Seth. “I hope they’re not…” His face turned gray. Alex’s death was still fresh on his mind. What if Frieda Stubbs had killed Aaron and Fifer, like she’d threatened to do? Was that too far-fetched to worry about at this point? Would she really go through with her threats, or was it all just fearmongering blather? He could feel his chest tighten. Where are they? And Clementi, too? He couldn’t think about it. “I really hope they escaped,” he murmured. His stomach gurgled, and suddenly the thought of orange cream made him nauseous.

“I think they’re fine,” said Carina reassuringly, despite the worry in her eyes. “My guess? The dissenters probably just shoved our frozen bodies out of the tube into the piles we found ourselves in when we woke up. When they couldn’t fit any more on top of the pile of people in here, I’ll bet you anything they sent the rest to the theater or the library.”