The question brought absolute silence to the crowd. All eyes were on Milos, and Milos looked out at them, watching them watching him. They bobbed up and down in that odd way an Afterlight crowd did when trying to keep from sinking in living ground.

Milos cleared his throat, although there was nothing there to block his voice, and spoke as commandingly as he could.

“Mary wanted this to be a surprise, but maybe she won’t mind if I tell you.” Then he pointed off to the setting sun. “There is a deadspot in the West,” Milos told them. “A deadspot larger than any you’ve ever seen. It is a beautiful place filled with everything you could ever want or need. A place where you can all be happy forever. This is where Mary wants us to go.”

And the crowd applauded—some actually even cheered. There was one problem, though:

Milos was lying.

Mary’s plan was to head west, and conquer . . . but “west” was a direction, not a destination, and while these children could blindly trust Mary to lead them, they weren’t so blind when it came to Milos. He was afraid to consider what they might do to him if they knew Milos had no idea where they were going, or what to do when they got there.

CHAPTER 5
Allie in Distress

There were many things of which Allie was unaware. How could she know what went on behind her when her only view was the world in front of her? She knew that Mary Hightower had been pushed out of Everlost, and into the living world, because Allie had been there, and had helped turn her back into flesh and blood. . . . Yet Allie did not know that Mary’s second life was already over, and that she was just a few months away from awakening in Everlost again.

Allie knew that Nick, the “Chocolate Ogre,” had finally been overcome by his chocolate cancer, and had dissolved into nothing—but she did not know that Mikey McGill, still deeply in love with her, had gathered the shapeless melted mass that had once been Nick, and had given him shape once more.

Allie had no way of knowing that Charlie and Johnnie-O—Nick’s staunchest allies—were now hopelessly adrift in the Hindenburg, and that the massive airship was at the mercy of the Everlost sky.

And Allie didn’t know about reaping.