“Open your eyes,” a man’s voice says.

I obey. The room is now completely empty but for the cooling pile of my own vomit beside me. There’s no red woman, blond man or green man. It’s as if they never existed. They never did.

Instead, in front of me is Ensi.

The leader of the Ratel.

He’s tall, leanly muscled, with skin a little darker than mine and close-cropped, curly hair. It had been longer in Tila’s sketch. He wears a collarless blue silk shirt and black trousers, and looks almost like a priest.

He holds out his hand. “Up you come. Time to talk.”

I take his hand.

18. Tila

EIGHTEEN

TILA

I didn’t know how to approach Mom and Dad about escaping the Hearth. Neither did Taema.

Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad. Can you ignore all your beliefs and help us abandon you?

They hadn’t been born in the Hearth, though. They knew the world outside—or at least they had known it, thirty or so years ago. They were the only ones who could get us out.

We were going to die soon if we didn’t do something. We felt tired all the time, and our ankles had swollen so much we had to wear old shoes of Mom’s, and her shoes were ugly. We never wanted to eat. I’d wake up in the night and Taema’s breath would be all hitchy. Sometimes she’d even stop breathing and I’d hold my own breath until she started up again.

I could feel our heart thumping beneath our skin all the time, like it was a fish trying to jump from the surface of the lake. Every day, it was getting harder to do basic things. Mom had to help dress us. Dad, embarrassingly, had to help bathe us because Mom wasn’t strong enough to haul us up. Now we had even less privacy.

So after dinner one night, we confronted them. They were doing the dishes, Dad washing and Mom drying them and putting them away, humming to themselves. They were still very much in love with each other. Still are, I hope, though I haven’t seen them in a decade. Seemed a shame to ruin the nice moment.

We’d agreed that I’d do the talking. We knew some hard things would have to be said, and Taema wasn’t up to it. Her fingers were digging into my ribcage and she was shaking. I was nervous too, but in this I was the stronger twin. I wasn’t afraid of saying things to our parents that might make them cry, if it meant we’d get what we wanted. Needed. A lifeline.

“We don’t want to die,” I started, cutting right to the chase.

Our parents stopped humming.