It was hard going through day-to-day life when we could barely move. We started sleeping more and eating less. We needed canes to support us when we did try to walk.

It was terrible.

When we were feeling stronger we’d walk through the path in the woods until we reached the swamp. The air smelled thick and fetid, cutting through the scent of crushed pine needles. There were no boats on the island, for no one ever needed to leave, at least according to Mana-ma.

We ran our hands along the ferns, their leaves tickling our hands. We wanted to leave the confines of the Hearth more than anything, but we were also so scared.

“What do you think it’ll be like?” Taema asked. She always asked that when we were alone. Now that we’d decided, and even though deep down the crisis of faith was getting to her, I could tell she was daydreaming about it all the time so that she didn’t have to focus on the here and now. I kept wanting to pretend it was perfect on the other side, that we’d have wonderful new lives. The problem was, I’ve always been too much of a cynic to believe in happily ever after.

“It’ll be the best,” I reassured her. “We can do anything we want. A whole fresh start. The world is our oyster!”

“What does that even mean?”

“No idea. It was in one of your books I borrowed.”

She laughed weakly. Up overhead, the supply ship flew for its first drop in three months.

Taema shifted uncomfortably next to me, pulling on our shared skin. “Should we go see it?”

I shook my head. I didn’t want to risk anyone seeing us hanging around there this time.

The last time.

19. Taema

NINETEEN

TAEMA

“Tila,” Ensi, the leader of the Ratel, says with a smile. Like so many in San Francisco, he looks hardly older than thirty, but I’m sure he must be at least ten years older or more. Perhaps significantly more.

He’s not quite as classically handsome as many men I’ve seen in the city—most likely intentionally. The crescent moon tattoo by his eye glows slightly green.

I’m still shaking. “What’s going on?”

“I Tested you.”

“The others … they weren’t real?”

“No. Mere images projected from those electrodes and your ocular implants.”

“I haven’t killed anyone,” I whisper. I can’t believe how relieved I feel. I’m light-headed with it.

“Have you not?” He smiles in a way that makes me wonder, with a sickening feeling, if he knows about Tila and Vuk already. If he knows everything.

I force myself to appear calm and collected, like I haven’t just completely lost it in that white room. But how was that possible? It seemed so real. Not even virtual reality games were that realistic. Only the Zealscape. I shudder. “Did you drug me?”