The hatch opened and the worker drones went about their business like ants, crawling out of the belly of the beast, lugging crates to be set onto the grass. Once the ship left, the people from the Hearth would slink down the hill and take their essential supplies back to the buildings, trying to have as little contact with the Impure as possible.

“So fucking hypocritical,” I said out loud.

“What is?”

“All that bullshit about the Impure. Yet they still take regular orders of things they can’t make. Never really thought about it before. The Hearth has plenty of Impure stuff that we all use. Light bulbs. Some of the cleaning stuff. Metalwork. We can’t make a lot of that here. It’s all over, but we pretend we’re all Pure and untouched by the outside world. So stupid.”

A pause, and then: “Yeah. It is.” It was the first time she had really agreed with me out loud. Usually when I ranted about the evils of the Hearth she stayed pretty quiet, tacitly agreeing but not really saying anything out loud that could be considered anti-Hearth. It had always annoyed me. Now, she sounded so sad that I felt guilty for all my ranting. I also felt justified.

“It’s almost time,” I whispered, wrapping my arms about her. She rested her chin on my shoulder.

“Everything will be different now,” she whispered against my neck.

“It’ll be better.”

“Maybe.” She pulled away, and I could see the dark circles under her eyes, the yellow undertone to her skin, how thin she’d grown. I looked exactly the same. We felt especially weak that day. The excitement of freedom was overworking our already weakened heart.

“Taema?” I murmured, shaking her shoulder. She slumped, and I fell to the ground with her. I clutched her to me, taking deep breaths, forcing myself to stay calm, because I couldn’t stress the heart any further. Her arms were slack against mine. I wrapped my own arms around her and rocked us like we were children, resting my face against her slack skin.

“Stay with me, Taema,” I said over and over, careless of who might hear us above. I could feel her inhaling and exhaling against me and tears ran down my face. If she died, I’d be glad that I’d be following her a few minutes later. It wouldn’t be fair if this was the end, just as we were about to escape.

I looked up into Mana-ma’s face.

She squatted over us, her dark robes billowing.

“And just where do you think you’re going?” she asked.

My mind spun, but there was no good excuse I could give—of course there wasn’t. I decided to say nothing, and glared at her.