Ceilos made a noise in the back of his throat, gravelly and thoughtful. “That’s a possibility.”

“The time postern is a dead end, though,” I said. “Without the plans, without a key—there’s nothing we can do.”

Isaak shifted uneasily. “Well, actually, Nadin, there’s something I wanted to tell you.”

Before he could say anything else, the air around us filled with a metallic sound, like the knell of a gong.

“What’s that?” Isaak asked.

“The call to the weekly forum,” Ceilos said. “Gitrin said that we needed to be there today.” He looked at Isaak. “Can what you were going to say wait?”

Isaak shrugged. “No point, really. You’ll hear it at the meeting.”

He had a fretful look about him, but before I could ask him what was wrong, Ceilos took my hand in his. “Come on, Nadin,” he said. “Let’s go together.”

“Right.” I glanced over my shoulder at Isaak. “Together.”

◦ • ◦

The central courtyard was filled with people—more than had even been at mealtime the night before. They crammed together at the long tables and milled around the edges, some men and women carrying tiny children. This had to be the entire population of Elytherios, or close to it. I’d never have imagined that so many people lived here. I saw traits I recognized from the various citidomes around Iamos, but they weren’t uniform. One man near me had the hair of one region and the eyes of a second. Another had a skin tone nearly as light as Isaak’s, and a hair color I’d never seen before—a rich reddish-brown like the oxidized dirt outside. The people here were a patchwork of different traits, a stark contrast from the uniformity of the citidomes. I swallowed, realizing that this is what Iamos would look like without the eugenics committees. What the world was like before the Progression.

Elimination of differences was supposed to bring unity. But Hope Renewed never felt as unified as Elytherios did just now.

In the middle of the courtyard, a group of people stood with Eos and Marin. I realized with a start that I recognized some of them: the plivoi couple from the citidome, and the Ferre smuggler. I couldn’t begin to guess how they had gotten away from the Enforcers. Gitrin was also with them, and two men that I had not seen before.

Isaak saw them and started to move away from Ceilos and me, but I stayed him. “The man with the dark hair is your father?” I asked.

He nodded. “And the other one is a… friend of his, I guess. He’s also from my time. And that’s what I wanted to tell you—he has a copy of the time posternkey.”