Maybe he’d never been so close to a source to see how much influence small things could have on the fate of so many. Simon had hired Meg, who was a cassandra sangue. Her combination of childlike sweetness, the prophecies she’d seen, and her desire to learn and live shifted enough of the terra indigene’s perception of humans that the humans working in the Lakeside Courtyard reacted by becoming a little more friendly to the Others. Lieutenant Montgomery’s efforts to forge a connection between the Courtyard and the police also gave both sides more opportunities to interact without hostility.

He saw the results of those actions. The Talulah Falls humans hadn’t brought government officials—if there were any who had survived. They brought a supervisor from the hydroelectric plant and a police captain. Vlad could hear Captain Burke’s influence in the way the Falls captain expressed his concerns about how to keep the peace for the humans who would remain in Talulah Falls, and how to release the humans who wanted to leave. The captain, at least, understood the danger that faced anyone who wanted to flee from the Falls: with the friction building between humans and the Others in so many regions, the towns and cities still under human control provided only the illusion of safety.

But the surviving Talulah Falls residents had worked with the terra indigene, explaining the value of clearing at least one lane of the cars that had been abandoned during the first effort to flee the Falls a few months ago. There were parking lots full of cars that hadn’t been reclaimed—some because the owners had been tourists who had been allowed to leave or had run away in the first chaotic days and weren’t seen again. And some vehicles belonged to people who had been killed outright during the terra indigene’s initial furious response to the explosion that had killed several of the Crowgard.

No one talked about how many humans had died. No one talked about the Harvester who had been brought to the Falls to act as the enforcer and consumed the life energy of anyone suspected of wrongdoing. Instead, the humans presented a list of what they considered vital businesses and industries. The power plant provided electricity for the whole area, including Talulah Falls, Great Island, and Lakeside. It would provide most of the power for the River Road Community. If they could have some reassurance for their safety and that of their families, the men and women who worked at the power plant would remain in the Falls, doing their work to the best of their ability, even making entry-level jobs available to the folks from Ferryman’s Landing to train more workers in all areas of the business.