I understand, all right. But I definitely haven’t changed my mind. The opposite, in fact. More than ever, I blame the Makers for letting my world destroy itself.

20

A week later, I’m on the Atlas again, this time with Georgie—and pretty much every Arcadia resident over the age of fifteen—on our way to Carnevale. Much of the furniture has been removed to accommodate so many people. Our train car is particularly busy as the bar is one carriage over. My neck aches from craning to see everyone’s splendid outfits, which range from elaborately fancy to casual to full-on space age. There are styles plucked from every era and every culture—the wonders of fashion not dictated by commercialism.

It’s exactly the kind of distraction I need.

The days since meeting Hilde have been intense and charged with a lot of emotion.

But I’ve also begun to relate more to my Maker peers. I had previously kind of lumped them all into the category of guilty for hoarding their resources from my world. But my time with Hilde made me realize that most of them are really no different from me. I have always benefited from resources and privileges denied to many and had never truly understood to what extent. I get that most of the apprentices and journeys I interact with daily are not the ones responsible for Maker choices on the whole.

It’s the ones who know better who have kept my anger bubbling and fueling a new level of laser focus on my mission. And Carnevale has been the perfect encouragement. While I’ve been able to show Kor things over video call, knowing how good Georgie is with computers, I’ve never felt I could safely email anything to the Families without her knowing. So I’ve been looking forward to getting off the island to the vicinity of cell phone service where I can finally send all my collected materials over.

With my renewed focus and Carnevale fast approaching, I’ve been on a spree of gathering as much information as I can—detailed notes from all my new journey classes, sketches of the layout of the island and institute, photos of samples from the Alchemist lab. Last week I camped out in the library for an entire night to observe the security protocols for the Ark and the Guard changes and schedule.

But it’s been a lot, and I’m worn out and ready for a break.

I can’t wait to just have fun and dance and not think about the atrocities of the world, or my responsibilities, or boys who don’t like me back.