Boats dot the surface of the river, some struggling toward the Sanctuary but moving away when they see the line of Recruiters patrolling the wall that rings the island, ready to shoot anyone who approaches the shore.

The scope of what’s happening begins to sink in. This was my home. The Dark City, the Neverlands—this island—has survived against the Unconsecrated since the Return. Generation after generation has struggled and fought—protected and held on.

And it’s all gone. Just like that. In less than a day.

I press my forehead to the chilled glass, my breath puffing cloudy circles, obscuring the chaos I’m leaving behind.

What if this is it? What if we’re only staving off the inevitable?

As if he’s reading my thoughts, Catcher moves closer against me. But his heat can’t penetrate the cold terror invading my heart and freezing through my veins.

Chapter XIV

I know the Sanctuary based on what I could see of it from the Dark City: a small island sitting in the middle of the wide river with a thick stone wall circling the shore. At either end there are clusters of tall narrow skyscrapers and sprawled in between is a long low building painted a dull gray.

When our cable car lands on the platform in the wall it’s to the gray building we’re taken. A handful of Recruiters confiscate our weapons and huddle around us as the sounds from the Dark City float across the river on the icy wind: screaming, moaning, panic.

I want to point out to them that they don’t have to worry about us leaving—there’s nowhere for us to go—but instead I shove my hands deep into my empty pockets and hunch my shoulders against the cold.

Inside the gray building it isn’t much warmer, just dim, without many windows to let in natural light. The floor is dirty, the walls grimy, and everything smells faintly of sewage and garbage. I try to take shallow breaths as Conall, clearly a high-ranking Recruiter, silently leads us down twisty corridors and past rows of empty rooms. Some of them are totally bare; others have papers or broken furniture strewn about. Everything heavy with the weight of abandonment.

I don’t know what I expected—the opulence of the former Protectorate or at least the spoils of the black market. It makes me wonder if perhaps the Recruiters are just like the rest of us in the Dark City: barely surviving.

Eventually we enter a dark hallway where thin shafts of light barely shine through dirty windows on one side and a series of closed doors line the other. Conall opens one of them and nods for Catcher to enter. He hesitates, glancing back at me.

“There are details to be worked out,” Conall says. “Until everything’s in place, we’ll not have you wandering around the island.”