After closing the lid, she slid the box away from her and replaced it with the other one, pulling it close as she sat down again. Although called the Coffin, it looked more like a briefcase, small enough that she could easily hide the thing wherever she wished. It was made of hard red leather with white stitching, six metal latches keeping it closed and secure. Each latch had a mechanical dial of numbers with its own code, six codes in all. Only three people in the world knew those codes. Well, two did, now.

With an emotion approaching the hysteria she’d seen in her pilgrims when she’d taken them to the Maze ruins, she meticulously, almost reverently, turned the dials one by one until all the codes were set. Then she flipped the latches open, relishing the six successive clicks of metal on leather.

She lifted the lid with care, settling it as far back as it could go on its hinges.

Most of the interior was taken up by a gray spongy substance, its purpose to cushion the precious, priceless contents. Five small, round holes had been evenly spaced in the protective material, where five metallic vials—sealed with a technology that Alexandra didn’t yet understand—had been placed. Five vials that could Evolve the Evolution itself, change the world forever, as trite as that sounded.

She pulled one of the vials—about the length of her hand—from its slot and examined its smooth, unbroken surface, perfectly rounded on both ends. There were no seams, no cracks, no labels. Only shiny, unblemished, silvery metal. What filled its cylindrical interior would shape the future of the Flare and its many variants. A course that would be set by her, Alexandra Romanov, Goddess to her people. No, no, that title wouldn’t do anymore. God, period. She carefully placed the item back in its slot.

She looked upon her possession with indescribable joy.

The vials contained blood samples of a person who’d lived long ago, a name that was known in every corner of the surviving world, spoken often in the seven decades since his tragic death. A name that conjured dread in some, hope in most. For Alexandra, it conjured the sum total of her every reason to exist. For she knew a secret that most did not.

The boy known as Newt had not been immune to the Flare.

No, he hadn’t been immune in the slightest, unlike most of his friends in the Maze.

But he was the cure.

Yes. That boy. The one named Newt, Subject A4, the Glue, brother to Sonya . . .

The Cure.

THE END OF BOOK ONE

Crank Palace Blurb

Crank Palace

Part One

Welcome to the Neighborhood

Chapter One

There they go.