I think of Claudia’s statement just this morning about running away to China and wish now we had gone immediately. Why didn’t we leave?

The passports, of course. The ones we have so far been unable to get replaced by Tibor’s lackey Jester.

And then I let out an incredulous exhale.

“You,” I say. “You had our backpacks stolen.”

Tibor shrugs, like it’s some joke I’ve taken too personally. “So what?”

“We are prepared to do far more,” Nikola says.

“Yes, like die. I heard you,” I snap.

He leans forward.

“Every few years, there are stories,” he says quietly. “They show up in the news, much abridged, of course. Tragic deaths, suicides. The real circumstances circulate through the underground. Of Utod, on the run from hunters. Men and women valuable to the Historian for their memories of names, faces, the whereabouts of other Progeny. Let alone the location of something so singular as the diary. Progeny who, facing impending assassination, fell into gravel crushers. Dove off cliffs. Ate bullets that destroyed their brains to protect such details from harvest. I loved Amerie. I was her sibling for nearly a decade. It was my job to protect her. But it was my job as well to protect those she knew. The fact that so many lives were not immediately taken upon her death is no coincidence. The fact that you lived to learn who you are is no accident. That was the depth of her commitment, Audra. And that is the depth of mine. To you, and to our kind.”

“My mother drowned,” I say slowly. “Her body was found in the Danube.”

“Her body was found in the Danube. But she did not drown. She had been doggedly pursued for weeks. It had gone too far, she said. And she was right. I found her before her hunter could, which was by then only a matter of time. I protected her—and those she loved—as I had sworn to do. I made certain she died a hero, unwilling to become a villain in death.”

I am very still, the echo of his whisper in my ears.

“You’re saying . . .”

But I don’t need him to repeat it.

I am staring my mother’s killer in the eye.

“And so I make you another promise. If you cannot find the thing that caused you to disappear, which I believe was something greater, even, than the diary . . . or if you will not find it . . . we will do you the favor of killing you before a hunter can.” He glances toward the television screens. “But we will dispense with those closest to you first.”

27

For the first time I wonder if it’s possible that I faked my own death not just to escape the Scions but to avoid being killed by my own kind.

Get out.

Get Luka, Claudia, Piotrek, and run.