“They blindfold the mother, not the child,” I explained, before she could snap at me. “On the day I was born, I saw William. I don’t know how he managed it, but he was there when they took me to the nursery.”

Voltaire was shocked. “And you remember—how? No one remembers being born.”

“I don’t know how, but I remember almost everything about that day.”

“Don’t be a fool.”

I shrugged. “I remembered my birth father, didn’t I?”

She hesitated, then came to sit down, still absorbing the revelation. After a while, she rankled. “That doesn’t explain why you hate him. Most of us would kill to know our birth father.”

“If you were a Record Keeper, you wouldn’t.” I swallowed. “At the Schoolhouse, knowing your birth father means you know exactly who gave you away.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Voltaire said. “It’s not his fault you were chosen.”

My throat burned with anger. “You’ve got to stop seeing it as a privilege; it’s not! William took me to the Schoolhouse himself. I remember his face as he handed me over.”

“He had no choice.”

“I had no choice! He took my choice away. Don’t you see? I went quietly because of him. I trusted him. In their hateful crib, I thought he was there watching me from the shadows. I cried for a week! I nearly died trying to reach him because I believed in him. I thought, if he just heard me, he would come.”

Voltaire said nothing.

I stared at the ground, thinking back to the gust. In that nightmare, the years had fallen away. I’d seen William, his birthmark prominent, looking down on my swaddled form, tucked in the crook of his arm. A moment later, the scene had changed to Covington pointing at my own birthmark, the Devil’s mark, as she called it. It was closer to my mouth than William’s, but the same size. When I woke, I put the two pictures together.

Voltaire touched my shoulder. Her voice, for once, was kind. “Arika?”

I remained quiet for a long time, then I shrugged her off. I jumped to my feet.

Voltaire rocked back. “Where are you going?”

“To the training field.”

“But why?”

I oriented myself and jogged into the darkness. I called back over my shoulder, “To train!”

If she argued, I was too far away to hear. At the training field, I hopped onto a post. Clearing my mind, I focused on my dream of freedom. Hours later, wracked with pain, I turned my mind toward my hatred for Jones—which refueled me. I had to master the Helix. I could not go back to the Schoolhouse. Finally, when the pain became a roaring dragon breathing along my spine, I remembered Hosea’s advice and turned my focus inward on the movement of my breath. In and out, in and out.