focus on offense first. Illusions, projectiles, things like that. Then… then we can move on to the defensive spells. Does that sound okay?”
Everyone nodded.
For three hours we studied, we discussed, we tested sigils and runes, drawing them in the dust with our fingertips. We made lists of the spells we could perform, and ones that might be useful for Olivia to copy.
I had never seen Olivia like this. She always seemed so confident, so sure. Now she paced like a tiger in a cage, muscles taut, full of energy, but with nowhere for it to go.
“Do y’all mind if I get some air?” she said.
“Go ahead,” I said.
Olivia pushed the door to the hayloft open. Then she gasped and stepped back.
“Holy shit, Sal,” she said. “Come look at this.”
I went to the window and looked out. From the hayloft, most of Elysium was visible, the church, the jail. But from this height, the differences were even starker. Where the Sacrifice building had stood before, there was a new, crudely constructed platform on wheels. The fruits of Mother Morevna’s labors. There were guards all around it, watching as men moved boxes and bags and sacks onto it, trying to scrimp what they could from everyone in the vain hope that it would be enough. No wonder the food rations were so much smaller now. Only one meal a day, instead of three. But the pile of goods was only a third of what it had been before—and Mother Morevna was lucky to have gotten that. The sight of it made my head pound and my pulse begin to tic faster.
“What’s that line for?” Cassandra said behind me. I turned in the direction of her pointed finger. The Dowsing Well. A long, snaking line had formed from it. Men and women standing in line with their water rations in hand, waiting, blank faced and quiet, as two stern-faced guards ushered them forward with their buckets.
“The Dowsing Well,” I said. “Looks like it’s been opened to everyone at all hours. I’ve never seen it so bad.”
An earthquake rumbled under us, and dust shook from the rafters.
The hospital was full to bursting, full of unconscious people being carried on stretchers, anxious farmers waiting to see loved ones, nurses running from the hospital to the jail next door with buckets of water. Mr. Jameson hadn’t exaggerated. Dust Sickness was tightening its grip on Elysium, squeezing, choking, suffocating, and somewhere, I knew that Lucy was out there in the thick of it.
By the end of the training, our brains were fried and our fingers were covered with dust and ash, but I still felt numb with worry. We came down from the loft and met Zo, Judith, and Susanah, who had had quite a day as the de facto head of the “Scientific branch” as she called it.
“—they started out by talking over me,” Susanah was saying. “Me! The inventor of the only weapon that works against the Dust Soldiers!”
“Next time, tell them you’ll slit their throats.” Olivia winked. “Always worked for me.”
“I ended up saying, ‘Do you want my help or not? Because with you talking so much, we may as well start making our peace.’”
But I barely heard any of it. Again, I took my penny from my neck and held it in my hand.
“Find Lucy,” I whispered to it. “Please. I just want to make sure she’s okay.”
But once again, my penny was still.
“Are you ladies ready to head home?” said a guard, coming down to us. He was a different guard this time, an older one, with graying hair at his temples.
“What about Mowse?” said Susanah.
“Your little girl? She should be back at the residence by four,” said the guard. “But I’m supposed to take y’all to get your water rations before I take you home, so let’s get going.”
The other guard, the one I was waiting for, met us at the door, and we began the silent walk home. The crowd parted like the Red Sea for Moses.
As we neared the Dowsing Well, the line had wound its way several times in front of the church, and nearly all the way back to the windmill.
“Is there another place we can get water?” Cassandra asked as the guards led us toward the line.
“You can go to a different windmill,” said the older guard. “But this water is the cleanest in town.”
“Let’s risk it for now,” said Olivia, her eyes on the shuttered windows of the church. Up behind the rose window, I