“I didn’t ask for your life story,” she said. “And as… entertaining… as you may be, I’m afraid we have enough mouths to feed as it is. Don’t you understand that the Game is ending soon?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Which is why I plan to pay my entry with this.” He stepped back and gestured. “Six bags of the finest, most golden wheat to ever exist. I’m sure it’ll add more value to your Sacrifice than twelve bags of the normal stuff.”
“Have you verified this?” Mother Morevna asked the guards.
“Yes, ma’am,” they said. “It’s fine stuff. Like back in the old days.”
Mother Morevna’s brows were still furrowed.
“And what else do you have to offer us?” she asked.
“Well,” said the boy on the other side of the door, “I can put on one hell of a magic show!”
Mother Morevna’s lip curled. “Typical,” I heard her mutter. “The first person to come offering help and it’s some… vagrant run away from Barnum and Bailey’s.” She glanced at the door, a sour expression on her face. Then, surprisingly, she turned to me. “You wanted to be trusted with decisions,” she said. “So I will hand this one off to you. What should be done about him?”
I paused. Never since the walls had gone up had we let anyone into Elysium. But this young man… there was something odd about him. Something that set my teeth on edge and sent an electric gooseflesh tingle through my skin. It felt almost the way deception did but not quite. Even through the door, I could tell that something was strange about him, different from anyone I’d ever met, and I couldn’t tell whether it was good or bad. But still… I couldn’t turn him away. Not when he had nowhere else to go. Not when I’d heard stories of the things that lived out there. Besides, I was curious.
“Well?” she said.
“Let him in,” I said.
Mother Morevna looked at me for a moment, then nodded. She raised her hand, and the guard at the top of the gate pulled the lever. The door creaked open with a great metal groan, and I saw him for the first time.
He was young—only a few years older than me—tall and bent-looking, all angles, like Harold Lloyd in that movie I’d seen over in Boise City before the walls went up. But this boy was scruffier somehow, wilder. He wore a dust-covered suit that once must have been brown, cut in an odd, old-fashioned way, and his equally dusty hat had a feather sticking out of the hatband. His suitcase was covered with labels, but all of them looked far older than he was. Waves of strangeness seemed to emanate from him like too much cologne, and there was something about the way that he moved… but for the life of me, I couldn’t place it.
“Thank you for your kindness, ma’am,” he said to Mother Morevna with a deep bow.
“For Sallie’s kindness, you mean.” She gestured to me.
The young man tipped his hat to me and said, “I’m much obliged, miss.” His eyes, now that I was closer to him, were oddly yellowish in the light.
“I’m… uh… sorry you had to wait so long,” I managed.
“It’s just fine, Miss…?”
“Sal,” I told him. “Sal Wilkerson.”
“Sal Wilkerson,” he repeated. “My savior. Um… you ladies wouldn’t happen to have a place where I could rest? I’m awful tired.” He smiled and for a second I thought his teeth looked oddly pointed, but I looked again and they were just normal, very white teeth in a normal, very pleasant-looking smile.
“Certainly,” Mother Morevna said. “Guards, would you kindly take our visitor to the jail? Give him a cell to spend the night in. Make him as comfortable as he can be, do you understand? I will be there soon to question him and make sure he’s on the up-and-up.”
“Yes, ma’am,” they said.
“Much obliged, ma’am! Thank you!” he said, tipping his hat again.
They led him away, and as he passed me, Asa Skander tossed me something that glinted silver in the light. I caught it: A quarter? Who had any use for a quarter these days? I pocketed it and watched them take him.
“Want me to go with them, ma’am?” asked Mr. Jameson, leaning on his rifle.
“No,” said Mother Morevna. “Let him sit for a while. You take Sallie back to the church. I’m afraid lessons for today will have to be rescheduled. Now that the door has been opened, I must