The one you had with you when we fought the Laredo Boys?”
“No,” she said, her voice quiet with guilt. “It’s gone.”
“Samson must have picked it up,” Cassandra said. “That’s the only way it would be visible, if he’s got something from one of us.”
“Mowse, you have to be more careful about—”
Another earthquake rumbled through the ground, shaking the canisters on the train’s dashboard.
“Lecture her later,” Zo said. “You all heard Samson. It’s only a matter of time before they invade. And if they know where we are now, I’d bet on an ambush soon. I’d say tonight, if not sooner, if the world doesn’t disintegrate around us first.”
“So what are you suggesting?” Olivia asked. “What do you want me to do about this?”
“Olivia, we have to move,” said Zo. “Farther in, close to the center of the desert.”
“Where?” Olivia said. “We’d be sitting ducks out there. All that’s there is dunes and rocks and—”
“Elysium,” I said. Everyone turned to look at me. “We can go back to Elysium.”
“Now’s not the time for jokes,” Olivia said.
“I’m not joking,” I told her, drawing myself up to my full height. “You promised that, as we got closer to the end of the Game, we could go back if I still wanted to. I still want to. We need to go back. I need to do what I came here to do.”
“What is it with you and Elysium?” Olivia said. “They rejected you! They threw you out!”
“But I did this to them,” I said. “Elysium is my responsibility. I’m the Successor. And even if they reject me again, I won’t see it destroyed on my account, not when there are people there I care about.”
“I’m not going to send everybody to their deaths in Elysium when they’re safe out here,” Olivia said. “We can go and get your friends out, maybe, but—”
“No one is safe out here,” said Asa from the door. “Not if the desert is doing what you say it is.” He came into the room, looking paler, more serious than I’d ever seen him. “Everything depends on Elysium. On the Game. The desert is a—”
He bent, coughing, smoke trickling from his mouth and nose. Then he gathered himself and pointed to Mowse and Cassandra’s checkerboard.
“A playing board,” I said, realizing suddenly, my heart dropping. “It’s not just Elysium. This whole tiny world they’ve created is part of the Game.”
Asa coughed again and nodded.
“And when the Game is over…?” I breathed.
Asa bent over the table. With one swoop, he knocked all the pieces off the board and let them clatter to the floor. There was no mistaking his meaning. Doom and dull panic fell around us. The room went quiet.
“So everyone will die?” Zo said. She shook her head in disbelief, rubbed her temples. “I’m gonna need some more details on this, daemon boy. What all do you know?”
“He can’t,” I said. “He’s prevented from giving too much away. He literally can’t.”
“Here,” Asa said. He held out his hand to me, and I knew what he wanted me to do.
A shiver of fear trickled through me. I remembered the last time I’d seen into Asa’s memory, how painful it had been, the brain-bending voice of the Goddess of Life in my head. But Zo was right. We needed more details, not just for them, but for me too. So I could finally understand. Gulping, I reached out and took Asa’s hand. Show me, I commanded.
Darkness and nausea rose, and I was back in that boundless, thrumming darkness of the place between worlds. It filled my mind then, all the things he wanted to say. I felt my brain throbbing, threatening to bleed or explode. Then, just when I thought I could take no more, I wrenched myself out and back into reality.
On the floor of the kitchen, I gasped like a diver breaking the surface of the water as I dropped Asa’s hand. My head throbbed again, and my face was wet with blood. The feeling of smoke was in my throat and nose and eyes. I wiped the blood away with my forearm as they all stared down at me, horrified.
“Everything relies on Elysium’s test,” I said. “That’s all the Game is. A test to see if people can be good and responsible in the worst conditions. And because of me, we’re failing the test right now,” I said. “That means Death is winning. And if Death wins, the desert and everything in it will be destroyed.” I looked down at