of the wall. Mr. Jameson, I thought. Lucy. I swallowed the nothing in my dry throat and waited with the others in front of the great steel door.
A moment later, I saw Mother Morevna’s silhouette on top of the wall. She was more stooped than I remembered her, leaning on a cane now.
Her sickness must finally be catching up to her, I thought.
Mr. Jameson appeared beside her in his Stetson, squinting out at us from up on the wall. Then he saw me, and unmistakably, his face creased into a wide, relieved smile—one that I’m sure mirrored the one on my own face. He was still here, with his hat and his gun and his peach can. He wasn’t part of the walls yet.
“Hold off, boys,” he said. The guards’ rifles dropped but remained in their hands.
Mother Morevna’s expression, however, didn’t change.
“I thought you’d be along soon, Olivia,” she said. “Though I must say, this is bold of you. Usually those who are exiled do not return to the place they were exiled from.” Her eyes flickered to me, then to Asa. “And now I see not one, but three people I’ve exiled standing outside my door.” (Asa sheepishly tipped his hat.) “All three of you have caused enough problems already. Begone, the lot of you, before I order them to shoot.”
The other girls looked at each other. Mowse huddled into Susanah’s back. But Olivia climbed down from her horse and took a step toward the door with her hands up. Trying my hardest to calm my nerves, I climbed down from Asa’s and my horse and went to stand beside her.
“Listen to me,” said Olivia, her voice careful but firm. “We’re here to make you an offer, one that could be beneficial to both of us.”
“You’re not in the position to offer us anything now,” said Mother Morevna. “Except extra mouths to feed. And that, we cannot afford.”
“We’re offering a way out,” I said. “We doomed Elysium, and we want to save it now.”
“And how do you propose to do that?” Mother Morevna asked. “You think coming in here on those… things… and giving us a few sacks of supplies will make up for ten years’ worth of goods saved up?”
Olivia pulled the Dust Soldier’s scimitar from her bag and raised it over her head, pointing toward the sky. “We can get Elysium out of this mess. For good.”
The guards on the walls began to mumble to one another, their heads turning to measure their reactions. Mother Morevna remained expressionless.
“We know how to kill the Dust Soldiers,” Olivia said. “We’re offering to arm the guards and train them. Because right now, we’re past the point of winning and losing. All we can do now is fight.”
“Fighting them would be madness.” Mother Morevna’s voice was like a soft whip crack.
“No, ma’am,” I said. “Fighting is our only hope. The Game has a limit of ten years. And when they come for us on the final day, if we fight them from sunset until the dawn of the next day, we prolong the Game. And if we prolong the Game outside the ten-year limit, then we can end the Game on our terms. We can be part of the real world again. This desert, this godforsaken Game, can finally end!”
Silence fell. My heart skipped in my chest. But I didn’t take my eyes from Mother Morevna’s.
“And how do you know this is true?” Mother Morevna asked.
“Because her specialty is finding the truth,” Olivia said. “Not that you helped her figure that out in any way. You let people keep thinking she was a liar instead of what she is: a truth witch!”
My heart stumbled over itself. It was true, I knew. That was my specialty, and it always had been. How else would I know deception for what it was? How else would I be able to see people’s innermost pain, their first truths? It felt real, empowering to have a name for it. I looked back up to Mother Morevna, but her face was expressionless. She knew, I realized. How long had she known?
“Is this true?” she asked me this time, only me. “Is all of this true?”
“Yes,” I said, drawing myself up to my full height and glaring back at her. “It’s true, all of it. Take your pendulum out and ask it if you want.”
“Unless you’ve got a better plan for saving Elysium,” Olivia said.
There was a long moment of silence as Mother Morevna’s cold eyes bored into