of them can compare to the presence and power in this room.
Perhaps if they looked closer, they might see that it is not awe but terror that puts the tremble in his hands. Perhaps they might ask themselves why he comes to them now, with so little fanfare; why the box was found now and not years ago.
Here is a secret about powerful men, one they would prefer go unspoken: their arrogance is one of the greatest forces in the universe. Even the most paranoid among them see what they want to see, believe what they want to believe, and this creates cracks through which the clever may insinuate themselves, changing the story around them.
The alchemist who carried the prize here, to these men, these powerful, greedy, terrible men, closes his eyes. He has to tell himself that his lover will be safe: that Reed will keep his word and let the man go. Every war, however slow, however understated, has its crossfires, and he was, in the end, unable to keep the man he loved above all others out of the way.
His love will live and he will die, and in this moment, that seems like the only way this could have gone.
The seal on the package is broken by a greedy master’s hands, unable to scan through the lead paper with any accuracy: the mechanism inside bursts, spraying alkahest from one side of the room to the other, and all that remains is the screaming.
Soon, even that is done, and the rest is silence.
GHOSTS
Timeline: 14:49 CDT, June 23, 2016 (three days later).
They cross the country as ghosts: silently, swiftly, leaving no footsteps. Buses let them board without tickets; trains do the same, although the number and variety of the conductors means either Roger or Dodger has to be awake at all times, to smile blithely and work their own version of the strange magic surrounding them. (Roger pulls what he insists on calling “Jedi mind tricks,” telling the conductors their tickets are in order. Dodger produces bits of paper—receipts, movie stubs, old index cards—and holds them up for inspection, nodding solemnly when they’re taken for valid tickets. It’s penny-ante stuff, the sort of tricks that will be beneath them before much longer, and yet they can’t conceal their glee when it works. Here it is: the proof that they are what Erin said they were, and more, that they’re getting stronger, more capable, by the day. It won’t be long before no one will notice them if they don’t want to be noticed, if they tell the air to keep them hidden, the world to keep them safe. Roger thinks this is a quiet tragedy. Dodger thinks this is a miracle. Both of them are right.)
They’re getting stronger. They’re still holding themselves back. Erin, who knows more than they do, even if she’s never been here before, refuses to tell them what to do. They have to figure it out on their own. This time, every time, if she wants it to work, she has to let them figure it out on their own.
But oh, they’re moving so slowly, and oh, she’s so afraid they won’t be fast enough when they need to be.
The last bus lets them off in Ohio, where the air is hot with summer and the sky is bruised with the promise of a storm. There are cities here—they’ve seen them, even passed through a couple, when the bus routes curved just so—but this is the country, the kind of wide, flat country neither of them has ever seen. They were born here. That doesn’t make it home. They are children of the jagged, coastal places, the spots where the land drops away and the sea comes up to catch it. This grand flatness, this tornado-catcher of a country, has never belonged to them. The man they are on their way to meet made sure of that.
“Not too late,” says Dodger, and she’s lying.
“Always was,” says Roger, and he’s not. He takes her hand, and together they follow Erin into the corn.
They are less than a week into their manifestation and already the signs of it are clear, for anyone with eyes that know how to see, with ears that know how to hear. They stand taller, walk straighter, move with more ease. Dodger shows no signs that she’s barely recovered from a life-threatening injury; if anything, she looks healthier than she’s ever been, walking fast, moving faster, her every gesture an attack on