His hands tightened on the wheel. “When she held you after class? She wasn’t giving you pointers on the Debussy. She was giving you the hard sell.”
“She didn’t need to give me the hard sell,” I replied. “You’ve seen what the Consort does. What they did to Simon’s family.”
“What Monty says they did. You’re taking the word of a lunatic.”
“Amelia’s not a lunatic. She corroborated everything he said.”
“Everything Amelia knows about the Consort, she learned from Simon’s dad. She’s completely biased. It’s natural she’d blame them, now that Simon’s gone.”
“Simon’s not gone,” I snapped. “The Free Walkers rescued him from the cleaving.”
Eliot went very still, eyes closing briefly. When he opened them again, they were filled with pity. “Is that what she told you? Ms. Powell’s manipulating you, as much as Monty ever did. I went back to the Depot. I checked the cut site myself. Nothing is broadcasting at that frequency. I know you don’t want to believe it, but there’s no way Simon survived.”
“He did,” I said. “Because of the Free Walkers. They’re not anarchists. The Echoes are alive, Eliot, and every time the Consort cleaves a branch, billions of people die. At our hands.”
His sympathy evaporated. “Prove it. Show me data. Evidence.”
I bit my lip.
“Even if I believed you, the Consort’s protecting the Key World. The Free Walkers are saving Echoes at the expense of reality. They may have a different goal than Monty, but they’re equally crazy.”
“They aren’t crazy. They’ve found a better way to handle the Echoes—one that leaves them alive and still protects the Key World.”
“There is no better way,” he said. “I know you’ve got issues, but cleaving is necessary.”
“Was it necessary for them to take Ms. Powell?”
His eyes widened. “The Consort captured her? How? When?”
“An hour ago, maybe two. We were Walking to meet Simon.”
He hammered a fist against the dash. “You’re like a little kid! A stranger comes up in a big white van, offers you Simon-shaped candy, and you jump right in. You went Walking with a bunch of people you don’t even know, and you didn’t tell anyone where you were going?”
“Would you have preferred I sent you a text? ‘Out with rebels, back for movie night, your turn to pick’? We were on a train. She was handing me off to a contact who would take me the rest of the way. A bunch of Consort guards got on too, looking for us. Or our contact. Ms. Powell said they’ve been hunting Free Walkers lately.”
Addie’s project, I realized. They’d had more success than she imagined.
He grabbed my arm. “The Consort knows you were there?”
“I wouldn’t be breathing if they did. One of the guards chased me, but when I jumped pivots to another train, he fell. I think . . .” I swallowed hard. “I think he’s dead too.”
Eliot groaned, dragging a hand over his face. “Better and better. You’re involved in the death of a Consort guard.”
“I kept my hood up and my face hidden. The only guard who saw me is the one who fell.”
He took several slow, deliberate breaths. “What about Ms. Powell?”
“I saw them carry her off. I think she was unconscious. But if she’s not already dead, she will be soon. I’m not a genius, Eliot, but I can add two and two.”
He peered out into the parking lot, as if someone lurked behind the shadowed lines of cars. “So can the Consort. She’s a teacher at our school. You don’t think they’re going to be suspicious when they realize you had daily contact with a Free Walker? What if she talks?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re screwed, Del. They’ll bring you in by lunch tomorrow.”
He was right. “We need help. The Free Walkers are still out there. If we can contact them, they’ll know what to do.”
“Who’s this ‘we’?” He threw the car in drive and headed for the expressway, every movement furiously controlled. “You’re the one who drank the Kool-Aid, not me.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But even if it’s true, it doesn’t change anything.”
“Are you kidding me? It changes everything! It’s like someone deciding that E equals m c-squared is actually E equals m c-cubed.”
“You suck at physics,” he said. “Do you have a clue what that formula means?”
I picked at a hole in my sweater. “Light’s fast, or something.”
“Something,” he grumbled. “Yes, something.”
“My point is, if scientists one day said, ‘Hey, you know what? Light’s slow!’ You’d have to rethink