The Toll (Arc of a Scythe #3) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,19

not—we cannot leave.

—From the “postmortem” journal of Scythe Michael Faraday, May 14th, Year of the Raptor

6 Fate of the Lanikai Lady

Far from feeling trapped, Munira found being on the atoll freeing. For a person with a penchant for archives, the bunker provided endless fodder for her imagination. Endless information to be sorted, organized, and analyzed.

In one of the closets, to Munira’s amazement, they found a robe that had belonged to Scythe Da Vinci—one of the twelve founders. She had seen pictures of his robes, all slightly different, but each featuring drawings done by the original Leonardo da Vinci. This one had the Vitruvian Man spread across it. When the scythe opened his arms, so would the Vitruvian Man. It was, of course, nowhere near the condition of the pristine robes that were enshrined in Endura’s Museum of the Scythedom—but even so, it was priceless, and would be the pride and joy of any collection.

Their mornings consisted of fishing and gathering food. They’d even begun tilling and planting seeds to create a garden, just in case they were marooned there long enough to harvest. Some days they would paddle out to search the outlying islands of the atoll. Other days were spent studying the records they found in the bunker.

Faraday was less interested in the mortal-age records than he was trying to get through that steel door that had been locked by the founding scythes.

“If the Israebian scythedom had ordained me instead of denying me,” Munira quipped, “I could have opened those doors with you, because I’d have my own ring.”

“If you had become a scythe, you wouldn’t even be here, because I would never have met you at the Alexandria Library,” Faraday pointed out. “No doubt you’d be out there gleaning like the rest of us, and trying to quell your troubled sleep. No, Munira, your purpose was not to be a scythe. It was to save the scythedom. With me.”

“Without a second ring, we can’t make much progress, Your Honor.”

Faraday smiled and shook his head. “All this time, and it’s still ‘Your Honor.’ I’ve only heard you call me Michael once—and that was when you thought we were about to die.”

Ah, thought Munira. He remembers that. She was both embarrassed and pleased.

“Familiarity might be… counterproductive,” she said.

His grin grew wider. “You think you’ll fall for me, you mean?”

“Maybe it’s the other way around, and I’m afraid you’ll be the one who falls for me.”

Faraday sighed. “Well, now you’ve got me in a bind. If I say I won’t fall for you, then you’ll be insulted. But if I say I might, then we’re in an uncomfortable place.”

She knew him well enough to know that he was just being playful. So was she.

“Say what you like—it won’t matter,” Munira told him. “I’m not attracted to older men. Even when they’ve turned a corner and set their age down, I can always tell.”

“Well, then,” said Scythe Faraday, the grin never leaving his face. “Let’s agree that our relationship will remain as castaway co-conspirators on a noble quest for grand answers.”

Munira found she could live with that, if he could.

* * *

It was on a morning toward the end of their sixth week that things took an unexpected turn.

Munira was in one of the wild patches that had once been a backyard, checking a tree for ripe fruit, when an alarm went off. It was the first time since they’d arrived that the island’s defensive system had come back to life. Munira dropped what she was doing and raced to the bunker. She found Faraday standing on the mound above it, peering through rusted binoculars toward the sea.

“What is it? What’s going on?”

“See for yourself.” He handed her the binoculars

She adjusted the view and brought things into focus. It was clear now what had triggered the island into red alert. There were ships on the horizon. About a dozen of them.

* * *

“Unregistered vessel, please identify.”

It was the first communication the Nimbus flotilla had had since passing out of the Thunderhead’s sphere of influence the previous day. It was morning, and Director Hilliard was taking tea with Loriana. The director nearly dumped what was left of hers when the message came over the bridge loudspeaker amid a burst of awful static.

“Should I get some of the other agents?” Loriana asked.

“Yes,” said the director. “Get Qian and Solano. But skip Sykora—I could do without his negativity right now.”

“Unregistered vessel, please identify.”

The director leaned toward the microphone on the communication console. “This is fishing