winking at people who gave him a second look on the sidewalk. We have to pay the price of this life all the time, he had said to her once. Might as well get something good out of it when we can.
She spotted him standing next to the monument. When he saw her, it was like a big knot unraveling. He grabbed at her, as if testing to see that she was real, and then held her for a few seconds, his breath shaking in her ear. He had thought she was dead, Sloane realized, her sunglasses crushed against his shoulder. Somehow, it hadn’t occurred to her to reassure him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, but she wasn’t sure what for—for leaving, for the fight they’d had before Albie died, for destroying the Dome, or for what she would have to do next, fleeing ARIS, maybe leaving the country . . .
“Yeah,” he replied, avoiding her eyes. It meant he didn’t forgive her, and that was what she had expected. Even Matt had limits to his mercy. His eyes were red. He had been crying. Maybe awake all night.
Ines stalked over to them and punched Sloane in the arm, hard enough to make her wince.
“God, Sloane!” Ines snapped. “You’re such an asshole.”
“Yeah,” Sloane said, breathless. “Can you—give me just a second? You can yell at me when I get back.”
She slipped past Ines and walked toward the edge of the monument site, where the concrete dropped off to the river. She pressed her stomach into the railing. The mildew-and-mud smell of the river overpowered the smoky scent that clung to her hair.
She put her hand in her pocket and felt for the pieces of the Needle. They numbed her fingertips on contact. She put her elbows on the railing, leaning out as if to get a better look at the bridge where she had lured the Dark One to his death. She tipped her hand, and the Needle pieces fell into the water.
She looked down just in time to see the metal glinting as the pieces fell to the river bottom. She didn’t need to see their resting place to know where they were. Even broken, the Needle hummed at the same frequency as she did. She would always be able to find it again.
Sloane returned to the others and found Ines scowling at her.
“Just needed to look again,” she said.
They hadn’t found the Dark One’s body. Ten years later, they had all accepted that it lay buried under the concrete, steel, and glass from the old tower, packed into the river bottom too densely for anything to be retrieved. But initially they had all been afraid that he wasn’t really gone. Sloane had even joined the divers who searched the debris for any trace of him, not satisfied until she found a few things: a gold button that looked like it came from his coat, a rotten shred of fabric that resembled his shirt cuff.
Even after that, she had come back every few weeks to remind herself that the river was his grave, that he was really dead. Ines had gone with her.
Sloane spotted a familiar figure in the doorway of the monument, a girl with crooked features and light brown hair so fine and frizzy, it hovered around her face like spun sugar. Albie’s little sister, Kaitlin. It hurt to look at her.
Sloane took off her sunglasses. Kaitlin gave her a little smile. Albie’s mom—Mrs. Summers was the only name Sloane knew her by—appeared behind her, clutching a floral handkerchief against her chest. She nodded to Sloane and stepped past her daughter, out of the monument.
Mrs. Summers had never liked Sloane, probably for the same reasons that other people didn’t. She was the kind of person who followed celebrity gossip religiously and believed what she read in chain e-mails that warned of new viruses and internet curses. Every time the Sloane of gossip rags cheated on Matt, Mrs. Summers was on the phone with Albie, asking if it was true.
Today, though, all she said was “Thank you. For taking care of the . . .” Mrs. Summers’s eyes filled with tears. Thinking of the cremation, no doubt.
“Uh . . . sure. I mean, of course. I—” Sloane shook her head. She didn’t know what to say.
Luckily, Esther was there to help. “Hey, Mrs. Summers,” she said. “My mom sent this with me.”
She offered Mrs. Summers an envelope with elegant cursive writing on it. Mrs. Summers turned away from Sloane, looking