heavy on my neck. I poured a little of the water into my hand and splashed my face.
Simon lowered himself onto the bench next to Piper.
“You know I don’t agree with what you did.”
“Say what you mean,” I interrupted. “Stop edging around it. What you did. Why can’t you just say it? You would have handed me over to the Confessor. Or just killed me yourself.”
At least Simon looked me straight in the eye. “Yes. That’s what I would have done. That’s what I wanted Piper to do.”
“You know it wouldn’t have saved the island,” said Piper. “They’d have taken her, and they’d still have killed the others.”
“Perhaps.” Simon leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and rubbed his face. “That’s what some people believe, anyway, now that they’ve seen so much of the Council’s ruthlessness. Perhaps you’ll be able to persuade more people ’round to your way of thinking, now that you’re back.”
“We can worry later about what people think. But there are things you need to know, about the Council’s plans for New Hobart. Things that Cass has seen.”
“I’d keep quiet about the seers for now,” Simon said. “People might accept you back, if I’m seen to endorse you. And bringing Sally was a wise move. But wandering in here, trailing not just Cass but another seer, and an Alpha, isn’t going to help. After all that’s happened, people need to feel that you’re one of us.”
“Don’t give me that,” Piper said. “Zoe’s done more for the resistance than almost anyone. And seers are Omegas, just like the rest of us.”
“You know what I mean,” Simon said. His gaze, as he looked me up and down, said enough. I’d seen it before: the appraising way that people would stare at me, once they’d realized that my brand didn’t correspond with any visible mutation. The distance that they kept, from then on.
Simon went on. “And since the island, they’ve got a better reason than ever to fear both seers and Alphas.” He looked at me again. “Tell me what happened. How did Kip kill the Confessor?”
I swallowed, and took a breath, but the words didn’t come. Piper stepped in, and gave Simon a brief account of what had happened in the silo.
“I should’ve known you had something to do with that,” Simon said to Piper. “That’ll go a long way in winning people over. They saw what the Confessor did, on the island. If they knew you’d had a part in killing her, they’d forgive you for what you did. They’d even come around to the seer.”
“We don’t want their forgiveness,” said Zoe.
She hadn’t even been on the island, but I noted how she took on Piper’s guilt, and his defiance, as her own.
“You might not want it,” Sally said, “but that doesn’t mean you won’t need it. This isn’t about your ego. It’s about reuniting the resistance.”
“It makes no difference,” Piper interrupted. “We can’t go around proclaiming that we were involved in killing the Confessor. The official story is that only Kip was there. If the Council links her death to Cass, they might decide to take out the Reformer themselves, to get rid of her.”
Simon sighed. “You’re not making it any easier for me to welcome you back.”
“Did you think the job would be easy, when you took over?” Piper said.
“I didn’t take over. You left, to chase your seer. Those who remained chose me to lead. I didn’t choose this.” He grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. “What about the song? Was that you as well? One of my scouts reported a bard in Longlake, singing about the refuges. Warning people not to go.”
“A blind bard? With a younger woman?” I asked.
Simon shook his head. “A young bard. He was traveling alone, my scout said.”
Piper and I exchanged smiles. The song was already spreading.
“I wouldn’t be celebrating too much,” Simon said. “Every bard who sings it might as well be sticking their head in a noose.”
“Did the scout say anything about bards being caught for it?”
“No. But it’s only a matter of time. Word’s spreading.”
“That’s the point,” I said.
“What news of the ships?” Piper asked him.
“Eight are moored nearby, at deep anchor off the peninsula. But the Council’s increased its coast patrols, so we’ll have to move the fleet east again. At least four of our ships were seized soon after landing, right by the Miller River. There’s a report that The Caitlin went down, farther north. An unconfirmed sighting of The Juliet, much further