“I have no other explanation for my failure. It was as if everything I had painted cracked under the weight of the Prime Minister’s will.”
“Lack of time?” Snow suggested, seemingly reaching. The iciness of his voice had lifted some, as if the warmth of Nico’s words had melted it.
Another silence left Jo wondering what body cues Nico was offering. A nod? A shrug? She inched closer to the door. If she couldn’t see them, she didn’t want to miss a single word.
“You’re sure?” Snow asked, finally, and Jo’s pulse picked up.
“I am,” Nico said with conviction. “I owe it to them, for my failure.”
“The failure belongs to the team, not one individual.” Snow’s egalitarianism should’ve been heartwarming, but Jo just found her heart in knots. The failure was the team’s, but one person must bear the consequences alone. Surely some cruel god was sitting and cackling at their fate. How else were they meant to explain such undeserved tragedy?
Nico laughed softly. “Accept this, will you? As a professional favor, if nothing else. We’ve had a good run.”
“We have.” A genuine sorrow, the ache of it seemingly splintering his composure, finally leached into Snow’s words. Jo felt a similar ache blooming across her chest, spiraling like sticky tendrils down into her heart.
“There is someone waiting for me in heaven, you know.” Nico’s claim was honest and pure, a belief there that Jo had neither expected, nor could even begin to understand. In any other situation, Jo was certain it would have been comforting. “I have been away from her for far too long. . . and while she may not recognize me, I will have much to tell her. Surely, you must know how I feel.” There was an agonizingly long silence. “I knew you would.”
What had she missed? What non-verbal exchange had just happened? Jo’s heart could still somehow flutter, even among knots.
“Very well.” As if she could block out the condemnation of Snow’s words, Jo pressed her eyes closed, desperately biting back a sob. If she thought she felt guilty listening in on this conversation before, it was infinitesimal to how deeply she regretted it now. She did not want to hear what could be Nico’s final moments; it didn’t seem fair. “It shall be you.”
“I have one request,” Nico added hastily.
“Yes?”
“I have a time I want it to be done.”
Another delay, long enough for Snow to comprehend something Jo could not, judging from his tone. “Of course.”
Despite herself, tears broke through Jo’s emotional dam and streamed down her face. It wasn’t fair. None of it was. She wanted to take action, she wanted to do something. But what could be done at a moment like this? She knew too little of magic to hack a solution for the very fabric of reality that surrounded the Society. If anyone did, it was Snow. And something in Jo assured her that if there was a way for him to redesign their fate, he would. He’d said it himself: he didn’t have the power to do so. The pain in his voice proved the truth of it.
Which meant he was a prisoner, just like the rest of them. A chess piece in a greater game. A powerful piece, certainly, but a piece nonetheless. Jo turned her head toward the black door adjacent to Snow’s.
There was one other person seemingly as old as the Society itself and with a magic as terrifying as Snow’s.
Even as her eyes blurred with fresh tears, Jo stared the door down as if willing it to give up its occupant’s secrets. Pan, their executioner. If there was one person who would see their circumstance as a game, it would beher.
Chapter 35
Until the End
JO’S EYES WERE still pinned on the ominous black door when the recreation room Nico had taken residence in finally opened wide. She turned towards the sound on reflex, the motion causing unfallen tears to give way, her already wet cheeks glistening with new streaks of pain and sadness.
It wasn’t Nico who greeted her startled attention, though she shouldn’t have expected him to be willing to leave the sanctity of his room so soon after being sentenced. Instead it was Snow, his own eyes red-rimmed and holding far more exhaustion than she’d ever seen in a person.
When he captured her gaze, it was beyond Jo’s capabilities to hold back her fresh wave of tears. She felt whipped about in a hurricane of her own emotions, torn apart by the need to scream and the need to beg. She wanted Snow to hold her, to comfort her, but she also didn’t want to be comforted. She didn’t deserve it, not when Nico was the one damned by the brutal reality of sacrifice. She wanted Snow to fix this, to tell her he was mistaken and that everything would be okay. She wanted him to promise her that Nico would live, that theyallwould live. But she also knew he wouldn’t, was painfully aware that hecouldn’t. So she also wanted him to say nothing at all.
She wanted to go back to before they’d failed, when the promise of success had led Jo to Snow’s room, to his bed, reveling not in physical intimacy, but an intimacy nonetheless. She wanted to feel his closeness, his touch, and not have it tainted by the fear of what was to come. Jo knew that if Snow couldn’t save Nico’s life, there was no way he had enough magic to turn back time (at least not for them; for a wish, maybe, but not for them), but Jo couldn’t help silently praying for a miracle regardless.
It seemed greedy to wish for more time when she’d been given an endless supply of it. But Nico’s was being unexpectedly cut short, which made the Society feel less like the blessing of eternity and more like the eventuality of a slaughterhouse.
In the end, Snow chose silence, his eyes the only thing betraying his own swirling typhoon of barely-contained emotions. She could see him hurting, could practically feel it emanating off of him in waves of self-loathing. It was impossible to miss; Snow wanted to be the executioner no more than any of them wanted to bear witness to the execution.
But it wouldn’t be Snow in the end, would it? He’d been forced to choose the head that would fall in the basket, but it was Pan who’d be swinging the ax.
Amid the ever-present grief, Jo felt a spike of pure rage dig deep into the center of her chest, the tears filling her eyes almost hot with anger. It was an anger that must have shown on her face, because Snow’s own expression shifted at the sight. She caught a brief glimpse of pity, of immeasurable heartache, and then, once again, he schooled his features back into place, all traces of that previous openness gone.
The change in demeanor caught Jo off guard, her rage snuffed out. But before she could put any of her own emotions into words, Snow walked past her, leaving her alone with her silent tears in front of Nico’s doorway.
