The crowd blocked my view of the stage. Panic made the radiance I’d been suppressing rise to the surface. It took all my control not to kill anyone, but I couldn’t keep from hurting them with searing, hot shoves. People shrank away from me, screaming and unable to tell what had burned them.
“Sorry,” I gasped. “Sorry! Make way! I’m sorry!”
I spotted the trees where Ezra was supposed be. Thankfully, the frightened masses were surging in that direction, carrying me like the Dry Bone’s deadly current. I felt the same as I had that night—cold and terrified, certain that each breath would be my last. Only this time, Julian would not be on the bank to save me. He was on the stage, an easy target. An allegedly dead boy, who, in the eyes of House of Industry, needed to stay dead.
Please,I begged the stars.Please be safe.
Over the sounds of shrill panic all around me, I made out Ezra’s voice. He was calling to Julian frantically from one of the lower tree limbs. The branch he balanced on bent and stretched, but his reckless efforts were futile. He was too far to reach Julian, even with magic.
I got shoved into a park bench and managed to climb onto it to get a clear view of the stage. Nikola ducked behind the sculpture, a small pistol in hand. She darted up to take a shot at the Transistors on the steps, and one of the bulbs beside her exploded, the shattered glass cutting her face. With blood curtaining her cheek, she looked back to where Julian was crouched and screamed something at him.
Horrified, I saw why Julian hadn’t yet escaped. In his arms, Felicity lay unmoving, the front of her yellow pinafore stained dark red. Shielding her with his body, he shook the little girl helplessly, as if trying to wake a sleepy child from a nap.
I could make out what he was saying over and over.No.
“Julian!” I cried, aching. My voice rose to a scream. “Get down!”
Someone tried to tug me off the bench. I batted at them viciously, but they caught my wrists and wrenched me down. It was Gertrude, her hair in disarray, sweat darkening the collar of her dress. “You little fool,” she said, panting. “Do youwantto die?”
“Julian’s up there,” I cried.
“JulianGray?” she asked, bumping into me hard when someone elbowed her. She elbowed them back, and I couldn’t help but notice the shimmer of radiance dancing along her fingertips. She’d been disgraced, but there was no silencing her power. As if it were nothing more than an afterthought, she used her radiance to stun anyone who put a hand on her. “People have been saying he’s—getoffme, swine—dead.”
“Help me,” I sobbed, too distraught to explain anything. “They’re going to kill him.”
“Stars. All right. What do you want me to do? We’re all going to get trampled.”
“I need to get to the stage,” I said, lunging for it. Gertrude was still holding me by one wrist, and I dragged her along with me, determined to get to Julian whether she followed or not.
“Josephine, are you with these people? Look what they’ve done. People are getting hurt. People are dying.”
“It’s theHousekilling people!” I shouted. “It’s their guards who fired on a peaceful demonstration. Open your eyes!”
Someone right in front of me jerked and crumpled, the front of their head torn open from a bullet. I froze and screamed, trying to shove the body away, trying not to see the gory mess that had been a person seconds before. Hauling me off by the waist, Gertrude tried to drag me away from the stage, from the worst of it all.
“You’re wrong,” Gertrude was saying, though I could hear the doubt creeping into her voice. “The Transistors are protecting the little ones. These people are feral. It’s the resistors making trouble.”
I grabbed her by the front of her blouse and opened my mouth to scream at her, to scream anything I could to make her believe, but someone took me by the elbow and pulled hard enough that my shoulder nearly dislocated. With a painful yelp, I lost my grip on Gertrude. “The pamphlets!” I shouted, trying to make her hear me. “It’s all right there!”
I couldn’t tell if she heard me.
Furious, I covered the hand holding me with my own and summoned my seething radiance. By some grace of the stars, I saw that it was Ezra right before I boiled him from the inside out.
“Jo,” he said, pulling me close. I knew by the tormented sound of his voice that we wouldn’t be making it to the stage in time. I started to shake my head, unwilling to hear what he had to say. “He’s gone.”
My knees buckled, and Ezra’s arms tightened around me, keeping me on my feet. He was dragging me away, but I wanted to see. I wanted to be sure. “Let me go,” I said weakly, vision spotty. “We can’t leave him up there.”
“No,” Ezra said. He got us to a tree, to the lee side of the thick trunk, where he sat me in the dirt and covered me with his body as people ran by. “The House took him. I couldn’t get there fast enough. They dragged him away.”
It took long moment for his words to register. “He’s not dead?” I asked, numb.
Ezra’s expression wavered. “Not yet.” His fingers dug into my arms. I didn’t care. “They’ll kill him for this. They’ll kill him.”
“No,” I said. The swarm was thinning enough for me to see the trampled grass, the pamphlets caught in the wind, colorful papers blowing away like confetti. The lost hats and shoes and parasols.
The dead.
Something in me righted itself, wrath as steady as the sun’s uncaring glow. “No, they won’t.”
