“I’m having no trouble picturing that,” she said, clasping my shoulders. Her smile slipped away. “Don’t do this. Go back the way you came. Survive, Josephine. Don’t you want to survive?”
Pulling her into a fierce hug, I tucked her face against my shoulder. She stiffened—and then softened against me with a low sob. “I can’t survive without doing this,” I whispered into her hair. “When it’s over, I’ll tell you all the things I’ve seen and learned. You’ll tell me what a fool I am.”
“You’ve always been a fool.” She sniffled and untangled herself from my embrace. As she smoothed the wrinkles from her dress and wipedher eyes with tight, sure strokes, she was the same Gertrude I’d always known.
“I love you,” I said, ignoring her startled gasp. I took her hands and squeezed them one more time. “I know I wasn’t supposed to, but I always did.”
“Don’t say goodbye to me,” she snapped, shaking my hands off. Her breath shuddered. “Listen to me now. All the Elders have been summoned to the House for an emergency council. People are saying they took Julian Gray down into the catacombs after he helped resistors attack us.”
“That’s not what happened,” I murmured, my ears ringing. “The House attacked innocent people.”
“Josephine! Look at me. You’ll never get him out of here. Do you understand?”
I stared at her. “No. I don’t. What are you trying to say?”
She watched me, pitying. “No one leaves the catacombs.”
That wasn’t true. Servants freely entered and exited the catacombs. They fed and cared for Generators. Unless she meant …
“But he’s not a Generator,” I said, panic growing. Everything I knew about Generators collided in my mind. Surely they wouldn’t—they couldn’t make someone like Julian perform an endless mindless task. The washroom felt too small, the ceiling too low, my collar too tight. “Why would he be down there?”
Generators were chosen as small children—the ones too strong to rein in their radiance. The ones blessed with such an overabundant gift, it could be harnessed only as a pure source of power. They lived below ground, never knowing another way to exist.
Gertrude said nothing.
“You don’t know him like I do. He would never agree to that,” I insisted, my lungs tight, the air in the washroom thin.
Bitterness returned to Gertrude’s voice. “When did any of us agree to anything?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
We had to get down to the catacombs. We had to get Julian out of there. I stumbled out of the washroom, legs threatening to give way beneath me. When I didn’t see Ezra in the doorway where I’d left him, my panic crested. I staggered into the dorm hall and stopped short, trying to comprehend what was happening before me.
Ezra sat on the floor with the gaggle of little girls. He was applying salve to one of their abraded palms while another thrust a potted plant in front of his face. We’d all kept herbs and little succulents on the windowsills, a way of brightening the drab dormitories. Some girls had managed to keep plants alive for years, moving them from hall to hall as they aged. I’d always killed mine in a matter of weeks, neglecting to water them by forgetting that they existed.
“Do this one!” the girl cried out excitedly.
Casting me a brief glance and looking thoroughly mischievous, Ezra took the pot from her small hands. “One more,” he warned. “Then we have to go find our friend.”
Before I could caution him against it, he closed his eyes, and the emaciated fern turned vivid green and grew several new fronds. Delighted, and thoroughly unafraid, the girls clapped for the display of magic.
“Well, this is getting worse every moment,” Gertrude muttered.
“Ezra, let’s go,” I said sternly.
“But Ezra hasn’t fixed the flowers yet!” a girl complained, tugging at his sleeve as he rose to his feet.
“Remember what I told you,” Ezra said to his new admirers. “The best way to heal your body is to get a good night’s sleep. Lots of rest.”
“You didn’t tell them not to talk about yourillegal magic?” I asked him under my breath.
Ezra looked at me seriously. “I’m not in the business of telling children what they can and cannot talk about. They’ll make up their own minds.” He glanced at Gertrude. “Hello. I’m Ezra. You did a fine job bandaging them.”
Gertrude looked like she wanted to tell him where he could shove his fine job. “You’d better go before someone else finds out you’re here.” She looked away from me, and I wondered if it was because she dreaded saying goodbye as much as I did.
“Where are we going?” Ezra asked me as I tugged him back to the lift that had carried us up to the dormitory.
I didn’t want to tell him. I didn’t want to believe what Gertrude had said. Surely, it had only been a cruel rumor.
