“No he’s not,” the girl in front insisted, her small voice raised to an impressive yell. “He’sdead!”
The other girl peered out from behind the first. “She killed Master Hayes,” she said in a voice that sounded slightly impressed.
Now that they’d stopped outright screaming, they were staring at the Generators shuffling slowly toward us, rounded out by Ezra and Julian at the end of the line. Ezra caught my eye, looking concerned.
“What happened to them?” the first girl asked, peeking out from under thick black fringe that dusted her eyelashes. She had a fresh reddened bruise on her pale cheekbone, and one of her hands was wrapped in a bandage.
The other was willowy and had dark brown skin. She mumbled, “You’re going to be in big trouble.” Squinting, she adjusted her spectacles,and her eyes widened. “Why did you take Ezra down here?” she asked, accusing.
Of course. They were two of the girls Ezra had charmed with his magic upstairs.
I tried to remember how I’d wanted someone older to speak to me when I’d been that age. I settled on not treating them like babies. “It’s dangerous for you to be down here in the catacombs. You need to go back to your dormitory.”
“Did you kill the master because he made the wasting happen?”
As much as I appreciated the question, we didn’t have time for this. Giving up on trying to drag the body any farther, I straightened. The slow parade of Generators had almost reached us. “What are your names?” I asked quickly.
“Isla,” the first said. “This is Harriet. We read your pamphlets. We snuck away to find you.”
“To tell you to leave,” Harriet said in a timid voice. She was clinging to Isla’s back. “You shouldn’t be here; it’s very dangerous.” Swallowing, she asked, “Are those Generators?”
“They are,” I said. “And the House had been hurting them very badly. Hurting their bodies and their minds, just like they hurt people who don’t know that radiance will kill them. I’m going to take them away and try to help them get better.”
“Areweprisoners?” Isla asked.
I couldn’t help glancing down at Master Hayes. He had not died well, his face frozen in a twisted mask of horror and disbelief. “Yes,” I said firmly. “You are.”
“We don’t want to hurt people,” Harriet said, voice trembling on the verge of tears.
“Jo, we need to move,” Ezra called to me. The water at my feet was rising, more than I’d noticed. It lapped at Master Hayes’s body, starting to engulf his clawed hands.
“Run back upstairs,” I told Isla and Harriet. “You won’t be a prisoner forever, but right now you need to act like none of this happened. There’s no other way to remain safe.”
They looked at each other dubiously. I recognized what they might not—that they were fast friends. They even appeared to share a silent language, some sort of argument happening in their fleeting expressions. After a moment, Harriet took Isla’s hand and tugged it, and they scattered back up the stairs as swiftly as they’d arrived. I knew, heartsick, that they’d had to step over a body to get down here and would once more on their way back. I’d done that—I’d given children a taste of death they were too young for.
Feeling as cold as the rising water, I beckoned the Generators. None of them looked down at Master Hayes or the Indicator as I ushered them by and guided them to start climbing the stairs. Like wind-up toys, they continued in the direction I set them in.
“Well done,” I said, trying to make my voice calm and easy. “You’ll be warm soon. Stay in line. Yes, that’s good.”
When Julian spotted the Indicator on the floor next to Master Hayes, he reared back wildly, recognition sharp in his eyes for the first time since we’d found him.
Not only recognition. Horror.
“Hey, you’re okay,” Ezra said, struggling to hold on as Julian tried to bolt away, rigid with animal fear. When it became clear that he couldn’t escape Ezra’s hold, Julian went limp. Ezra had to heft him into his arms, mumbling something miserably fond about how he was heavier than he looked.
Making muted frightened sounds, Julian wound his arms around Ezra’s neck and held on. I met Ezra’s gaze—and knew we’d both dared to hope for a moment. To hope that Julian’s memories would return to him, that he would return to us.
The procession up the stairs took longer than I would have liked, but the Generators were all exhausted by climbing. I had to move upand down the line, murmuring encouragement, helping those who had faltered. As each second passed, I knew our chances of getting away were becoming slimmer and slimmer.
I also knew, with a heavy sense of dread, that we’d have to exit through the front of the House. There were far too many Generators for the raft, and I was certain none of them could swim.
The only small favor was that none of the Generators appeared to recognize the Transistor’s body for what it was. They simply stepped over him. Some even stepped directly on his body with their bare feet.
I’d always been unsettled by the way Generators lived in isolation, their circumstances one of the House’s great mysteries. Nothing I’d imagined had come close to the scale of this injustice. As children, they’d been devoured by the machine of Progress, fed to it like kindling to a fire.
As if hearing my thoughts, Ezra asked, “Do you smell smoke?”
Midway through counting the Generators to make sure they’d all kept up, I paused and stared at him. He was sweating despite the chill, struggling to carry Julian, who wasn’t helping at all. “What?”
