They panted in the grass at my feet.
After a long moment, Ezra let out a weary sigh. “You could have asked in a more straightforward fashion.”
“Yes,” I admitted, feeling as sheepish as the two of them looked.
Ezra rolled onto his uninjured side to face Julian. He continued as if nothing had happened, though his voice was strained. “To answer Apprentice Haven’s question, I’m not planning on leaving either of you. I want to help you make a world where I can live a dull life in a small town where no one is so terribly ill that I can’t help them. And,” he added hesitantly, “maybe once the House isn’t quite so powerful, I can look for others like me. Without putting them in danger.”
“I would like that for you.” Julian sat up and ran one hand back through his hair, which had slowly devolved into a curly snarl where he’d once kept it fashionably sleek. “I didn’t intend to further injure you,” he added, sounding genuinely remorseful.
“I didn’t intend for you to dodge,” Ezra returned, favoring his side as he rolled up to sit. I gave him a hand, sinking my weight back heavily to wrench him to stand.
He turned to Julian and offered to help him up. Julian hesitated, his gaze on Ezra’s fingers.
“Come on,” Ezra murmured.
Julian took his hand.
I felt I was watching something I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t look away as Ezra pulled Julian to his feet. Breathing heavily, they stood like that for a long time, their fingers intertwined.
There was strange comfort to be found in the mess they’d made of each other. I wasn’t the only one with an unruly heart and a rib cage full of regret.
After that, we walked side by side.
The path widened as we entered the forest. It was cooler and quieter under the canopy.
“Ainsley was acting out of grief, you know,” Ezra was saying. “She wanted to feel like she had power. And I understand that. But I can’tunderstand setting things right with even more death.” He glanced aside at me, and I wondered if my rage concerned him as much as hers did.
“Surely some resistors have a more strategic approach than simply killing Conductors,” I said. “As much as I loathe to admit it, Ainsley’s plan to disrupt the Mission’s supply chain was brilliant.”
“If only she’d been willing to stop at that, rather than murdering everyone employed at the Mission,” Ezra said wryly. “I might have enjoyed a long career as a train robber.”
“Technically, anyone who opposes the House’s ideologies is a resistor,” Julian pointed out. “Arguably including the three of us. So yes. Some of them are more strategic than others.”
“Then we can find more reasonable people,” I said confidently. “People who want to do more than kill. They can join our cause.”
Julian watched me curiously. I fought the urge to look away, telling myself he had no way to know how badly I wanted tohurtthe ones who had made me a tool and stolen the lives of countless innocent people. I wanted them to suffer and know exactly who was bringing that suffering down upon them.
But I couldn’t unleash my rage if I wanted to save the other Children of Industry.
“There are rational people at the House,” I said to him, to remind myself more than anything. “We have to open their eyes.”
If I’d never met Julian and Ezra, I’d have continued to do what I was told with great pride, until someone wanting to save others from harm set my Mission aflame or cut me down in the street. Maybe I’d have deserved it, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the orphans brought to the House. The little ones. The Generators who had no idea what they were doing.
They deserved a chance to know the truth.
“Yes,” Julian finally agreed. “We have to try.”
When a huge brown hare darted across the path in front of us, it’s not that I consciously decided to kill it. It was that hunger overtook me with such fervor, I didn’t consider that my meal was not yet dead.
Ezra let out a startled shout when I thrust my arm out, my radiance giving off a blinding flash of light. It made a sound like rustling paper.
The rabbit smoked faintly where I’d struck it in the head.
“Is that what you nearly did to me during the train robbery?” he asked, aghast.
“Yes,” I admitted, grateful he’d acted quickly enough to avoid being murdered before we’d ever had a chance to meet.
Julian crouched by the rabbit and drew a large knife from his pack. “If you’ve only now figured out that she’s deadly, I’m shocked you’ve lived this long.”
