Julian swung the pack from his shoulders and crouched to fill the water pouches at a shallow stream. “I don’t know how many other Children of Industry we can sway. But I believe we’ll have Professor Dunn’s support when we present our research next year.”
My mind buzzed at the thought of Professor Dunn working against the Elders in secret, working to support Julian. “How did you manage to get top marks if you didn’t even believe in what you were doing?”
“Top marks?” Ezra laughed once. “You must have been insufferable.”
Julian ignored him. “I knew that I needed to leave the House in excellent standing. Success gave me access to opportunity. I knew it would make me an unlikely suspect if anyone discovered efforts to undermine the spread of Progress.”
Even if I’d had an ulterior motive, I’d never have been able to position myself as a stellar student. The longer I was away, the more I could acknowledge that I’d hated the House of Industry.
Now that I wasn’t alone, I understood how lonely I’d been.
“My success at the House doesn’t matter now,” Julian went on absently, “No one can accuse a dead man of heresy.”
Ezra stiffened so noticeably that both of us looked up at him. “I smell smoke,” he said.
“Someone’s made camp nearby?” I asked. Surely that wasn’t worth the alarm. It could be anyone.
“I don’t smell it,” Julian said with a twinge of irritation—as if unaccustomed to not being the first to notice something.
Ezra frowned, looking almost apologetic. “Julian, I don’t think it’s a campfire.”
“Cascade,” I exhaled.
Julian scrambled to his feet. He tucked his journal into his pocket and left his pack behind, hurtling off at a headlong run. I followed as best I could, not nearly as long-legged as he was. A quick glance verifiedthat Ezra was able to keep up, no longer favoring his side at all. The forest had been good to him.
We ran too quickly to talk, stopping every so often to catch our breaths and silently confirm that no one had dropped off. In less than an hour, we spotted the bright edge of the forest. Julian sprinted ahead, quick as a squirrel.
I doubled over, retching with exertion.
Ezra rubbed my back urgently. “Almost there. Only a bit farther.”
I choked on fear as noxious as the smoke thickening in the woods. I’d allowed myself to trust this plan of Julian’s, the scientists who knew more than I did, these people who believed we could change the future for the better.
If something had happened to them, what would we be left with?
Gasping, I made myself keep running, Ezra at my side.
When we emerged from the forest, we found Julian leaning against a bale of hay, his chest heaving. At the far side of the pasture, gray smoke billowed from a line of flames. As the wind caught the smoke and thinned it briefly, I saw the high wooden fence of a compound, a farmhouse beyond it, the towering shape of a silo, and several livestock paddocks.
It was burning.
All of it was burning.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“We have to move.” I tugged at Julian’s arm, but his golden-brown skin had gone gray, his lips pale. His cold fingers trembled as I grasped them. “Julian, we can’t stay here.”
“Maybe we should.” Ezra was steady and warm against my back, one hand on Julian’s shoulder, fingers curled around it like he meant to pull him away from the wreckage before us. “That fire’s too precise to be natural. Whoever did it could be out there waiting to attack us.”
“I don’t care about that!” Radiance snapped between my fingers, and Ezra flinched. Guilt tried to make itself known in my heart, but I tamped it down. I was too angry at whatever had made Julian look like this—so undone. “We can protect ourselves.”
Julian returned to his senses with a shuddering breath. He straightened, shrugging us both off. “Yes,” he said simply. “I have to find them.” He took a few unsteady steps before running across the field toward the inferno.
There was no approaching the buildings. The fire was a living thing, daring us to get too close so that it could consume us, too. FollowingJulian, we skirted around the wall of flames, sleeves pressed against our faces when the wind changed and hot smoke washed over us. I’d never seen a fire this big. Where the structures burned, it raged thirty feet high and roared like a beast. The roof of a tall barn caved in with a thundering crash, sending a cloud of sparks skyward like a firework. Watching it fall, Julian stumbled and made a sound that the fire swallowed up.
“Nobody’s alive in there,” I shouted over the sound of destruction. I grabbed Julian’s sleeve and tugged him, scared of the wild look in his eyes, scared he’d run into the dark smoke billowing from the blackened maw of a house. His body shook violently.
Coughing, Ezra grabbed him and wrestled him out of the worst of the smoke, then deposited him in the dirt. “Julian! Whoever was there isn’t there anymore.”
