Woody pants, mopping sweat from his brow. “What do you mean, ‘out’? What is he talking ab—”
Amber holds up a hand. “Get to the point,” she snaps.
“I’ve been meeting with Professor Lyon—”
“Wait. You meantheProfessor Lyon?” Woody asks, finally catching his breath.
“He’s supposed to be coaching me for our relocation to Anchorage next season.”
The color drains from Poppy’s face. “You’re leaving the mid-Atlantic?” Her voice is thin, tinged with worry. A new Winter poses a threat, an unknown variable in an already impossible equation. Fleur’sgot one season left before the Purge. Even if she manages to get herself over the red line next spring, any change in her routine will only make it that much harder to stay above it.
“We all know Fleur doesn’t have much time. And when a Season is Terminated...” I clear my throat, finding it harder than I’d thought to look her in the eyes and speak the words out loud. “When a Season is Terminated, her Handler is Terminated, too.” Chill’s gaze drops to the floor, no doubt picturing the same dustpan I am. “I don’t want that to happen any more than you do—to you or Fleur—but maybe it doesn’t have to.”
“So you’re going to help us?” she asks, cautiously optimistic. “You’re going to help get Fleur out of the red? Because I’ve done the math,” she says, her voice rising, the words coming faster. “If I can get her released from the Observatory by March first, and she kills you by March fourth, if she can hold on until June twelfth, there’s a chance her scores could climb enough to get her over the red line. She just needs to keep her moods under control. You know, the rain... She’s been depressed. The storms have been—”
“And then what?” I ask. “What if she can’t? What happens the next year?” Poppy’s face falls, because she already knows. It’s the fear she won’t face—not until it’s too late. “Every Spring under that red line will be gunning for high scores, desperate to save themselves. Even if I let Fleur kill me early, there’s no guarantee it would work. But there’s another way to save you both.”
Poppy shakes her head, looking from me to Amber to Chill. I see the moment the light switches on and she realizes where this conversation is going. She stumbles back against a vegetable crate. “Have you all lost your minds?”
“We’re not stuck here, Poppy!” I fight the urge to reach out and shake her. “We have a choice. We just never realized it. If she knew, she could choose—”
“Fleur doesn’t have a choice!” Her lip trembles. “She has to follow the rules. Whatever you’re up to, it’s going to get us all killed!”
“Only if they catch us.”
“Jack,” Amber says, her tone guarded. I can see the wheels turning as she stares at the healing cut on my lip. “I know what you’re thinking. But what happened in the sparring room doesn’t prove anything.”
“I can get us out of here alive, Amber. I know I can.”
“What do you mean, ‘get us out of here’?” Woody asks, stepping around Amber.
She puts a hand out in front of him, holding him back, as if to protect him from me. “Newsflash, snowflake. Handlers don’t get to leave.”
“They can’t stay behind,” I say. “They’ll be safer with us. Off the grid.”
“What do you mean, ‘off the grid’?” Woody asks over her head. “Is that even an option?”
“No one’s ever done it and survived. You go off the lines, you’re in the wind. It’s suicide. Everyone knows that.” Amber’s eyes bore into me. She stands stubbornly between Woody and me, determined to keep the truth from him.
“Wedon’tknow that. None of us know,” I say, the pressure building inside me like a storm. “Don’t tell me you’ve never noticed the missing portraits of Ananke in the gallery. Don’t tell me you’ve never noticed the books missing from the Hall of Records. Chronos only tells us the stories he wants us to believe!” And I have to believe my own future is oneof them. That Chronos chose the vision he did to frighten me, to keep me here, to discourage me from pursuing the truth. “Haven’t you ever wondered why our lessons don’t include any history before the invention of the stasis chambers?”
“Because it’s simple! They all died, Jack!” Amber’s voice rises, as if she knows she’s losing ground. “One season, that’s all they got!”
“If that’s true, how do you explain Professor Lyon?”
Woody’s brows knit. The fight slips from Amber’s shoulders. No one’s sure how old Professor Lyon actually is. The only time I dared to ask, the answer he gave me was vague. But there are whispers around campus. Rumors that drift from the faculty lounges and swirl in his wake through the halls. Some say before he was a Winter, he served in Queen Elizabeth I’s court.
“He was inAntarctica,” Amber reasons. “Winter never ends there. He could have lived there forever, if he wanted to.”
“But he didn’t! He only lived there for three hundred years. You really think he survived a hundred years before that alone?” None of them speak. “Seasons survived off the lines once. We coexisted. Professor Lyon told me as much. He was there. He lived it. There were no stasis chambers. No ranking systems or Purges,” I tell Poppy. “There were no segregated dorms. Lyon made his own rules, and we can, too.”
Amber’s eyes lift to mine. The room smells earthy, like the contents of the crates piled high on every side of us, like root vegetables and potatoes. Autumn and winter. And maybe a little like hope.
Woody is first to break the silence. “But how would you survive away from the ley lines? You need the stasis chambers to regenerate.”
“We wouldn’t need them if we never burned out. Ever heard of asecondary cell?” I unfold my sketch. Woody steps forward and takes it from me before Amber can stop him.
“A rechargeable battery,” Woody says, studying the drawing. “But how?”
