Holy Hour.“You…you died.” In the dream, that is.
“Precisely,” he said with a grin, his voice lighter now.
“So, how did you die?”
“Oh, that part doesn’t really matter,” he said with a wave of his hand. “But it did get me thinking that, if something were to happen to me in real life, hypothetically speaking,you’dhandle it best. You’d handle it by doing my favorite thing of all, which is…”
I shook my head, dumbfounded. “Asking questions.”
Silas smiled as brightly as the sun. “Yes.”
“Honestly, that’s aterriblereason to tellmethis,” I muttered.
“But it’s an honest one.” And he stood up. “Thank you for the tea-talk, brave Ora. I’ll see you at breakfast.”
“What?” Was he serious?
I stood up, too, as he made for the door. “Wait, Silas—wait.” He did. He turned. “I don’t…I don’t understand.” I didn’t understand anything.
He shrugged. “I don’t think dreams are meant to be understood when you just have them. They usually tend to make more sense later.”
“You’re not being honest with me,” I said, and he knew it to be true. He wasn’t telling me something—he wasn’t telling mea lotof things.
He put a hand to his heart. “I’m as honest as I can be, I promise.”
I stopped in front of him—and we were both whispering for some reason. “This is madness, Silas. This whole thing.” I shook my head. “If you’re honest with me, then tell me this: last night, Seth took us underneath the mechanical garden.”A flinch. Silas turned his head away, his hand still on the door’s handle. “We heard Calren and Master Talik talking about some anchors being loosened, and how someone was able to bypass clearance without any records of them doing it. How they were endangering the trials.”
“Notthe trials,” he suddenly said through gritted teeth.
It wasn’t a confession, obviously, but…
I swallowed hard. Raised my chin. “So what exactly are you trying to do by loosening those anchors?”
Because it was him. I’d known it last night, and I knew it now. I saw it all over his face.
And Silas knew it, too.
That’s why he smiled the way he did. “Preventing the harvest, of course.”
A confession if I’d ever heard one.
I took a step closer. “Why?”
A hand on my cheek. “Not yet, Ora.”
“Silas, comeon.We’re in this together.” And I needed to know what we were up against here. What to expect.
“Was there something else they said?” Silas asked instead.
“Yes, actually. Calren asked Master Talik if he knewwhatyou were.”
Laughter, short and sharp. “Of course he knows!” said Silas, like it was the most natural thing in the world to say.
“Knowswhatexactly?” I demanded. “What are you, really?” The last time I’d asked him this question, it had started withwho,but so much had changed since then.
“Think of me as…a bit of a glitch,” he whispered, then leaned in and hugged me.
Silas hugged me, put his arms around my shoulders and squeezed me to his chest for just a second while I stood there, frozen in place.
