I am—
Hiding my face. Dusty tear tracks I don’t want Dani to see. Her thumb on my cheeks, wiping them dry. Cupping my chin long after it’s necessary. Neither of us moving as we meet each other’s eyes and understand.
I am—
Sleeping. Curled up with my sisters. The sound of Mama’s and Papa’s soft breathing. The room, safe. The night air, cool. Back then. To know what a cool breeze felt like.
I am—
Alone. Lying on a rooftop. Every night hotter than the one before.
Waiting…
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“CAN ANY OF US REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME WE WERE TOLD THE STORY OF THE HERALDS? WAS IT TOLD TO US AT ALL? OR WERE WE BORN WITH IT ON OUR TONGUES? CARRYING IT ACROSS OUR BACKS, BURDENED BY GRATITUDE UNTIL IT BEGAN TO TASTE LESS LIKE BENEVOLENCE AND MORE LIKE GUILT.”
—EXCERPT FROMTRACTS FROM A REBEL PREACHER
It takes us several long, hot hours to cross the last miles of the Copper Plains. The air is warm and dry and not even the breeze can stop the sweat beading underneath the layers of my Butcher kit. Heat radiates from the ground, sometimes so warm that I can feel it even through the thick, reinforced soles of my boots. There’s no sound except the soft beat of our feet against the alloy, the whistle of wind across my ears, and the flow of Trinity’s song dragging me toward the storm, the pull of it so strong and fierce that I’m sometimes not sure if I’m even in charge of my body. Could I stop walking if I wanted? Or would my feet keep moving, tugged ever forward?
I wrung the last drops out of my canteen about an hour ago,letting the water sit on my tongue, savoring it before I finally swallowed it down. The dryness of the air feels like it tears the moisture from my mouth. Dani and Orion are already dragging, several steps behind me. I have no idea how we’re going to make it back across the Plains once we get out of the Gate.
Ifwe get out of the Gate.
Dani jogs up to my side and offers her canteen to me, but I shake my head, pushing it away. I can hear how little she has left in there, probably not more than a mouthful, and we could be walking for hours more.
“Keep it,” I tell her. “You don’t have enough as it is.”
She sighs, tips the barest sip past her lips, and then caps the canteen off. To our left, the sun is riding low, slipping toward the horizon, painting plum streaks across the evening sky.
“You’re being stubborn just to be stubborn, ghoulie.”
I snort. “Here I thought I was being heroically noble.”
“That would make even less sense than you being stubborn.” Her eyes drift upward, to the glowering silver clouds looming almost directly over our heads now. “What do you think we’re going to find there?”
I follow her gaze, tracing the splintered path of a lightning strike. I try to picture what the Gate of Heaven might actually look like. Will it be the intricate, multicolored glass orb the Ministry depicts it as? It’s possible, but all my brain can come up with is an image of thousands of Archangels piled atop one another, beaming gold light between their razor-sharp wings. I imagine the Gate cracking open like an airship and all of the automatons spilling from its insides.
“Maybe it’s just Archangels making more Archangels over and over,” I say.
Dani humphs, skeptical. “But someone had to create the first Archangel, right?”
“I guess. But that was thousands and thousands of years ago. Whoever that was has got to be long gone by now.”
“So what’s your plan, then?”
Whatismy plan?All I know is I want it to stop. The fear and secrecy plaguing me, the shadows of angels haunting me. I want to walk away from here knowing that they’ll never be a danger to Kelda or anyone I care about ever again.
“Whatever it takes,” I finally say. “I’ll blow up the whole thing if I have to—I’m not really picky.”
“Blow up the Gate of Heaven… Can’t really accuse you of small goals, huh?” Her voice is light, teasing, but there’s an edge of nervousness underneath it. “You’re not worried about what might happen to your immortal soul—or anyone else’s soul—if you explode the one place that’s supposed to be our bridge connecting Trinity to the Heralds’ heavenly afterlife?”
I frown and glance at her, trying to read her expression in the soft glow of the dying sun. I honestly hadn’t even thought of it in that way. Maybe because I’d stepped off any pathway to the Heralds’ holy realm years ago, when I became the Butcher. That stuff always felt to me like it was for rich skyliners who tithed regularly and were already “blessed.” Not dusters like me with blood beneath our fingernails.
“Do you think that’s what it is?” I ask her.
Dani shrugs. “I don’t know what I believe. You watch enoughpeople go down into the Depths, and it starts to feel like you’re straddling them yourself.” She lets a sigh slip from between her lips, soft, tired. “On the one side, you want to believe in an afterlife where you can see your family again, but on the other side, we’re dusters. We know how dangerous it is to trust an empty promise. Something we can’t see or touch or taste.”
