Idris shrugs. “Not sure.”
“Do you think it’s my mother’s death?” I ask.
But my mother didn’t die in May. It was April.
“No,” he says. “Prue considered that, but you were too young then. It is something that happens in the future when your powers are stronger, and you understand how to change things. I reckon you didn’t expect to lose the memory every time you came back to change it.”
My mind reels with this information. I will have to think about it. But right now I have to figure out how to protect Idris.
“We have to make a decision,” I say. “I can’t keep punching you to buy time.”
“You’re right about staying here,” Idris says. “A spy close to Ender Vale is a valuable asset.”
His shoulders drop in resignation. I don’t know how to save him. He’s got a Bind stuck in his neck. There’s a fresh bandage on his throat, which means they tagged him and destabilized his powers for questioning. He’s a Class One. A Command. He will not be arrested for his treason. He will be killed.
“But what do we do?” I ask frantically. “If I save you, they’ll know.”
I can’t pause time for long. At any moment, this scene will resume, and Ender will be watching.
“There is one other option,” he says. “The rebels have a contingency plan for times like this.”
He points to his tongue. There’s a small pill sitting on his tongue.
“You knocked the tooth out,” he says with a weak smile. “They punched me hard enough to loosen it. I was waiting for this to happen.”
Realization dawns on me.
“No,” I whisper. “We’ll find another way.”
Idris smiles sadly.
“I’m glad I met you, Haven Warrick,” he says. “You will do great things.”
“No—” I lunge for him, but it’s already done.
The capsule cracks between his teeth. Foam gathers at the corner of his mouth as his body starts to seize. I release the freeze and return to where I stood before, watching helplessly as the young boy dies.
Sound crashes into the room as the door is yanked open. Knox and Ender barge inside. They push the red button in the corner, summoning the enforcers and medics. But it is too late.
Idris is gone.
His blank eyes stare ahead, and regret tears through me like a knife. I could have saved him. I could have chosen to run. I stagger back.
Blood trickles down the cut on my knuckles, dripping onto the floor.
Ender turns to look at me. His gaze pins me in place, and I shiver at the hardness in his eyes.
If he suspected my duplicity before, I am certain that now he knows with startling clarity. Ender is too clever to believe in coincidences. His prisoner died the moment I took over questioning. Idris survived days without triggering his failsafe, so the only conclusion Ender can draw is that I knew it was there. And that I am the traitor he was going to name.
“Come with me,” Ender says coldly.
He grips my elbow and pulls me from the room like a misbehaving child. I’d snap at him if my heart weren’t lodged in my throat.
Idris’s body lies slumped behind us. His eyes haunt me. He knew what was coming. And yet he still did it.
I let Ender drag me down the corridor. For a second, I fear that he’ll toss me into one of those numbered prison cells and leave me there to rot.
My shoulders ease a little when we climb up the stairs to the third level away from the containment cells.
