Nothing explodes and there’s no such thing as working trains.
We just… keep going. We go on like we always have.
Living, and laughing, and drinking coffee. Eating pastries, and walking on the sand, and having parties. We live in towers or in the cute, winding, canal-front neighborhoods behind them. We have children that we dote on and spoil.
They grow up. Our girls pledge. Then pledge again.
And it’sfine.
One Maiden must die, that’s all. Just one.
It’s worth it because we get to grow old, we get to die, and it’s OK because there’s always someone coming up behind us to take the burdens we leave behind.
We live in ignorance and it is nothing but bliss.
“Jasina.” Finn is whispering into my ear and for a moment I’m in bed with him. There’s a festival down below. People celebrating because it’s Choosing Day. And I have been Chosen. “Jasina? Can you hear me?”
But it’s not me in bed with him. It’s Clara.
She’s the one he loves. She’s the one in bed with him. She’s the Spark Maiden. And he waits for her.
“Jasina? Can you get up?”
I let out a long sigh. Because what’s the point? What’s the point of any of this?
“I knew you’d be OK.”
OK? I don’t know what world he’s living in right now, but I am not OK. Ceela is dead. She couldn’t help us when I came up with the plan to overwhelm the system with spark. It killed Donal. And when I think about it—how his body went stiff and blue light started burning holes where his eyes were—it makes me happy.
“Come on, Jasina. We have to go.”
I am pulled to my feet, eyes still closed, because I do not want to open them and see the truth. I’ve seen enough truth, thank you.
They’re all dead.
All those Little Sisters. I mean, maybe one or two survived—but it wasn’t Harlow, or Lucindy, or Britley, or Ceela. Ceela died when she didn’t push out her spark with Gemna and I. We simply—burned her up. Not as badly as we burned Donal, but the last memory I have of Ceela is of her blackened body still strung up on that circle as the cyan-blue spark coming out of Gemna and me danced against the glass.
She was the first to die, actually. And even though we were falling apart at the end, I would not wish that death of hers on my worst enemy. Harlow, Lucindy, and Britley were in the middle of the line. So when Gemna and I broke the Looking Glass, they were already passed out on the floor.
They’re probably still buried there now.
They might stay there forever.
“Jasina! Do you understand what happened? The Extraction Tower blew. We’re done here. We need to go! For fuck’s sake, pull yourself together!”
This is what makes me open my eyes. Rage courses through me like a disease in my blood and I look at Finn Scott straight on. He’s a mess. His face has burns on it, and it’s all smudged with dust and ash. His shirt and suit coat are in tatters.
And this startles the anger right out of me.
Then I look down at myself. Half a dress, one slipper, blood all over my legs.
But that’s on the outside.
On the inside… on the inside I am…butterflies.
The spark dances under my skin as a shimmering, blue glow.
I look back at Finn feeling more like myself. And when he lets out a breath and smiles, I feel his relief so acutely, I’m conflicted. “You wantedher.”
