“My turn,” I say, forcing myself to be brave. “Tell me the story of the Tau god.”
Epsilon scoffs. “That’s not a question, that’s a book.”
“Is it a book I’m allowed to read?”
He’s standing in profile now. So I get a side-eyed glare for this question. “Someone helped you.”
“What?”
“Someone fed you. Who was it?”
“Fed me?”Be careful here, Clara. Because youhavebeen getting fed. And he will see your lie. “I think it might be the jumps.”
“Jumps?” His eyebrows furrow.
“Yeah. So… in the Tau City tower—the ruined one, in Tyse’s city, where the god used to live—well, it’s inhabited by spark addicts now.”
For some reason this makes him smile. “Go on.”
“And… this is where Tyse lived. So this is where I ended up when I was Extracted from the factory to feed the baby god they were growing.”
He looks very pleased with what I’m saying. “Go on.”
“And in this tower, they had… well, it was like a little city. All self-contained because the tower people were all addicted to the residual spark leftover from the god. They live inside it, you see. Free. Thousands and thousands of people.”
Epsilon pulls up a chair, takes a seat, props a foot on his opposite knee and leans back. “Keep going, Clara.”
“All right. So… we live on floor ten. But on floor eight, there was a… like… store. And a laundromat.” I smile, because I like that word. “And these guys who would sell jumps and jolts.”
“Tell me more.”
“Well, the jolts were small packages of spark.” It’s here, at this point, when I realize I have power. And the power comes from my story. Because he has no idea what I’m talking about.Whatever happened up in Tau City after the explosion, this god has not heard about it. How long as he been down here augmenting these men?
It doesn’t matter.Just keep talking, Clara.
“Jumps were big packages of spark. Anneeta, that’s our baby god, she was born in the tower, obviously. Very addicted to the spark. So addicted, she couldn’t leave. But we needed to escape.”
Epsilon leans forward, almost entranced.
“So we bought a bunch of those jumps from the guys on eight. And took them with us on the train. And I fed Anneeta my spark to keep her alive, and Tyse fed me those jumps to keep me alive until we got to Delta.”
He leans back again, blowing out a breath. “Wow. I have to say, I was not expecting you to be so forthcoming. What an entertaining story.” He frowns. “Unfortunately, it didn’t answer my question.”
“Well, because I wasn’t done. You see, feeding me all those jumps… it… changed me.”
“Changed you, how?”
My answer comes out so quick and with such conviction, even I believe it. “It created a reservoir inside me. Like a lake. Only instead of water, this lake contains spark. So I can pull from it, I think. I don’t know for sure. I’m not doing it consciously. It just… happens. The same way breathing happens.”
“Hmmm.”
I can’t tell if this hum is a note of satisfaction or disapproval.
“That’s my answer,” I say. “That’s all I know. And now you owe me one.” I ask a more careful question this time. Direct and focused. “What happened to the god Tau?”
Epsilon’s eyes narrow down a bit, like he’s about to deny me. But then he shrugs. “He tried to ascend—and failed.”
“What do you mean?”
