Still, the Keeper’s command confuses me. “You mean, he’ll take us tonight? After the performance?”
“No, Elizabet. We must go right now.” For the first time since I’ve known him, the Keeper looks scared.
His expression immobilizes me. If the Keeper—a powerful official who terrifies so many—is actually scared, could Media’s reports be true? Media is a liar: sometimes on Apple’s side, sometimes not.
“Now, Elizabet! This may be our only chance,” the Keeper screams at me, shaking me out of my reverie.
I run back to my dressing room. Stripping off my practice clothes, I search around for something suitable to wear on a boat. My Mini and Manolos won’t do. I poke my head into one of the other dancer’s cubicles and grab the Levis and boots left behind by one of the male dancers in his haste to leave. Pulling on his clothes, I reach for my pink pack.
The very tick I step out of my dressing room, the Keeper grabs my hand. “We must run.”
There is no need to duck and weave through the corridors of the Mariinsky Theater. The normally teeming hallways are deserted, and we make their way to the gilded front doors in record time. When we push the heavy doors open, I don’t recognize the streets outside.
The Teatralnaya ploshchad—usually so orderly and elegant—is falling apart. The streets are slick with water. Thousands of people—Euro, Penny, and Homeless in one enormous mass—crush the streets. They carry babies in their arms and overstuffed packs on their backs, and they are trying to run.
Then I discover why. I can hear the sound of rushing water like an underbelly roar beneath the noises the mob makes in trying to flee. The Teatralnaya ploshchad empties into the port on the River Neva and from there into the Bay of Finland on the Baltic Sea. Since these people don’t have time to make it inland, they want to ride the rising waters on boats.
The horde is merciless. People have been trampled underfoot, but I can’t let myself to look upon them. I cannot weaken or I’ll be down there with them. The Keeper clings to my hand like a life preserver, because that it is exactly what I am for him. Without me, I realize, he has no ticket on the Patron’s boat.
“Where are the Guards?” I yell to the Keeper over the sound of the throngs.
“They were among the first to evacuate. Don’t forget, they control the boats.” He yells back.
The people of St. Petersburg have been abandoned. The Guards, the men sworn to protect us from within and without, have deserted us. The citizens of St. Petersburg must face this catastrophe alone.
In the distance, I hear screaming. I realize that the sound comes from the direction of the port, and within a few ticks, a wave of water rushes down the street. Bodies and debris rain down with it, bringing death closer to me by the tick. The screaming now comes from my own throat. Drenched and disoriented, I clutch onto the Keeper’s hand. I need him as much as he needs me right now. He hasn’t told me exactly where the Patron’s boat is docked. Intentionally, I’m sure.
To my own surprise, I take charge of the situation. Dragging the Keeper, I sprint the remaining stretch to the port, weaving in and out of the mass of humanity in a frantic dance. Finally we reach the port.
People are hysterical to get closer to the few boats still moored. They leave the weak and old in their wake. I can’t bear to look back at the trampled corpses behind them. What is happening to everybody? To me?
“There! His boat is just there!” I hear the Keeper yell over the din.
The Patron’s boat—a vast, luxurious vessel—is one of the last left in the port. He waited until the last possible tick for me. As the Keeper and I approach, armed men block our way with raised spears and knives and guns.
The Keeper lifts his hand in a gesture of peace and calls out. “I am the Keeper of the Kirov Ballet. And I have brought Elizabet Laine as the Patron requested.”
He pushes me toward them as his offering. The men lower their weapons and reach out for my hand. They pass me to the Patron, this greedy man fat with Euros who has emerged. As soon as I’m safe in the Patron’s grasp, the armed men push the Keeper back, away from the dock.
When he fights back, the men throw the Keeper into the rising waters of the River Neva.
As I scream out in horror, the Patron tries to offer me strange comfort. “Sorry, my dear. I only have room for one more.”
XXX: Aprilus 25 Year 242, A.H.
I watch the carrier pigeon fly south. The bird carries the final pages of the Chronicle of Elizabet Laine. I’m pretty sure that its message will not win me the Archon Laurels, not given Jasper’s find. But I feel strangely satisfied, as if I’ve truly done my duty by Elizabet and Eamon.
I feel anxious, too. No one was ever written a Chronicle like mine before.
Until now I’d been so wrapped up in writing and winning, I hadn’t really thought through other possible repercussions. Will I be accused of Lex-breaking for writing something from a voice that isn’t my own? I can’t think of a particular Lex rule addressing my Chronicle format, other than the Prohibition of Fictions, but while I know my writing to be the truth, it is wildly different. And, The Lex says the Chronicle must show how the Relic led to mankind’s fall or suffer a punishment worthy of the offense. I’d been looking forward to finishing up the Testing and heading home—and seeing my father and Lukas and even my mother—but now I feel wary.
Jasper’s win should make things easier for me if there is a backlash. After all, my father just wants me to return home alive. Lukas won’t be too disappointed that I didn’t always follow his advice. I try to repress my worries and focus on the comforts that await.
The mood in the camp is lighter, and not just for me. All the Testors have sent their Chronicles back. The Testing Site will remain open for only this last sinik. Spring is coming fast, and the warming brings instability to the ice crevasse. So no more climbing and digging. We’re all happy to be going home. All except for Tristan and Anders, of course, and I’m guessing we all try hard not to think about them.
I spend the morning and afternoon bells of our last sinik packing up and preparing my dogs for the journey. We linger over dinner instead of racing back to igloos like we’ve done for so many siniks. Technically, The Lex still prohibits talking among Testors, but tonight the Scouts have turned a blind eye to quiet chatter. I guess they figure there’s not much collusion we can spawn or advantages we can give each other now. Even still, no one has really bothered to talk to me, so I just sit back and listen to the boys’ banter. So far, it consists of a lot of bragging and very little else—but it entertains after so much silence.
Only Jasper is as quiet as I am. Until he pretends to head back to his igloo and whispers as he passes: “Meet me at the crevasse after dinner?”
For a tick, I wonder whether I should risk The Lex to meet him. But I want to know where we stand before we head home and he is lost in the victory celebrations and Chief Archon preparations. I try to tell myself that I’m happy he’ll be taking my father’s place at the end of his term. He is the next best thing to Eamon in my family’s eyes. Perhaps even in mine. I nod, and after a respectable numbers of ticks, I get up and start walking in the direction of the Testing Site. Casually, I think.