As they’d loaded onto the dropship, he’d been dismayed not to see Glass there. To the shock of everyone on Phoenix, Glass had been Confined not long after Clarke, though no matter how many times he pressed his father, Wells had never discovered what she’d done. He wished he knew why she hadn’t been selected for the mission. Although he tried to convince himself that she could’ve been pardoned, it was far more likely that she was still in Confinement, counting down the days until her fast-approaching eighteenth birthday. The thought made his stomach twist.
“I wonder if Chancellor Junior thinks he gets first dibs on all the food?” asked an Arcadian boy whose pockets were bulging with nutrition packs he’d collected during the mad scramble after the crash. From what Wells could see, it looked like they’d been sent down with less than a month’s worth of food, which would disappear quickly if people kept pocketing everything they found. But that couldn’t be possible—there had to be more in a container somewhere. They would come across it once they finished sorting through the wreckage.
“Or if he expects us to make his bed for him.” A petite girl with a scar on her forehead smirked.
Wells ignored them, looking up at the endless stretch of deep-blue sky. It really was astonishing. Even though he’d seen photographs, he had never imagined the color would be quite so vivid. It was strange to think that a blanket of blue—made of nothing more substantial than nitrogen crystals and refracted light—separated him from the sea of stars and the only world he’d ever known. He felt his chest ache for the three kids who hadn’t survived long enough to see these sights. Their bodies lay on the other side of the dropship.
“Beds?” a boy said with a snort. “You tell me where we’ll find a bed in this place.”
“So where the hell are we supposed to sleep?” the girl with the scar asked, looking around the clearing as if she expected sleeping quarters to magically appear.
Wells cleared his throat. “Our supplies included tents. We just need to finish sorting through the containers and collect all the pieces. In the meantime, we should send a few scouts to look for water so we know where to set up camp.”
The girl made a show of glancing from side to side. “This looks good to me,” she said, prompting more snickers.
Wells tried to for C tring everce himself to stay calm. “The thing is, if we’re near a stream or a lake, it’ll be easier to—”
“Oh, good.” A low voice cut him off. “I’m just in time for the lecture.” Wells glanced to the side and saw a boy named Graham walking toward them. Aside from Wells and Clarke, he was the only other person from Phoenix, yet Graham appeared to know most of the Waldenites and Arcadians by name, and they all treated him with a surprising amount of respect. Wells didn’t want to imagine what he’d had to do to earn it.
“I wasn’t lecturing anyone. I’m just trying to keep us alive.”
Graham raised an eyebrow. “That’s interesting, considering that your father keeps sentencing our friends to death. But don’t worry, I know you’re on our side.” He grinned at Wells. “Isn’t that right?”
Wells glanced at him warily, then gave a curt nod. “Of course.”
“So,” Graham went on, his friendly tone at odds with the hostile glint in his eyes, “what was your infraction?”
“That’s not a very polite question, is it?” Wells tried for what he hoped was a cryptic smile.
“I’m so sorry.” Graham’s face took on an expression of mock horror. “You have to forgive me. You see, when you’ve spent the past 847 days of your life locked in the bottom of the ship, you tend to forget what’s considered polite conversation on Phoenix.”
“847 days?” Wells repeated. “I guess we can assume you weren’t Confined for miscounting the herbs you probably stole from the storehouse.”
“No,” Graham said, taking a step toward Wells. “I wasn’t.” The crowd fell silent, and Wells could see a few people shifting uncomfortably while others leaned in eagerly. “I was Confined for murder.”
Their eyes locked. Wells kept his expression carefully devoid of emotion, refusing to give Graham the satisfaction of seeing the shock on his face. “Oh?” he said carelessly. “Who’d you kill?”
Graham smiled coldly. “If you’d spent any time with the rest of us, you’d know that that isn’t considered a very polite question.” There was a moment of tense silence before Graham switched gears. “But I already know what you did anyway. When the Chancellor’s son gets locked up, word travels fast. Figures you wouldn’t fess up. But now that we’re having a nice little chat, maybe you can tell us exactly what we’re doing down here. Maybe you can explain why so many of our friends keep getting executed after their retrials.” Graham was still smiling, but his tone had grown low and dangerous. “And why now? What made your father decide to send us down all of a sudden?”
His father. All day, absorbed in the newness of being on Earth, Wells had almost been able to convince himself that the scene on the launch deck—the sharp sound of the gunshot, the blood blooming like a dark flower on his father’s chest—had been a terrifying dream.
“Of course he’s not going to tell us,” Graham scoffed. “Are you, soldier?” he added with a mock salute.
The Arcadians and Waldenites who’d been watching Graham turned eagerly to Wells, the intensity of their gazes making his skin prickle. Of course, he knew what was going on. Why so many kids were being executed on their eighteenth birthdays for crimes that might have been pardoned in the past. Why the mission had been hastily thrown together and put in motion before there’d been time to plan properly. He knew better than anyone, because it was all his fault.
“When will we get to go home?” asked a boy who didn’t look much older than twelve. Wells felt an unexpected pang of pity for the brokenhearted mother who was still somewhere on the ship. She had no idea that her son had been hurtled through space onto a planet the human race had left for dead.
“We are home,” Wells said, forcing as much sincerity as he could into the words.
If he said it enough times, perhaps he’d start to believe it himself. He’d almost skipped the concert that year. It had always been his favorite event, the one evening musical relics were taken out of their oxygen-free preservation chambers. Watching the performers, who spent most of their time practicing on simulators, coax notes and chords out of the relics was like witnessing a resurrection. Carved and welded by long-dead hands, the only instruments left in the universe produced the same soaring melodies that had once echoed through the concert halls of ruined civilizations. Once a year, Eden Hall was filled with music that had outlasted humanity’s tenure on Earth.
But as Wells entered the hall, a large, oval room bordered by a curved panoramic window, the grief that had been drifting through his body for the past week solidified in his stomach. He normally found the view incredibly beautiful, but that night the glittering stars that surrounded the cloud-shrouded Earth reminded him of candles at a vigil. His mother had loved music.
It was crowded as usual, with most of Phoenix buzzing around excitedly. Many of the women were eager to debut new dresses, an expensive and potentially maddening feat depending on what sort of textile scraps you found at the Exchange. He took a few steps forward, sending a ripple of whispers and knowing glances through the crowd.
Wells tried to focus on the front of the room where the musicians were gathering under the tree for which Eden Hall was named. The legend was that the sapling had miraculously survived the burning of North America and had been carried onto Phoenix right before the Exodus. Now it reached to the very top of the hall, its slender branches stretching out more than ten meters in each direction, creating a canopy of leaves that partially obscured the performers with a veil of green-tinged shadows.