But Wesley is either a less convincing liar or he’s in worse shape than I realized, because they insist on taking him to the hospital to be safe. The ambulance goes out of the lot before he can say much more to me than, “Leave the window open.”
I’ve barely ducked under the yellow tape when someone shouts my name, and I look up to see the rest of the Court huddled on the sidewalk, a little singed but otherwise unhurt. There is a stream of where were yous and what happeneds and are you hurts and is Wesley with yous and is he okays and that was crazys before they finally settle down enough to let me answer. Even then I only get halfway through before Cash makes a crack about how this will go on his feedback card for sure—and Saf elbows him and says she heard that someone died in there, and how can he be making jokes? Amber comments on traumatic experiences being optimal times for levity, and then I hear my name again, and turn to find my parents pushing through the crowd toward me, and I get out half of “I’m okay” before my mother throws her arms around my neck and starts sobbing.
Dad wraps his arms around us both, and I don’t need to have my ring off to know their minds, to feel their relief tangled with their desperate need to protect the child they have left and their fear that they can’t. I can’t protect them, either. Not from losing me—not every time—but tonight I’m here, and so I hold them tighter and tell them it’s going to be okay.
And for the first time in a very long time, I believe it.
AFTER
I’M SITTING ON the edge of my bed that night in my ruined uniform, the silver horns still snagged in my hair, smelling of smoke and blood and thinking of Owen. I am not afraid of sleeping, though I wish Wesley were here with me. I am not afraid of nightmares, because mine came true and I lived through them.
I get to my feet and begin to peel off my ruined uniform, wincing as my stiff and wounded body protests every movement. I manage to tug my shirt over my head, then shed my skirt, and finally my shoes, unlacing them and tugging them off one at a time. I pull the first one off and set it on the bed beside me. When I pull the second shoe off and turn it over, a square of folded paper falls out onto the floor.
I cringe as I kneel to pick it up, smoothing the page. It’s blank but for a single word in the lower right corner, written in careful script: ALL. I run my thumb over the word.
I wasn’t going to take it.
I crouched there over Owen’s body, listening to the sounds of footsteps, counting the seconds, and feeling dazed and numb. I didn’t plan to take it, but one second I was just sitting there and the next my hands were patting him down, digging the folded page out of his pocket, slipping it into my shoe. The moment was easy to hide. To bury.
Now, as I stare down at the page, I consider burning it. (Of course Owen didn’t just burn the ledger; he burned the rest of the ledger to cover the fact that this page was missing.)
The thing is, Owen was so wrong about so many things.
But I don’t know if he was wrong about everything.
I want to believe in the Archive. I want to. So I don’t know whether it’s doubt or fear, weakness or strength, Da’s voice in my head warning me to be ready for anything or Owen’s telling me it’s time for change, or the fact that I have seen too much tonight, that made me take the paper from Owen’s pocket.
I should burn it, but I don’t. Instead I fold it very carefully—each time pausing to decide if I want to destroy it, each time deciding not to—until it’s the size it was before. And then I pull The Inferno from my shelf, slip the square of stolen paper between its pages, and set the book back.
Maybe Owen was right.
Maybe I am a bringer of change.
But I’ll decide what kind.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
They warn you about sequels.
They tell you to stock up on caffeine and pajama pants. They tell you to strap yourself down against the storm. They tell you that it will all be worth it in the end. That you’ll get through it.
But they never tell you how.
The answer?
People.
People who keep you grounded. People who keep you sane. Who talk plot. Talk pacing. Talk character.
People who answer hypothetical questions about really strange things without looking at you like you’ve lost your mind.
People who steal the delete key from your keyboard when you decide at two a.m. that maybe you should hold it down.
People who know when you need to be left alone and when you need to be dragged from the computer into the light of day (or the darkness of a laser tag arena).
People who care. Who believe. Even when you don’t.
This was not an easy book, in any sense. It fought back. It dragged me through mud and thistle. There were casualties. Hours. Drafts.
But I had people.
I had my mother, who reminded me to eat and breathe, and my father, who reminded me to swim until the world felt small enough again.
I had my NYC housemates, Rachel and Jen, who knew when I needed noise and when I needed quiet (and when I needed to watch cartoons).
I had Carla and Courtney, who hauled me to my feet and dusted me off and squared me on my path.
I had my agent, Holly, who told me I would find a way, because I always did.
I had my editors, Abby and Lisa, who believed in the books, and in me.
And I had you.