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It takes me a moment, but I do The flowers are a little dead and dry, but they’re purple like he said

"You can dig here," he says "Don’t take the up every other plant We don’t need the flowers, just the roots Wrap the roots in burlap and wet the through the grass, turning it marshy "Be as fast as you can about it"

I kneel down and start digging around the plant When I pull up the bulb, it’s brown and dirty, with tangles of roots co out It reminds me of Cassia, and how the two of us planted those flowers the day we kissed in the Borough That kiss has keptfor months

At the stream, I wet the strips of burlap and wrap up the bulbs one after the other I keep digging, and the sun shines down on me, and I decide that I like the smell of the dirt My back aches a little, so I stand up to stretch it out I’

Oker’s impatient forat a plant, his motions clumsy The flowers bob back and forth, back and forth He pulls up the roots, fuives the plants to me "Can’t wrap it," he says "You’ll have to do it forour bags When I start to sling his bag over my shoulder with mine--I should carry it for him now that it’s full--Oker shakes his head "I can carry my own"

I nod and hand it over "Do you think this camassia is really the cure?"

"I think there’s a very good chance," Oker says "Let’s go"

Oker has to stop and rest on the way back to the village "Forgot to eat this ," he says It’s the first tiainst a rock, his face twisted into a scowl of i

"I’ve been wondering sorunts but doesn’t tell ers know that they were iue in the first place, before the mutation?"

"They’ve known about their iue for years," Oker says "When the Society first sent it out to the Enemy, one of the pilots who dropped the virus ran away froe, the one nearest Camas"

Oker takes a moment to catch his breath "What the idiot didn’t realize when he caue He thought it could only coh water, because that’s how he’d distributed it in the Enemy’s rivers and streams But it can also be transmitted from person to person, and he’d had contact with some of the Enemy Apparently he’d tried to help thee"

"Why did he run to the village?" I ask

"He was one of the pilots who took part in the vanishings," Oker says, "so he knew the people in the village and they knew hie there, he becaoing"

Birds chatter in the trees around us and the grass grows so long over the path that it whisk-whisks against our pant legs "Of course, the Society had cures for any of their workers who happened to contract the disease," Oker says "But since the pilot didn’t go back to the Society, he didn’t get the cure He caes, and he died"

"Because the villagers didn’t have a cure," I say, "or because they killed hilance sharp "They left him out in the woods with food and water, but they knew he’d die"

"They had to," I say "They thought he could infect their whole village"

Oker nods "When the pilot becaue and the Eneo back into the Society and get him a cure By that tie The entire co to die, and they knew they’d never get their hands on the cure in tihs "Of course, at the time they had no idea that they would turn out to be immune"

"Did they exile anyone else?" I ask

"No," Oker says "They quarantined those who’d been exposed, but no one ever got sick"

I breathe out a sigh of relief

"Their immunity wouldn’t have mattered to the Society, of course," Oker says, "since they already had a cure But it ers They knew that if the Society tried to put the Plague in the villagers’ waters, they wouldn’t die For the most part, they kept their immunity a secret So with the knowledge until the mutation happened"

"And then he wondered if the villagers ht," Oker says "He ca to test their immunity, and to find out if we could help discover a cure"

"I know people volunteered to be exposed to the mutated virus," I say "Why?"

"Foilware ht us an entire cargo hold full of the more"

"Why would anyone want those?" I ask "The food here is so much better"

"For the trip to the Otherlands," he says "Those meals last for years They’d be perfect for the journey The Pilot proh for all the travelers to take, if only a few of us would volunteer for exposure to the virus They injected people with the es just in case But no one got sick" Now Oker’s grinning from ear to ear "You should have seen the look on the Pilot’s face He couldn’t believe there was a chance That’s when he offered us the ships if we could find a cure"

Oker steps over a puddle of blue flowers growing right in the center of the path "Your friends who try to walk through the illness are closer to the truth about the virus and the blue tablets than you er"