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"You would have done the same," I say

Cassia looks around as if she’s expecting to see someone else, but the Pilot flies alone

"Where is Indie?" she asks the Pilot as we cliht?"

"No," the Pilot says "She got the mutation and she ran until she had no fuel left Her ship went down in the old Enemy territory We couldn’t spare anyone to retrieve her body"

Indie is dead I look at Ky first to see how he’s taking it and his face is full of pain, but he’s not surprised Somehow, he already knew Cassia looks shocked, as if she can’t believe this is true But of course it is I know that a virus doesn’t think or feel, but it still seems as if this one likes to take down those ere the most alive

CHAPTER 54

CASSIA

Two is have happened Ky, cured

And Indie, dead?

I have sothe walls of the Carving, piloting the boat down the river, holding the wasp nest carefully in her hands How can she be gone? She can’t It’s impossible

But Ky believes it

Ky is back

There’s no tier over the miracle, to watch him return, to sit and hold his hand and talk with hiet us on board, and withinoff I don’t have a chance to thank Anna for the bulbs, to say good-bye to Eli, to look back at Leyna and Colin and the other villagers as they watch us leave, hoping ill return someday, this time with ships that can take them all the way to the Otherlands

Xander sits in the copilot’s seat and we strap Ky’s stretcher down in the hold, where it will be the most secure Xander told Tess and Noah what he’d added to the cure, and they gave him Oker’s formula for the base we used This e can tell those in the Provinces e used, and the villagers can begin curing the still left behind A collaboration, again, all of us doing soether that would take us much more time alone

"It will be like an extra trial of the cure," Leyna told the Pilot "When you return to take us out, we’ll have cured all of these patients, and you can bring them back to their families" She sounded as if she’d never doubted Xander; as though they hadn’t planned to sentence hi the cae Anna and Oker, Colin and Leyna, Tess and Noah, the guards--they are also the pilots of the cure

I sit in the runner’s seat for takeoff, but as soon as we’re stable I unbuckle the straps and kneel down next to Ky, holding his hand tightly He looks up at the side of the ship and I see sos There are people standing and looking up at the sky, which see down upon them But some of the people--not all--have picked up the pieces and are tipping the the sky," Ky says "That’s what Indie said they were doing We had a picture like this in one of our ships, too" He takes a deep breath His voice sounds stronger already "It’s a picture of you bringing water to the Eneue," he says to the Pilot "Isn’t it?"

For a few minutes, the Pilot doesn’t answer Then I hear his voice coh the speaker in the hold It is quiet and sad, and I think that we are, for the first tiue would make the Enemy ill and easy to defeat," the Pilot says "They said we’d bring the Eneue started to work, our orders were to leave the Enemy where they were"

"And you saw them die," Xander says

"Yes," the Pilot says "When a few of us ran the risk of flying in water, h there was a drought They didn’t trust us Why would they? We’d been killing one another for years"

I think of those thirsty, dying people, unable to drink anything but the rain which did not come

"So there really was an Ene stepped in to act their part Did you kill the far to keep your cover?"

"No," the Pilot says "That was the Society For years, they used the people in the Outer Provinces as a buffer between the main Provinces and the Enemy" He clears his throat "So I should have realized that ere no longer a true rebellion e let the farmers, and so many other Ano wasn’t right to reveal ourselves, but we still should have tried"

Ky’s hand, war had stepped in, so ht have been saved Ky’s family, Vick, the boy who took the blue tablet

"You should know that the Rising was real," the Pilot says "The scientists who came up with the ireat-grandmother And so were many of the others, especially those of us in the Army But then, the Society realized that their poas slipping and discovered that they had a rebellion in theirrid of the Aberrations and Anoan to infiltrate us the e had infiltrated them Now I don’t knoho is who anyue in the Cities’ water supplies?" I ask "Who tried to sabotage the Rising, if it wasn’t people working for the Society?"

"It appears," says the Pilot, "that the water supplies were conta who felt that the rebellion wasn’t happening quickly enough and decided tos like this happen--as s pain instead of healing--it is clear horong even choices intended to be right can beco outright if they knew you existed?" Xander asks, breaking the silence "The Society could have cured everyone on their own--Oker told me that they always had the cure Why didn’t the Society ue come in and administer the cure themselves?"