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Jeanine giveswith me
"Tobias," I say anyway My hands shake, but not fro to him?"
"I see no reason to provide that infore, I see no way for you to give e the terreement"
I want to scream at her that of course, of course I would rather know about Tobias than about ence, but I don’t I can’t make hasty decisions She will do what she intends to do to Tobias whether I know about it or not It isto h my nose I shake ," she says
"Aren’t you supposed to be running a faction and planning a war?" I say "What are you doing here, running tests on a sixteen-year-old girl?"
"You choose different ways of referring to yourself depending on what is convenient," she says, leaning back in her chair "Soirl, and sometimes you insist that you are What I am curious to know is: How do you really view yourself? As one or the other? As both? As neither?"
I make my voice flat and factual, like hers "I see no reason to provide that infor his hter effortlessly transfor fit
"Mockery is childish, Beatrice," she says "It does not become you"
"Mockery is childish, Beatrice," I repeat in my best imitation of her voice "It does not beco Peter He steps forward and fue with a needle already attached to it
Peter starts toward me, and I hold out my hand
"Allow me," I say
He looks at Jeanine for perht, then" He hands e and I shove the needle into the side of er Jeanine jabs one of the buttons with her finger, and everything goes dark
My mother stands in the aisle with her arm stretched above her head so she can hold the bar Her face is turned, not toward the people sitting around me, but toward the city we pass as the bus lurches forward I see wrinkles in her forehead and around her mouth when she frowns
"What is it?" I ask her
"There is so esture toward the bus s "And so few of us left to do it"
It is clear what she’s referring to Beyond the bus is rubble as far as I can see Across the street, a building lies in ruins Fraglass litter the alleyways I wonder what caused so ?" I say
She smiles at me, and I see different wrinkles than before, at the corners of her eyes "We’re going to Erudite headquarters"
I frown Most ofErudite headquarters My father used to say that he didn’t even like to breathe the air in there "Why are we going there?"
"They’re going to help us"
Why do I feel a pang in my stomach when I think of my father? I picture his face, weathered by a lifetime of frustration with the world around hiation standard practice, and feel the saet when I have not eaten in too long--a hollow pain
"Did so happen to Dad?" I say
She shakes her head "Why would you ask that?"
"I don’t know"
I don’t feel the pain when I look atthese inches apart is one that I must impress upon my mind until my entire memory conforms to its shape But if she is not permanent, what is she?
The bus stops, and the doors creak open My mother starts down the aisle, and I follow her She is taller than I am, so I stare between her shoulders, at the top of her spine She looks fragile, but she is not
I step down onto the pavelass crinkle beneathby the holes in the building to ht, used to be s
"What happened?"
"War,"so hard to avoid"
"And the Erudite will help usby doing what?"
"I worry that all your father’s blustering about Erudite has been to your detriently "They’ve made mistakes, of course, but they, like everyone else, are a blend of good and bad, not one or the other What would we do without our doctors, our scientists, our teachers?"
She smooths down my hair
"Take care to reme But so about what she said bothers me Is it what she said aboutabout Erudite Is it what she said about Erudite? I hop over a large shard of glass No, that can’t be it She was right about Erudite All my teachers were Erudite, and so was the doctor who set o
It’s the last part "Take care to remember" As if she won’t have the opportunity to re shift inthat was closed has just opened
"Mom?" I say
She looks back at me A lock of blond hair falls from its knot and touches her cheek
"I love you"
I point at ato lass rain over us
I don’t want to wake up in a rooht away, not even when the sie ofas I can But when all I see is the redness of my own eyelids, I open them
"You’ll have to do better than that," I say to Jeanine
She says, "That was only the beginning"
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE