Reached

pale. “I sent someone out of the village to find you.”
    “We just got back,” I say. “We must have missed them.”
    “What is it?” Oker asks.
    “It’s the still,” Leyna says. “They’ve started to die.”
    The room goes completely silent. “Is it one of the patients from that first group the Pilot brought in?” Oker asks.
    “Yes,” Leyna says. I exhale in relief. That means it isn’t Ky.
    “This had to happen eventually,” Oker says. “That first group has been holding on for weeks now. Let’s go see what we can do.”
    Leyna nods. But before we go, Oker has me wrap the bulbs back up and lock them away. “Get back to the bags,” he tells Noah and Tess. “But I don’t want anyone working on the actual cure unless I’m here.”
    They nod. Oker takes the key back from me. Only then do we follow Leyna toward the infirmary, where people have gathered outside. The crowd parts for Oker and Leyna to come through. I follow behind them, acting like I belong here, and I’m lucky as usual, because no one stops me or asks me what I’m doing. If they did, I’d tell them the truth and say that I’ve found my real Pilot, and I’m not letting him out of my sight until we’ve got the cure.

CHAPTER 38
    CASSIA
    I was in the infirmary when the first person died.
    It wasn’t a good way to go. And it wasn’t still.
    I heard a commotion at the other end of the infirmary. “Pneumonia,” one of the village medics said to another. “His lungs are full of infection.” Someone pulled a curtain back and everyone hurried to gather around and try to save the patient, who was breathing with awful, wet, gasping breaths that sounded like he’d swallowed an entire sea. Then he coughed and a spatter of blood came out of his mouth. I saw it even from far away. It was bright red on his clean white sheet.
    Everyone was too busy to tell me to go. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t leave Ky. And I didn’t want him to hear the sounds of people trying to save the man, or how Ky’s own breathing sounded labored.
    So I crouched down in front of Ky and covered one of his ears with my shaking hand, and then I leaned right up close to his other ear and I sang to him. I didn’t even know I knew how.

    I’m still singing when Leyna brings Oker and Xander in. I have to keep singing because someone else has started choking.
    One of the village medics walks over to Oker and gets right in his face. “This is your fault for keeping them coherent,” he says to Oker. “Come see what you’ve done. He knows what’s happening. There’s no peace in his eyes.”
    “He came back?” Oker asks, and I hear excitement in his voice. It makes me sick.
    “Only enough to know that he’s dying,” the medic says. “He’s not cured.”
    Xander stops and crouches down next to me. “Are you all right?” he asks.
    I nod. I keep singing. He can see in my eyes that I’m not crazy. He touches my arm, very briefly, and goes to stand with Oker and the others over by the patients.
    I understand that Xander needs to see what’s happening. And he’s found a Pilot in Oker. If
I
had to choose someone as the Pilot, I’d pick Anna.
    But I also know we can’t plan on anyone else rescuing us. We have to do it ourselves. There can be no one Pilot. We have to be strong enough to go without the belief that someone can swoop down and save us. I think about Grandfather.

    “Do you remember what I said once about the green tablet?” he asks.
    “Yes,” I say. “You said I was strong enough to go without it.”
    “Greenspace, green tablet,” he says, quoting himself from that long ago day. “Green eyes on a green girl.”
    “I’ll always remember that day,” I tell him.
    “But you’re having a hard time remembering this one,” he says. His eyes are knowing, sympathetic.
    “Yes,” I say. “Why?”
    Grandfather doesn’t answer me, at least not outright. “They used to have a phrase for a truly memorable day,” he says instead. “A red-letter day. Can you remember that?”
    “I’m not sure,” I say. I press my hands to my head. I feel foggy, not quite right. Grandfather’s face is sad, but determined. It makes me feel determined, too.
    I look around again at the red buds, the flowers. “Or,” I say, something sharpening in me, “you could call it a red garden day.”
    “Yes,” Grandfather says. “A red garden day. A day to remember.”
    He leans closer. “It’s going to be hard to remember,” he says. “Even this,