Reached

broken, in a way I didn’t see even in the Carving when Sarah had just died.
    “Hunter,” I say, very gently, “I just want to know.
Were
you the one who disconnected Ky all those times?”
    He nods.
    “Was he the only one?” I ask.
    “No,” he says. “I disconnected the others, too. Ky was the only one who had someone visiting him often enough to notice.”
    “How did you get past the medics?” I ask.
    “It was easiest at night,” Hunter says. I remember how he used to track and kill and stay hidden in a canyon to survive, and I imagine that the infirmary and the village were child’s play to him. And then, left alone in broad daylight, something snapped.
    “Why Ky?” I ask. “You came out of the canyon together. I thought the two of you understood each other.”
    “I had to be fair,” Hunter says. “I couldn’t disconnect everyone else and leave Ky alone.”
    The door opens behind me, letting in light. I turn a little. Anna has come in, but she stays out of Hunter’s line of view. She wants to listen.
    “Hunter,” I say, “some of them
died
.” I wish I could get him to answer me, to tell me
why
.
    Hunter stretches out his arms. I wonder how often he does the markings to keep them so bright. “People dying is what happens if you don’t have the right medicines to save them,” Hunter says.
    And now I do understand. “Sarah,” I say. “You couldn’t get the medicine for her.”
    Hunter’s hands tighten back into fists. “Everyone—Society, Rising, even people here in the village—we’re all doing everything to help these patients from the Society. No one did anything for Sarah.”
    He’s right. No one did, except Hunter himself, and it wasn’t enough to save her.
    “And if we find the cure, then what?” Hunter asks. “Everyone flies away to the Otherlands. There’s been too much of that, people going away.”
    Anna comes a little closer so that Hunter can see her. “There has,” she agrees.
    Then tears come to his eyes and he puts his head down and weeps. “I’m sorry,” he says.
    “I know,” she tells him.
    There’s nothing I can do. I leave them and go to Xander.

    “You left Ky alone in the infirmary,” Xander says. “Are you sure that’s safe?”
    “There are medics and guards watching,” I say. “And Eli won’t leave Ky’s side.”
    “So you trust Eli?” Xander asks. “The way you trusted Hunter?” There’s an uncharacteristic edge to Xander’s voice.
    “I’ll go back soon,” I say. “But I had to see you. I’m going to try to figure out what the cure could be. Do you have any idea what Oker was looking for?”
    “No,” Xander says. “He wouldn’t tell me. But I think it was a plant. He took the same equipment that we used when we gathered the bulbs.”
    “When did he change his mind about the cure?” I ask. “When did he decide that the camassia was wrong?”
    “During the vote,” Xander says. “Something happened while we were out there that made him change his mind.”
    “And you don’t know what it is.”
    “I think it was something you said,” Xander tells me. “You talked about how you felt like you were missing something, and said it had to do with the flowers.”
    I shake my head. How could that have helped Oker? I reach into my pocket to make sure that I still have the paper from my mother. It’s there, and so are the microcard and the little stone. I wonder if the villagers will still let me vote.
    “It’s lonely,” Xander says.
    “What is?” I ask him. Does he mean that it’s lonely in the research lab now that Oker is gone?
    “Death,” Xander says. “Even if someone is with you, you still have to do the actual dying all alone.”
    “It is lonely,” I say.
    “
Everything
is,” Xander says. “I’m lonely with you sometimes. I didn’t think it could ever be that way.”
    I don’t know what to say. We stand there looking at each other, sorrowful, seeking. “I’m sorry,” I say finally, but he shakes his head. I’ve missed the point somehow; whatever it was he wanted to say, I did not listen the way he had hoped.

    The light coming in through the infirmary windows is gauzy, gray. Ky’s face looks very still. Very gone. The bag drips neatly into his veins. He and Xander are both trapped. I have to find a way to free them.
    And I don’t know how.
    I look at the lists again. I’ve gone over them so many times. Everyone else is working on re-creating Oker’s camassia cure. But I think Oker was