Reached

you were the one to do it,” she says.
    “No,” I say. “Cassia figured it out.”
    “Your Match,” she says.
    “Yes,” I say. “She’s alive, and she’s fine. She’s here.”
    “I think I’ve seen her,” Lei says, “talking with you.” Her eyes search mine, trying to learn what I haven’t said.
    “She’s in love with someone else,” I say.
    Lei puts her hand on mine very gently for a moment. “I’m sorry,” she says.
    “What about
your
Match?” I ask. “Have you been able to find him?”
    She turns her face away then, and as her hair swishes across her back and neck, I remember when we checked each other for the mark during those days in the medical center. “He died,” she says. “Before the Plague came.”
    “I’m sorry,” I say.
    “I think I knew before they told me,” Lei says. “I think I could feel him, gone.” I am struck again by the sound of her voice. It’s very beautiful. I would like to hear her sing. “That must sound ridiculous to you,” she says.
    “No,” I say, “it doesn’t.”
    Something jumps in the river and I start a little.
    “A fish,” Lei says, looking back at me.
    “One of the ones you told me about?” I ask.
    “No,” she says. “That one was silver, not red.”
    “Where did
you
go?” I ask Lei.
    She knows what I mean:
Where did you go when you were still?
    “I was swimming most of the time,” she says. “Like those fish, one of the ones I told you about, and I had a different body. I knew I wasn’t
really
a fish, but it was easier than thinking about what was happening.”
    “I wonder why everyone thinks about the water,” I say. Ky did the same. He told us he was on an ocean with that girl who died. Indie.
    “I think,” Lei says, “because the sky seems too far. It doesn’t feel like it will hold you the way the water can.”
    Or because your lungs are filling with fluid that you can’t always clear. But neither of us gives the medical explanation, though we both know it.
    I don’t know what to say. When I look at Lei I think she might be the kind of person who could do what she said the water could: hold someone up. I imagine pulling her close and kissing her and I can picture letting go, going under, with her.
    Her face changes. She must be able to see what I’m thinking.
    I stand up, disgusted with myself. I’m not in any condition to love someone, and she’s just lost her Match and come back from the mutation. We’re both alone.
    “I have to go,” I say.

CHAPTER 59
    CASSIA
    I hesitate for a moment at the top of the steps, hidden behind one of the trees along the embankment, waiting for Xander to pass by. He doesn’t notice me.
    Before I can lose my courage, I go down, toward the water and the girl. I sit down next to her and she turns to look at me. “I’m Cassia,” I say. “I think we both know Xander.”
    “Yes,” she says. “I’m Lei. Nea Lei.”
    I study her face while trying not to seem like I’m doing it. She’s not much older than us, but something about her seems wise. She speaks very clearly; but her words are clean, not clipped. She is lovely, in a way that is all her own; very dark hair, very deep eyes.
    “We both know Xander,” she says, “but you’re in love with someone else.”
    “Yes,” I say.
    “Xander told me a little about you,” she says. “When we worked together. He always talked about his Match, and I talked about mine.”
    “Is your Match—” I don’t dare finish.
    “My Match is gone,” she says. Tears slip down her cheeks and she brushes them away with the heels of her hands. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’ve suspected it for months. But now that I know, I can’t seem to stop crying whenever I talk about him. Especially here. He loved the water.”
    “Is there someone I can help you find?” I ask. “Any family—”
    “No,” she says. “I don’t have any family. They’re gone. I’m an Anomaly.”
    “You are?” I ask, stunned. “How did you hide from the Society?”
    “Right in front of their eyes,” she says. “Data can be forged, if you know the right person, and my parents did. My family used to believe in the Pilot, but after they saw how many Anomalies he let die, they decided I would be safest in the Society after all. They gave everything they had to buy me a perfect set of falsified data. I came into the Society and became an Official shortly after.” She smiles a little. “The Society might be surprised to know that they made an