Reached

taking off and risking everything to try to get to her. Even if I managed to steal a ship, the Rising would shoot me down.
You won’t do her any good if you’re dead,
I remind myself.
    But I’m not doing her much good by staying alive, either. I don’t know how much longer I can wait before I’ll have to risk it.
    “Why
not
jump?” Indie asks, still needling at me. “You can swim.”
    “What about you? Are you going in?” I ask Indie.
    “Maybe,” Indie says. Everyone’s still a little perplexed by Indie, but more and more they also respect her. It’s hard not to after you’ve seen her fly.
    I’m about to say something more to her, but then I recognize a face in the crowd. One of the traders who used to bring me notes from Cassia. I haven’t seen this particular trader in a long time.
Does she have something for me today?
    The way Archivists trade is different now. The Rising closed down the Society’s Museums, saying they were filled with nothing more than propaganda. So we have to wait outside of the Museums to make contact or find each other in the crowds.
    The handoff is quick, as usual. She passes me, keeping her gaze level and cool, and we bump into each other slightly, the jostling normal on a crowded path. From the outside, I’m sure it all looks perfectly natural, but she’s handed off something to me—a message. “I’m sorry,” she says, meeting my eyes briefly. “I’m late.”
    She’s acting as if she bumped into me because she’s in a hurry to get somewhere on time, but I know what she means. The message is late, likely because she’s had the Plague. How did she manage to hold on to the paper? Did anyone else read it while she was still?
    My heart races like a rabbit in search of cover out on the plateau. This note has to be from Cassia. No one else has ever sent anything to me. I wish I could read it
now
. But I’ll have to wait until it’s safe.
    “If you could fly anywhere, where would you go?” Indie asks.
    “I think you know the answer to that,” I tell her. I slip the paper into my pocket.
    “Central, then,” Indie says. “You’d fly to Central.”
    “Wherever Cassia is.”
    Caleb looks back at us and I wonder if he saw the exchange. I doubt it. The trader was fast. I can’t figure Caleb out. He’s the only one who brings cases back when we’re dropping off the cure. None of the other ships are taking on cargo. The commander always tells us it’s approved, but I think there’s more going on than we know. And I think Caleb has been assigned to work with Indie and me to watch one of us—but I can’t figure out which of us it is. Maybe both.
    “What about you?” I ask Indie, keeping my tone light. “If you could fly anywhere, where would you go? Back to Sonoma?”
    “No,”
she says, as if the suggestion is ridiculous. “I wouldn’t go back to where I’m from. I’d go someplace I’ve never been.”
    My fingers close around the paper in my pocket. Cassia told me once that she wears some of the pages against her skin. This is the closest I can get to touching or seeing her right now.
    Indie watches me. And then, as she often does, she says something disconcerting. Unexpected. She leans closer and speaks quietly so that the others can’t hear. “I’ve been wanting to ask you. Why didn’t you steal any of the tubes when we were in the Cavern? I saw Cassia and Eli each take one. But you didn’t.”
    Indie’s right. I didn’t take a tube. But Cassia and Eli both did. Cassia took her grandfather’s tube. Eli stole the one that had belonged to Vick. Later, both Cassia and Eli gave me their tubes for safekeeping. I hid them in a tree near the stream that led down to the Rising camp.
    “I didn’t need one,” I say.
    Indie and I stop. The rest of the group shouts and hollers. They’ve found the spot where they want to jump, a deep place downriver from one of the falls. It’s where the other squadrons have been going in and it’s close enough to the path that people can stop and watch.
    “Come on,” calls Connor, one of the other pilots. He looks right at Indie and me. “You afraid?” he asks.
    I don’t bother to answer. Connor’s competent, arrogant, and mediocre. He thinks he’s a leader. I know he’s not.
    “No,” Indie says, and right then she strips out of her uniform, down to the fitted undershirt and shorts that we all wear, and takes a running leap into the water. Everyone cheers as she hits the surface. I catch my breath,