Reached

agree. “And Caleb.” I’m finished with the selfishness that let me leave everyone behind on the plains and take only Vick and Eli into the Carving. Caleb is part of our group. When I fly, he’s my responsibility. I can’t risk him either. Cassia wouldn’t want other people to die just so I could find her.
    And if the Pilot is telling the truth, it doesn’t matter. The Plague’s under control. Everything will be all right soon, and I can find Cassia and we can be together. I
want
to believe in the Pilot. Sometimes I do.
    “Back in camp, when we were training,” I say, “did you ever fly with him?”
    “Yes,” Indie says simply. “That’s how I knew he was the Pilot, even before they told us. His flying . . .” She stops, at a loss for words, and then her face brightens. “It was like the picture we saw today carved into the ship,” she says. “It felt like I was drinking the sky.”
    “So you trust him?” I ask.
    Indie nods.
    “But you’d still run the risk of going to Central with me.”
    “Yes,” Indie says, “if that’s what you wanted.” She looks at me as if she’s trying to see inside me. I’d like her to smile. That beautiful, wide, wise, innocent, devious smile of hers.
    “What are you thinking about?” she asks.
    “I want to see you smile,” I tell her.
    And then she does—sudden, delighted—and I grin back.
    The grass rustles with the breeze. Indie leans a little closer. Her face is radiant and hopeful and raw. It feels like some new hole has been torn in my heart.
    “What’s to keep us from flying together?” Indie whispers. “You and me?” I can barely hear her above the wind rustling the grass, but I know the way this question sounds from her. She’s asked something like it before.
    “Cassia,” I say. “I’m in love with Cassia. You know that.” There’s no uncertainty in my voice.
    “I know,” she says, and there’s no apology in hers.
    When Indie wants something badly enough, her instinct is to jump.
    Like Cassia.
    Indie breathes in and then she moves.
    She moves to me.
    Her hands slide into my hair, her lips press against mine.
    Nothing like Cassia.
    I pull back, breathless. “Indie,” I say.
    “I had to,” she says. “I’m not sorry.”

CHAPTER 17
    CASSIA
    S omeone’s coming into the Archivists’ hiding place; I hear their feet on the stairs. Since I’m waiting in the main area with the others, I shine my flashlight up like the rest. The figure stops, expecting us.
    Once I see who it is—a trader I’ve passed down here before—I drop my light. But many of the others don’t. She’s trapped there like a moth. A nearby Archivist signals for me to bring my light back up and so I do, blinking, though the girl standing in the doorway is the one caught in the glare.
    “Samara Rourke,” the head Archivist says. “You should not be here.”
    The girl laughs nervously. She wears a bulky pack and she shifts it down a little.
    “Don’t move,” the head Archivist says. “We’ll escort you out.”
    “I’m allowed to trade here,” Samara says. “
You’re
the one who showed me where this place is.”
    “You are no longer welcome,” the head Archivist says. She’s somewhere in the shadows, and then she steps forward, pointing the beam of her flashlight right into the girl’s eyes. This is the Archivists’ place. They decide who stays in shadows and shades and who has to face the light.
    “Why?” Samara asks, her voice finally faltering a little.
    “You know why,” the Archivist says. “Do you want everyone else to know as well?”
    The girl licks her lips. “You should see what I found,” she says. “I promise you’re going to want to know . . .” She reaches for the pack at her side.
    “Samara cheated,” the Archivist says, her voice every bit as powerful as the Pilot’s. It resonates around the room. None of the lights waver and when I close my eyes I can still see their bright spots and the girl’s nervous, blinded expression. “Someone gave an item to Samara to trade on their behalf. She brought it here. We assessed its value, accepted it, and gave an item in return, with a separate, smaller item for the trader fee. And then Samara kept both.”
    There are crooked traders in the world, plenty of them. But they don’t usually dare to try to work with the Archivists.
    “You’re not out anything,” Samara says to the Archivist. “You got your payment.” Her attempt at defiance makes me ache with pity. What