Judgment (32 page)

“Here in Ember Flats?”
 

“Here in my employ. In the house where I welcome friends, eat my meals, and lie down to sleep.”
 

“Is that where you think Clara went? Into the tunnels? With the Mullah?”
 

“They wouldn’t be so bold as to take her from bed, not with such a mix of humans and Astrals about. But if she went to
them
for some reason? Then yes. The Mullah would not look a gift horse in the mouth. They are not proud and will accept any advantage or point of leverage that offers a shortcut to the upper hand.”
 

Cameron felt something off about what Jabari had just said but couldn’t quite place it. Meyer seemed to have no such trouble.
 

“
Shortcut?
You make it sound like there’s something they wanted to do all along, and Clara is a shortcut.”
 

Jabari nodded and met Cameron’s eye.
 

“Tell me something, Cameron. Be as honest as you can possibly be.”

Cameron hesitated then said, “Okay.”

The Ark must be opened, by you. So if we hadn’t stopped you yesterday, would you have done it? Once finished with the errand I’ve asked of you—” She nodded to Kindred and Meyer. “Will you do it? Are you convinced it must be opened? Tell me, honestly, with your heart:
Will you open it as the others have said you must?”
 

In his mind, Cameron saw the ghost of Morgan Matthews, his hole punctured with the slug Cameron delivered in Vail.
 

He saw the dark cave, heard the gunshot.
 

He saw Grace gripping her chest, looking at him with eyes that pleaded,
Why?

And he heard Morgan’s echoing voice, calling him to judgment:
There’s a whole lot more where I came from … if, that is, you’re not quite as sure as you thought that you’ve always done right.

The visions that followed. The replay of Grace’s death. The heavy feeling of his hands and the slipping sensation of draining time, wishing he could rewind the clock. The iron sensation that gripped his chest. The Ark’s prying tentacles entering his heart, his soul, his mind — the very core of every one of them. The cold certainty —
the absolute, total, bones-deep
surety — that if he was judged, he’d be found guilty … and that the same would, of course, be true humanity.
 

If he never turned the key, the jury would never go out for deliberation. The current epoch would never end, and they’d hang in the balance forever. The Astrals might stay, even if they had to enslave the planet. And if Cameron was truly this time’s King Arthur but died too soon? Well, the deed might
never
be done.

But if he
did
open the Ark?
 

He’d live an unending nightmare, confronted by his every deed. And the race would be found as guilty as Cameron. The Astrals would shake the cosmic Etch A Sketch and start every clock over.

“Tell me the truth, Cameron,” Jabari said. “Would you open it?”
 

He sighed. He shook his head then let it hang.
 

“No.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Jabari said. “You won’t open it on your own. So if it’s to be done, you’d need a very good reason to do it.”
 

Cameron looked up. Jabari was holding a piece of what looked like parchment, but its ink seemed fresh. Cameron saw only squiggles: some language he’d never learned but felt certain his father would instantly know.
 

“I found this on the pillow beside me when I woke to the alert,” Jabari said. “Someone entered my room as I slept and laid it inches from my head.”
 

Cameron blinked at Meyer and Kindred, saw no understanding on their faces, and returned to Jabari.
 

“What does it say?” he asked.
 

The viceroy drew a breath, then: “It says that if the Ark is not opened, the little Lightborn may never be found.”

“I don’t understand,” Cameron said. But he seemed to be the only one; Meyer, Kindred, and Mara Jabari were all trading glances. “You’re saying Clara was … taken? By the Mullah?”
 

Although maybe, contrary to his words, Cameron understood fine. He felt a chill as he spoke and had to suppress a shiver.

Jabari’s face seemed troubled. “I’ve studied the Mullah enough — in theory at the da Vinci Initiate and in real life ever since — to know their hand when I see it.” She tapped the parchment. “I have many enemies, as do you. But only the Mullah would have written such a note.”
 

“But right here … in your mansion!” Cameron wasn’t sure anger won out against his agitation or alarm. His felt a helpless sort of rage — the kind that curses fate even though it changes nothing. Then, trying for a modicum of calm. “Your security … ”
 

“Was put mostly out of commission when surveillance inexplicably stopped working. I’ve sent word to our Divinity on the mothership, but there’s been no reply. If you watch Ember Flats for a while, you’ll believe that the city is a union between humans and Astrals, but that’s a lie. They work with us to the extent that it suits their needs and desires. They help us when it aids them. They are not our adversaries and do not repress or control the city as they did in Heaven’s Veil. But they are not our friends. We are permitted our government, and they do not interfere. But it’s always been clear — to me, at least — that the Astrals only allow what is of no consequence to them. They are neither on our side nor against us here. They are indifferent. So I do not expect a reply … but without Astral assistance, my people don’t even know how the system works or why it’s no longer functioning. I’ve already tripled human guards — those I feel I can trust. But as far as last night, my people are blind.”
 

Cameron looked at Meyer and Kindred. They kept glancing meaningfully at each other, and he’d heard a few chatters in their strange private language while Jabari was talking. Even those few words probably paled compared to what the men were surely sharing in the privacy of their hybrid mind.
 

Plotting.

Planning.
 

Working the numbers, finding the logic, weighing the variables.
 

It dawned on him: why the Meyers were here, with him, with Jabari.
 

“This helps you,” Cameron said.
 

“I want to find her as badly as you do.”
 

“But it helps you.” He looked right at Meyer, who until now had wanted nothing to do with Jabari’s plan for a dual-Meyer public appearance. One had immediately warmed to the idea, while the other stayed reticent. There’d been a schism between them, but judging by their cooperative chatter now, that discord was gone.
 

“It’s true that it makes the matter more urgent,” Jabari said. “The Mullah are slippery. They could be operating in the city, but they could also be people I trust. I can’t know and couldn’t do anything about it if I thought I did. The people of Ember Flats are used to how things are here, and that’s made them complacent. As the saying goes, people can get used to everything. Of course we heard about Heaven’s Veil when it happened. It was an
unfortunate accident.
Nobody considered what it might mean, or knows the connection between Heaven’s Veil and the Ark.”
 

Cameron glanced at Meyer and Kindred. They’d apparently explained it all at some point: the city’s destruction, the way the Astrals had triangulated on the misery streaming into the hidden Ark and used that homing beacon to locate its resting place.
 

“So?”
 

“If Meyer and Kindred appear at the State of the City address, that balance will be upset. It’s the peace, more than anything, that allows the Mullah’s operation in silence. If we stir the pot, there’s a chance to flush them out.”

“There’s more to it, Cameron,” Kindred said.
 

“Really?”
Cameron felt his control slipping. He’d always been angry under the surface but thought he’d grown past the worst of it. But in recent days, that barely checked anger had reasserted itself, and now he felt it threatening to explode. “She laid out something she wanted you to do, and took us prisoner to do it.” He looked around, gesturing sarcastically. “Oh,
sure
. It’s a
nice
prison, but we’re not allowed to leave, are we? They bound our wrists. Knocked us out for the trip, and did God knows what while we were sleeping. Then we heard all about this plan, for you to upset the power balance in Ember Flats so the people turn against the Astrals. Who would benefit from something like that, Meyer? Kindred? You’ve got those big brains, don’t you?”
 

“This isn’t about my power,” said Jabari. “I hold my position because at least as viceroy, I have some control over—”

“And what will you have control over if people have a new reason to hate the Astrals?”
 

“Cameron,” said Meyer.
 

“Let’s call Peers in here,” Cameron said. “What do you say, Mara? He’s the only one in our group who’s had any interaction with your people. Let’s ask him what he thinks of this plan. ‘Hey, Peers, the woman responsible for killing your son has a plan that would eliminate her competition and give her a civilian army. Sound like a good idea?’”
 

“As I explained to Mr. Basara, that was a long time—”

“Meyer … ” Cameron shifted his attention and cut Mara off. “Lila said you were unconvinced and were fighting Kindred on this whole ‘public appearance’ scheme.” He met Kindred’s eyes for a half second, meaning no animosity. His animus was for Jabari, the Astrals, and the universe for concocting this unreasonable brew. “Before Clara went missing, you didn’t want anything to do with this. But now, you’re on board? Think about it for a second — Clara vanishes into the hands of an enemy we’ve not seen for weeks, right out from under our noses, in the Capital of all Capitals, and nobody saw it happen or has any clue where to start looking? Oh, the
Mullah
are to blame. And yet
she
benefits.” Cameron concluded with a finger rigidly pointing in Jabari’s face.

Meyer drew a deep breath then ran a hand over his beard. His eyes took in the room for long, painful seconds. Then he exhaled and said, “We think it might be the only way.”
 

“How convenient.”

But inside his mind, Cameron felt the tiniest of pushes — foreign at first then deeply familiar like a long-forgotten memory. Ever since he and Piper had begun hearing each other’s thoughts on their first journey from Vail to Moab, some sort of psychic itch had stayed just under the surface of his mind, dormant but present, able to be awakened by strong emotions and oddly powerful hunches. But this time it felt like Kindred had stuck an elbow deep into his mind from across the room and nudged him with it.
 

Even if she’s behind this, it’s still the only way … so trust us,
the nudge seemed to say.
 

“It kills two birds with one stone,” said Kindred, his eyes on Cameron’s as if willing him into understanding. “I don’t know how to explain it without insulting my human half, but the Astral knowledge within me has always insisted that the Ark must be opened. The Astrals won’t force us — and in one sense, even Charlie thinks they don’t care if we do. They are impartial. The judge, not the opposition.”
 

“Everything that’s pushed us toward or away from putting the key in the Ark has come from the outside. Never the Astrals.” And in Meyer’s downward glance Cameron thought he could see — or maybe sense, via that same dormant mental wavelength — additional context behind his words. “The Astrals have kept an eye on us, but they haven’t actually done anything since Cottonwood.”
 

“Derinkuyu,” Cameron said.
 

“They blocked us in at Derinkuyu. Nothing more.”
 

“Why would they block us in?”
 

“Ask Peers,” said Kindred.
 

Meyer glanced at Kindred. “The Mullah have nudged us in one direction or another ever since Sinai. Peers talked us into coming here. And the Pall … ” Meyer trailed off. In the second it took to resume, Cameron realized he hadn’t seen the Pall in what felt like forever.
 

“Point is, it’s never been the Astrals. And still, it’s like the way has been greased. Not easy but obvious. We’ve never really had a choice. There’s always been one way to go: inexorably
here
. Most of you should never have escaped Heaven’s Veil, and yet somehow you did, even before we showed up with shuttles from the mothership. After Heaven’s Veil, we might have wandered forever — but then we ran into Peers, who turned us around. We’d never have made it through Hell’s Corridor if not for Christopher. You’d already refused to open the Ark by the time the capital guards appeared, and we’d have left if Jeanine hadn’t needed to be separated from her weapon, keeping us inside the city. Even if we were free to go now, there are
literally
barbarians at the gate. And now Clara’s been taken, and the demand for her ransom is that you … well, that you do what we came here to do in the first place.”