But Alix doesn’t waste time considering this as she grabs me and throws us through a gash in the weave.

We’re falling too fast for me to get a handle on Earth’s strands. Alix points to her vest and tugs at a cord near the zipper. A balloon of fabric billows behind her. She jerks as it opens fully, but then her fall starts to slow. My own speed accelerates so quickly that she grows small in my vision. I search frantically for my cord, but my fingers find nothing, which is a problem since the ground is getting closer and closer. Finally, my hands close on the cord, and I yank it as hard as I can. The force of the chute jolts me, knocking the wind from my lungs, and I gasp for air I cannot catch. As my descent slows, I’m able to calm down enough to breathe deeply and by the time I hit the ground, I crumple into a ball, trying to ease the last waves of panic.

“You okay?” Alix calls, running over to me.

Note to self: it only took a near-death experience for her to show some concern for me.

I try to say yes, but I’m too overwhelmed. She pulls me up from the ground, but her grip isn’t gentle and she drops my hand as soon as I’m steady on my feet.

“Loricel said this is your chance,” Alix says. “She said it’s the one she should have given you before.”

I look up at the pattern moving swiftly across the sky. It’s already growing fainter, like a strange cloud disappearing into rain.

Thank you, I think.

Alix turns on her heel and starts to head away.

“Wait!” I cry. “Where are you going?”

“There are millions of survivors,” Alix says, facing me. “They’ll need me.”

Need her. Not me. Nothing has changed between Alix and me, even after everything else that’s changed around us.

“The others?” I ask. “Did they make it out?”

“Nearly everyone left with the first wave. The little girl is safe,” she says, but she stops short of telling me what I want to know and a knot tangles in my stomach.

“What about the boys?”

“They stayed to help everyone evacuate.” She pauses for a moment and something flashes across her face. Like everything about Alix, it’s completely unreadable. “That’s all I know, but I wouldn’t count on them getting out.”

“Why?” I ask. “You did. They could have, too.”

Alix hesitates before she answers. “They … they stayed to make sure Loricel could rebound me in to you. They held off the security forces Cormac sent in.”

She takes a long breath before adding weakly, “I’m sorry.” I don’t believe a word she says, or maybe I can’t believe it, because it means I’m the one who has to tell our story and I must do it alone. I will live a half-life, caught in a past I can never forget.

I don’t ask Alix to wait for me. Instead I turn my eyes to the sky as numbness washes through me. It’s exactly how I imagined I would feel as Arras faded from reality. Although I’m here and alive, I feel as frozen and dead as I expected.

Arras has become a web of color written across the sky in lines of lace and luminescence. The sun breaks through the growing holes and for the first time in decades its heat touches the Earth. It’s hot on my face and I think of emerald leaves and possibilities lost. There will be no schoolgirl to tug my hand earnestly toward home. There will be no boy to take me in his arms for a moonlight dance. It’s the end of my world and the beginning of my life.

I’ve never felt more alone.

TWENTY-SEVEN

THE CAMP IS A MASS OF FAMILIES CLUTCHING together and speaking in low voices. They sit on coats and bags. No one was prepared for this and as the new sun wanes over Earth—the day far too short for a history of darkness—the group I’ve stumbled on barely notices me as I shamble into their presence. A few cast suspicious eyes in my direction, but otherwise I feel invisible. And for the first time in a long time, I am no one. I can’t fix this world at the touch of a loom.

I am free. I am possibility.

Something crushes my heart as I take in the survivors. It grips me with thin, cold fingers and I can’t shake them loose.

“Do they have that radio system up and running yet?” a man shouts to another.

“Not yet, and who knows if anyone else will have one.”

“We still need to work on it,” he says as he stops to converse with a family. He’s tall and strong and he looks like my father. This is what Benn would be doing right now. Making plans, helping others.

It’s what I have to do. Be helpful. Be strong. I must move forward.

“Are you okay?” someone behind me asks, and I turn toward the voice, but I sway with the movement and collapse into her.

“Does anyone have any water?” she yells. There’s a clamor of activity around me and a few moments later a cup presses against my lips. I hadn’t realized I was thirsty, but I drink it and I let them lay me back against a bed of jackets.

“Do you know where you came from?” the woman asks me as a half dozen concerned faces peer over me.

I look at each one and try to decide what to tell them. In the end I settle on the simplest story. “I was in Cypress.”

“What’s your family’s name, honey?” she asks. “We’ll pass the word around. They must be worried sick about you.”

“Lewys,” I say. “But I was alone.”

No one recognizes the name—or me—without Cormac at my side. Without the beautiful clothes and pinned-up hair, without the cameras, I’m only another girl. I’m only another survivor. No one asks why a girl of my age was alone or what happened to my family, but I can’t be the only orphan here tonight.