“Dare was an elemental, like us, but he’d saved the refugees too. He believed that the future depended on all of humanity, not just elementals. So when it came time to choose a side, he chose the refugees. He wanted me to come with him too, but I couldn’t. Roanoke was home for me. And Eleanor was an elemental. What would’ve happened to her when a non-elemental realized what she could do?”
Tarn tilted her head to the side, and closed her eyes as the sun warmed her face. “I didn’t know I was pregnant when Dare left us. I never got the chance to tell him, either. A few months later, long after I’d given up hope of ever seeing him again, Joven found his way back to us on a clan ship. When Alice was born, he promised to treat her as his own daughter. He said she’d never have to know the truth of who she was. But he didn’t treat her the same as Eleanor. He was a bully . . . and I let him be that way because I was scared that he’d tell Alice the truth.
“Your mother despised me for my cowardice, Thomas. Tessa did as well—it’s part of the reason she left the colony, because she wouldn’t agree to keep our horrible secrets anymore.” Tarn blinked away tears. “I thought I was doing the right thing, but I was just weak. If I’d come clean, we could’ve started to heal. And I wouldn’t have had to find ways to keep you and Alice apart once I realized how much she liked you. I mean, you’re blood relatives,” she said helplessly. “I had to keep you apart, you understand?”
My mouth was dry. I had questions, lots of them, but my impulse was to reassure Tarn because now wasn’t the time for fighting. “Alice has Jerren now,” I said, trying to be helpful.
Tarn gave an angry snort. “Now, yes. But I’m not talking about a few days, Thomas. You’re the only real friend Alice has ever had. She’s risked everything to stand up for you. And no matter what she’s done, and what she’s said to me, I’ve had to keep you apart.”
I didn’t ask what Alice had said to Tarn about me, because I didn’t want to hear the answer. But I understood now why Alice had been unwilling to harm Dare, the father she had never known. Of everyone from our tiny, close-knit colony, he was the only person who had an excuse for letting her down. The rest of us, each in our own small way, had driven her into a life of isolation and distrust.
I wanted to blame Joven. Tarn. The Guardians. But surely I was as much to blame as anyone. I’d played my role in the colony to perfection too—downtrodden victim, an easy target who spent every waking moment pining for Rose, desperate to prove that I was worthy of her attention. When had I ever bothered to ask Alice how she felt? . . . what was on her mind? If I had, she might have shared that third journal with me instead of Jerren, and I might have been able to convince her to slow down and think things through. Maybe we’d have brought Dare with us when we went ashore. Maybe we’d have known what we’d be facing in Skeleton Town. Maybe we’d all still be together. Safe.
I turned on my heel and left the others. No one was going to follow me, and that suited me fine. I had a rescue attempt to plan. And only one person on board knew exactly what we were up against.
CHAPTER 24
Tessa was awake, but she hadn’t moved. I wasn’t surprised. Her gray fingers and toes looked brittle, as if they might break off altogether.
I lifted the water canister to her lips and she drank. Her skin folded and cracked like sun-baked paper. “Griffin can save you,” I told her.
“Many will need saving,” she replied. “But not me.”
“Are you giving up?”
“No. I’m making my peace. I got to see you again. Your brothers too . . . and Skya.” She whispered her daughter’s name as if she were making a wish. “I only wish I’d gotten to see Dare. Strange, but I can almost feel him here. So close, but . . .”
I’d had my issues with Tessa, but they seemed unimportant now. Bending down, I slid my arms under her knees and shoulders and lifted her. She was a tall woman, but so frail. She probably weighed less than Nyla.
“Why do the others hate you?” I asked.
She tried to retain eye contact, but her head lolled about. “I was the one who foresaw the Exodus, and the Plague . . . who told them to stay on Roanoke. I’m the reason they’re alive today. They owe me their lives, and no one likes a debt that can’t be repaid. Imagine how free they’ll feel when I’m gone forever.”
I carried her to the galley. There I placed her gently on the floor, with one blanket for a pillow and another spread over her.
I slid the wooden panel aside and drew back the metal bolts. Dare was inside, exactly where I’d left him. His breathing was labored. Grabbing the loose cloth under his armpits, I heaved him across the slick surface of the hiding space and onto the galley floor.
He collapsed in a heap. “Back so soon,” he mumbled.
When I didn’t respond he opened one eye. As he saw his mother lying on the floor his expression changed. He appeared younger again, and conflicted. Was it because of her disease, or shame at having abandoned her many years ago?
He crossed the room and rearranged his mother’s blankets. His eyes were fixed on her, but when he spoke, it was to me: “I assume you’re here because you need my help.”
“Actually, you need mine. Your daughter has been captured. And the pirates answer to a new captain now.”
He tried to mask his surprise. “And who might that be?”
“Jossi.”
“Jossi is a fool.”
“A fool who controls every rat on Roanoke,” I reminded him.
Dare raked his fingers down his face. Seer or not, he hadn’t foreseen this development.
Tessa cleared her throat. “You should have told your men that the clan ship was coming, Dare,” she scolded. “When it arrived, the pirates panicked. Skya and I, we . . . tried to reason with them. But they were outnumbered and confused, so they let their guns do the talking. And when one accidentally discharged, everything changed.”
“Changed, how?” I asked.
“A clan woman died. The other clan folk turned on the pirates, who threatened to kill everyone. But they never got the chance. Rats converged on the streets. I always thought there were no rats on Roanoke Island, but I was wrong. Some came from sewers, others from buildings. Maybe they came from the clan ship itself. But they moved as one. My cat went after them, but instead of skittering away, the rats pressed onward. Whatever survival instincts they were supposed to have were gone. They turned on my cat, and killed her. Ripped her to pieces. No matter what stood in their way, they fought to converge. That’s when I realized where they were going: straight for the pirate who’d accidentally fired his rifle.” Tessa dry coughed. “The rats savaged him too. He tried to fight them off, but couldn’t. The way they were biting and scratching, I honestly thought they were going to kill him right there and then.”
Whatever Dare imagined had happened on Roanoke, it clearly hadn’t included this. “What happened then?” he asked.
“Jossi realized that a clan person must be controlling the rats. He noticed a child acting strangely—a boy named Kieran. The boy’s parents were attempting to shield him. They tried to make him stop the attack, but Kieran was completely locked in to what he was doing. So Jossi pulled the boy free and placed a gun to his head. When the parents protested, he took them hostage too. Then he convinced the rest of the pirates that other clan folk might have elements too, so they rounded everyone up and imprisoned them in the hurricane shelter. Once Jossi had control of Kieran’s parents and the other clan folk, the boy obeyed his every command. Kieran is Jossi’s puppet now, and also his greatest weapon.”
“I saw thousands of rats, though,” I said. “Where did they all come from?”
Tessa paused as Dare gave her more water. “When Jossi realized what Kieran can do, he lowered the plank across the gap in the mainland bridge and demanded that Kieran summon rats.” Tessa let the image sink in, of a young man and a small boy opening a previously safe island to a scourge that
might kill them all. It seemed insane, but then, who could say what was sane anymore? “Rats have been coming over from the mainland ever since. So we’d all better hope that nothing happens to Kieran’s parents. If they’re harmed, by Jossi or anyone else, Kieran won’t distinguish between pirates and clan folk and elementals anymore. He’ll make the rats attack and kill indiscriminately. And nothing we can do will stop him. He’s a frightened boy playing with a weapon he cannot possibly understand.”
Dare was still for a moment. When he moved, it was to dribble water into his mother’s mouth. She grimaced from the pain of swallowing.
“What about Skya?” he asked.
“She’s alive. A prisoner, like all the others.” Tessa sighed. “The pirates believe that you’re dead, Dare. But not Jossi. He’s superstitious—thinks you can’t be killed. So he’s keeping hold of the thing that gives him power over you . . . the one thing you can’t risk losing. Your sister.”
Whatever meager reserves of energy she’d had were gone now. Tessa stared straight ahead, not blinking, stealing irregular, shallow breaths.
Dare leaned back against the wall. His head tilted from side to side as if he didn’t have complete control of it. “For so many years, I didn’t realize that Griffin is the solution,” he said. “In my visions, it was Skya. I tried to argue for her to come with me, but she wouldn’t. If I hadn’t been so blinded by what the solution meant, I would’ve realized that the solution had been inside her—it was her baby. If only I’d realized that she’d already given birth to him the night I kidnapped her, then . . .”
“Then what?” I snapped. “You could’ve kidnapped a baby instead? Or kidnapped both of them?”
“The survival of the human race outweighs any one person, Thomas.”
“Don’t pretend to be noble. You’re a murderer, that’s all. Or are you forgetting that you shot Guardian Kyte?”
“Kyte was shot by a rogue gunman, probably in revenge for my apparent death.”
“And what about Guardian Walt? You sliced his neck and set him adrift in a canoe. We found his body.”
“Walt was already dead.”
“Liar!” I looked around suddenly, afraid that I’d raised my voice. This wasn’t a time for unwanted visitors. “I saw him myself.”
“You saw, but you didn’t look. There was no blood coming from his neck wound, was there, Thomas? It had already congealed, see? The knife wound was made postmortem.”
It was true. The wound had been nothing but a thin streak across his neck, like a tidy cut through soft wood. “So why slice his neck at all?”
“To make you believe it could happen to anyone,” Dare explained. “Your father. Your brother. Anyone can die at any time. And plenty have died while we’ve waited for the solution to save us.”
“Plenty more of your men died trying to capture Griffin—”
“Because your Guardians left us with no other choice. Anyway, my men knew the risks. There comes a time everyone has to decide what’s worth dying for.” Dare gave a tired smile. “Whether or not you believe it, Thomas, I’ve dedicated my life to preserving the human race. When I heard about the Plague, I spent almost two years searching for survivors—people who’d been left behind; children with no parents. Every time I left the Roanoke colony I knew that I might never return. And what was my reward? Your Guardians turned the refugees away. They made life intolerable for them.”
“Maybe the Guardians weren’t sure that everyone could survive on Roanoke Island.”
“That island once supported a population of thousands. Providing for everyone wasn’t a problem.” He sat up straighter. Talking about the Guardians and refugees seemed to energize him, but his body had a crooked awkwardness to it. The colorful arms that had looked so powerful and intimidating through my binoculars appeared sinewy and leathery up close. “But the moment I left the colony, your father started turning refugees away.”
I hesitated. “Father wouldn’t do that.”
“Of course he would. And he did. Who else do you think made that hole in the mainland bridge? He combined with the other Guardians and they used their elements to blow it apart.”
“They were trying to stop the rats.”
“The rats were still hundreds of miles to the west. It was refugees they were trying to stop. The Guardians wanted anyone who reached the edge of the mainland to turn around. While I was sailing up and down the coastline, risking everything to save lives, your father sentenced countless people to death.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true,” murmured Tessa. “It’s all true.”
Dare spoke faster now, emboldened by his mother’s support and my dwindling opposition. “We had competing visions of the future. I believed that elementals and non-elementals could coexist; the Guardians did not. But there’s no denying who the victims were. Your so-called Guardians are just the latest in a centuries-long line of tyrants.” He turned his piercing blue eyes on me. “History tells us that Roanoke Island was the site of the first European colony, but I say it was the site of the original civil war. John White’s group was ripped apart when those four boys discovered their elements. The elders of that ancient colony tried to reason with them, teach them to use their elements responsibly. But they were children. And every elemental since has behaved the same way, wielding power like a petulant child who’s tired of playing nicely.”
“You don’t know that,” I spat. “We’re talking about centuries here. Thousands of elementals. You can’t prove any of it.”
“I don’t need to prove it. It’s all written down in the colony’s journals—every horrific event, documented so that future generations might claim to be wiser.”
“The journals that have been conveniently lost, you mean?”
“Not lost, Thomas. You know as well as I do, Alice destroyed them. And if you’d read what she did, maybe you’d have destroyed them too.” He leaned closer. “She knows the truth about who we are and what we’ve done. And she loves you enough to spare you that burden.”
He was right: Alice did love me—enough to spare me from the truth, and to sacrifice herself in Skeleton Town so that I might escape. Having learned all that she was, and all that we were, she held her own life more cheaply than she held mine. It was heartbreaking.
Alice had always been an outcast. So had I. It was what had bound us together. Sharing the burden had lightened it for both of us. I needed to share her burden now.
“Tell me what she read,” I told Dare. “All of it.”
CHAPTER 25
You want to hear the whole history.” Dare gave an admiring smile. “A noble gesture, Thomas, but no—I don’t think there’s any point in that. Not unless you like hearing the same tragic story told a hundred times with only minor variations.”
“Then what’s the tragic story?”
Dare looked around the cabin. It was like he wanted to take it all in, connect the immense past with this specific place and time. “John White believed that he had found paradise on Roanoke Island. When he left to secure more supplies from England, he couldn’t have imagined what would happen. But those four boys and their elements changed everything. And then the first child born on Roanoke Island revealed an element too. Virginia Dare was her name—sent fire from each fingertip like it was the most natural thing in the world. Some of the colonists said it was witchcraft, and demanded that the elementals be drowned. The parents refused to give them up, though. Battle lines were drawn, but the fight never happened. Even with their massive advantage of numbers and weapons, the non-elementals realized that those children could exterminate them on a whim. So they left instead.
“They set off in the dead of night. They probably wanted to establish a colony close to the ocean, but they were afraid the elementals would find them, and destroy them. So they settled on the northern shore of Albemarle Sound, about fifty miles west of here. Their
s was an equal, self-governing, sustainable colony—exactly what White would have wanted. They never really felt safe, though. About two decades later, new explorers from Europe who were drafting maps of the region stumbled upon the colony. The explorers marked the colony’s location on their new map, but the non-elementals begged them to hide the location out of fear that the elementals would track them down. The mapmakers figured the colonists were just superstitious, but agreed to obscure the settlement’s location behind a tiny flap of paper. It worked—the site of the colony remained a mystery for centuries.”
Dare closed his eyes. “The Plague was a disaster, but it was also an opportunity, Thomas. I tried to make the Guardians understand that we finally had a chance to mend the divisions once and for all. There was no room for separate colonies anymore. No time for schisms. But your Guardians refused to coexist—even refused to give non-elementals the same chance to survive. And so I did the only thing I could—I tried to make our world bigger again. I tried to take the solution, so that we could reclaim the mainland . . . so that non-elementals would have a chance to survive.”
He waited a moment and looked at me. He’d stated his case and now it was my turn to respond. Perhaps he thought that I’d been swayed, but he was missing the point. “You kidnapped my mother.” I tried to keep my voice steady. “We haven’t seen her since the day Griffin was born. We’ve lost years. I don’t even know who she is.”
“I thought she was the solution.”
“So what? You think everything would have been all right if you’d taken Griffin instead? What you did was evil. You abandoned your own mother.”
I expected Tessa to agree with me, and put her son in his place. But she wasn’t moving.
I edged closer. The perspiration on her forehead had evaporated. Her features were oddly relaxed. Her chest no longer rose and fell.