that others wouldn’t have to? As soon as he acknowledged the
thought, he felt sick. He couldn’t seriously entertain doing what
he’d been asked. He couldn’t.
I need something clear. Something real. Shame combined
with his nausea. His cheeks flamed. Show me what to believe.
Show me what is true.
He waited. Nothing happened. He wasn’t gifted with a vision
like his grandfather had been. He didn’t experience sudden
clarity. He was just as lost as he’d been when he walked in. His
head dropped in disappointment, Lucas turned away from the
altar and left.
He walked aimlessly. He hadn’t been asking for proof of
existence or anything like that. He’d only wanted a sign to hold
to, something to fuel him. Something to show him that the path
Grandfather set before him wasn’t as wrong as it felt, curdled in
his belly.
How can you even think about this? Go get Meredith and run !
The sound of a raised voice brought him out of his reverie,
and he lifted his head. Blinking, he looked around. He’d left the
building by the rear door that emptied into the wide square with
barracks, stable, and storage. He must have turned off into the
alleys beside the administration building, because he stood in a
narrow passage.
Lucas glanced either way. There was no one. Had he heard a
voice? He’d heard his name.
Now there was the sound of frantic, hoarse voices. They
pulled him forward. He eased up to the corner of the nearest
building and peered around the edge. Two men held a furious,
low conversation as they huddled back against the far wall.
One of the men was a Spark. Lucas could see the faint halo
of power that hazed out the air around him. Only other Sparks
could see it. It was a reminder of Lucas’s difference.
The other man was hidden behind the Spark for several
moments. When he finally stepped around the other man, making
an emphatic gesture with his hands, Lucas sucked in a breath.
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Edgar.
The man Lucas’s grandfather had told him was conspiring
against them. The man Lucas was meant to punish. Meredith’s
father. What was it Grandfather had said? He is consorting with
Sparks. Lucas’s gaze moved between the two men. They
certainly seemed to be conspiring, whispering in a back
alleyway.
You asked for a sign.
Lucas swallowed.
No.
Just as he was about to pull his head back into his own alley
and slink away, Lucas heard his name again. This time, there was
no question. He listened hard to hear the hoarse words that
followed his name.
“—don’t know how you can be sure. I’d see it. There’s no
sign at all,” the Spark protested.
“I’m telling you, he’s a Spark. I don’t care what the old man
says, he’s not going to move against his grandson. Once we have
Lucas, we can move. It’s our time.” Edgar’s words were filled
with confidence.
Lucas felt a chill. He knows I’m a Spark. How does he know?
There was only one way—Meredith had told him. Lucas
rejected the thought, pushing it whole from his mind. He
wouldn’t consider it. He had told her she could not share his
secret. He’d told her how important it was. She would never
betray him.
There was no sign, merely coincidence. And Lucas was no
weapon.
He hurried away from the alley, moving as silently as
possible until he was sure he’d not been heard making his escape.
Then he ran. He had to see Meredith.
Lucas made a beeline for the Council Administrators’
Housing Area. The three concentric rings of small houses were
testimony to the importance and purity of the families that lived
within them, just as the immaculate roads and buildings within
the walls demonstrated mastery over the wild, lush growth of the
rainforest that crept over the old cities outside.
compound at the center. Meredith’s family lived in the first ring
surrounding the center. It meant they were, literally, inner circle.
Those who lived there were the most trusted of those tasked with
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assisting Councilor Four. They should have been the most
trustworthy.
What do I do ? How was it I got lost and wound up right there,
right then? How did he know about me?
It was too much. Betrayal. Murder. Signs. His future
assignment, so far away. And the one thing he wanted, the only
thing he wanted for himself, possibly tainted. How did it all get
so mixed up?
His mind circled back around to the horror of his most
immediate mission.
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.
He pounded on her door. Meredith opened it, her little sister
hovering behind her.
“Hi.” Her round face spread with a broad smile, dimples
appearing. The dimples had caught his eye and done him in.
Well, the dimples and assets just south. “We’re just about to go—
” “No, no. Come with me.” Lucas reached out and took her
hand. “Come with me.” He drew her out after him.
“But where—? What’s wrong?”
“It’s a secret. Just come with me.” He knew that he’d have to
do a better job of planning if they were to actually make it away.
He wasn’t a murderer. He couldn’t do what Grandfather
wanted. He’d run away to another Zone, hide in plain sight doing
whatever it was that Sparks did for a living. He could learn to
work a power plant as well as he could learn to be an agent,
couldn’t he? If he had to, he could even pretend to be normal. If
he didn’t use the Spark—if he never, ever reached out to the
Dust—then he’d never show the latent energy-signature that
other Sparks could see. No one would ever know what he was,
not even another Spark.
They could do it. He just had to convince her. But for now,
he needed to know that she’d marry him.
Meredith glanced back over her shoulder at her sister. “Tell
Mama that I’ve gone with a friend.”
“A friend?” Her sister’s sing-song question was cut off by
the door slamming shut behind Meredith.
He pulled her away from her home, away from the compound
at the center of the circle, and toward the Northern gate. He
needed to be free of the city, and anyone who might be watching
or listening, before he spoke to her.
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The closer they came to the gate, the more they had to dodge
those on bicycles, horses, and horse-drawn carriages of
refashioned old combustion-engine car frames. Unlike in Zone
Six, there weren’t electric cars in the mix. Sparks weren’t
permitted to own vehicles here in Zone Four, and the Councilor
made certain that his upper-level administrators shared his world
view. The use of Spark power in the zone was to be severely
limited. Lucas’s grandfather would not have his people
dependent upon aberrations.
Unless the aberration is a weapon of God?
His breathing increased, hitching in his throat with his panic.
He wasn’t a weapon. He wasn’t a sword.
Lucas led Meredith through the gate for foot traffic. They
followed the road out for fifteen minutes, through the area that
had been slashed and burned back from the city wall for
visibility. Finally, the road entered the forest, and they were
plunged into twilight coolness as they wound deeper, away from
view of the gates. He stepped off the road, circling around a
large, unruly hedge of wild roses that bordered the road.
It was cool under the canopy of evergreens and wide, leafy,
deciduous trees. Meredith laughed behind him now as he pulled
her through the ferny undergrowth. They wove between trees,
slipping on bright mossy growth, and wound down deeper into
the forest. Finally, when he figured they were far enough from
the road and any other humans, he pulled her behind a stand of
honeysuckle-tangled maple and turned to her.
“Marry me, Merry,” he blurted.
Her eyes went wide. “What?”
“Marry me. I just—I spent this morning talking to my
grandfather. And I—” Lucas shook his head, trying to put it all
into words that she could understand, that wouldn’t terrify her.
He couldn’t. “Marry me.”
“You talked to the Councilor?” Her eyes had gone wide and
soft. A little hopeful smile lifted her lips and lit her face.
Did she think he meant that he’d talked to Grandfather about
her? That he’d asked permission to marry?
Lucas didn’t have it in him to hurt her. He didn’t want to see
the disappointment and pain in her eyes. Instead of telling her
that the marriage was his own idea and that they’d have to run to
be together, he took her hand and pulled her to him. He loved the
feel of her lush body crushed against his thin frame and the
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contrast of her darker skin and hair against his uniform paleness.
They tumbled to the ground together, arms and tongues and
legs already tangled. He shouldn’t. He had no real plan to get
away. He had nothing but the hope that he could convince her to
come with him before his grandfather realized Lucas was too
weak to be a holy weapon and decided to send Jacob to finish
Lucas and the job he should be plotting. Lucas shouldn’t be here,
with Meredith of all people, indulging in the comfort of her soft
body and gentle touch.
Even if he hadn’t been hiding from his responsibility, shame
would still coat him with every touch. The pleasure of the
moment washed it away for now, yes, but they’d both pay for it
later. They’d each have had to spend time in seclusion, repenting.
But knowing that hadn’t stopped them on any other night
they’d stolen away to be together since they’d met. Lucas slid his
hand inside her loose shirt to trail up her soft skin until he was
cupping the heavy, warm flesh that had caught his attention in
the first place. He lifted and kneaded the flesh that overflowed
his hand, and his own body responded. He used one leg to spread
her thighs apart so he could reach between and pull up on her
skirt and then settle between the softness of her thighs. They
wouldn’t be stopping today, either.
Lucas lifted his mouth from Meredith’s to look down at her.
Her hands, busily unfastening his pant buttons, finished. She slid
one hand inside to stroke and play while she brought the other up
to cup the back of his head. She tried to draw his head back down
to hers, her lips parting again, but they continued the movement
to a grin instead of a kiss when he resisted her. He wanted to look
at her. He lived for looking at her.
“Can’t help it, Merry,” he told her, voice rough in his own
ears as he whispered to her, “I love the way you look.” He spread
her shirt apart so he could feast his eyes and give her a soft,
breathless laugh while he skimmed the fingertips of one hand
over her wide, peachy nipple. “I love you, Merry. I love you.”
And he did.
They weren’t just words. They hadn’t been from the
beginning. He’d never loved anyone like this, with this depth.
With … such devotion.
Except Grandfather. The whisper of thought made him
shiver. His hand stopped.
“Lucas,” Meredith stopped, her hand curving around to his
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cheek, “what?”
His eyes had filled. He blinked back the moisture. “I love
you,” he said, his voice rough.
Meredith’s lips curved up in a smile, but her eyes filled with
tears, too. “I love you, too,” she managed to choke out. “And I
will marry you, Lucas.”
Lucas’s head swam. He lowered his head to rest his forehead
against hers in gratitude. She was meant for him. It was the only
explanation for the instant connection they’d both felt when
they’d met on his first day back in the Zone. Grandfather always
spoke of the divine hand touching lives.
Meredith was proof of that touch in his life. She was his
reward for not giving up after being abandoned by everyone else.
He could make this work. He had to. But first, he had to finish.
Lucas closed his eyes so he could focus on what he was doing.
When he lay next to her again, gasping and puffing, he
managed, “Okay. Okay. We’re getting married.”
Meredith laughed beside him. He joined her, giddy and
happy. The sound died away, leaving just the two of them curled
around each other in the leaves. Long before he was ready, she
pushed at him, sitting up with mischief on her broad, happy face.
She buttoned her shirt and straightened her clothes, nudging at
him with her hip to do the same.
“Come on, lazy bones. Come on.” She jumped up. “If we’re
going to be married—”
“Wait.” Lucas sat up, buttoning his pants. “Merry, it’s—this
is a secret for now. This is just for us.” He had to tell her. They
needed to make their plans to run. They’d have to go soon.
Maybe in the morning?
How long do I have?
Instead of being upset, she just laughed and nodded. “I know.
But you’ve trusted me with so much. Telling me about your
Spark. Talking to your grandfather. If we’re going to get married,
it’s time for you to know our secret, too.”
“Our secret?” They had a secret? He racked his brain. Was
she pregnant?
“No, silly. Not our secret, you and me. Our secret, my
family.”
Lucas went cold. Her family had a secret?
Pay attention, Lucas. This is important.
The voice in his head sounded
different. Deeper, heavier, like
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Grandfather’s voice, but more solemn. His breath slid between
his lips like the last gasp of a dying man.
Meredith took his hand and dragged him deeper into the
forest.
The world went silent. He was certain she was still talking.
She turned back to him as she led him through the trees and
brush. Her lips were moving. She even laughed, but he didn’t
hear any of it. He didn’t hear the wind or the insects or the sound
of their feet moving through the undergrowth.
He tried to focus again on that inner voice, to call it back. He
needed to question it.
Instead, all he heard was the memory of Grandfather’s words,
“You mustn’t disappoint me, Lucas. So much is riding on you.”
I have to pay attention.
He stared at Meredith’s back. She’d spoken of a family
secret. Was she a traitor?
How did her father know about me?
There was only one way. He tried to find calm. He failed.
“What secret?”
What does it matter? We’re running away together. The
thought was like a desperate scrabble inside his head, so different
from the authoritative boom of moments before.
It mattered. If there really were secrets and plots, it meant
Grandfather might not be wrong. It meant that voice in his head
might not be his own. He’d asked for proof, after all.
Meredith wove them through the trees as they headed
downhill now, gathering speed until they splashed into the
shallow edge of the river. She snatched up a branch and began
pushing it into the water, feeling along the bottom.
“Here,” she finally said. “There’s a sandbar. The river’s deep,
but it isn’t fast. We can cross on the sandbar.”
“Cross to where? Merry—” Lucas looked around, trying to
get his bearings in the dappled light filtering through the trees.
He hadn’t been back long enough to know the city well, much
less the surrounding countryside. All he knew was that the moss-
coated humps of the ruins of old buildings made his heart thump
in his chest and his mouth go dry. The remnants of the world that
had been before were now draped with vines and hidden by ferns.
The hidden ruins were a reminder of the evil of the world that
had come before. They were a reminder of his place in the world