“Not in daylight,” said Jerren. “The guards will be expecting only one boat. And I’m guessing they’re only expecting one person too.”
A rat ventured into the water then. Another too. Alice grasped my hand and we combined to make a flame. It was smaller than before, but enough to deter them for a while longer.
There were still a few strikes until nightfall. What was happening to our parents right now? How long before the rats attacked again?
Alice looked right past me to the shore. The rats formed a line at the water’s edge, waiting for us to return. “It’s not possible,” she murmured. “The way the rats work together . . . I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“That’s why we call these trips suicide squads,” said Jerren. “The rats here work together. No one knows how, but they’ve had years to learn. Chief says they’re adapting to the new world, and they’re doing it better than us.”
Alice reached into her bag and removed the fresh-picked greens. “We should eat this. It won’t keep now it’s wet. And who knows when we’ll get something else.”
She passed around handfuls of leaves. I didn’t even look at them, just shoveled them into my mouth and chewed over and over until I could finally swallow. I checked on Rose to see if she was awake enough to eat. She shook her head.
Nyla barely ate at all. She sat in the water, watching Alice and me. Her expression was neutral, alarmingly cool.
“So Alice’s element is fire,” she said finally. “But what’s yours?”
I stopped chewing. Alice didn’t look at me, but I could tell that she was focused on me, waiting for my answer. My instinct was to play ignorant, but it was too late for that.
“We’re not sure,” I said. “Until a week ago, I didn’t know I had an element at all. The Guardians have kept it a secret all my life. I think I can channel energy, but that’s about all . . . for now.”
Jerren narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean: for now?”
“The elements don’t work as well here. I don’t know why,” I added hurriedly. “Anyway, what do you know about elementals?”
Nyla toyed with her food, but she still didn’t eat. “There have always been rumors. Even at Fort Dauphin, people said they saw things.”
I mulled this over. I didn’t know exactly where Fort Dauphin was, but I was sure it was even farther from Roanoke Island than Fort Sumter. In which case, how had people’s elements worked at all? Were there more of us elsewhere?
“So when we reach Sumter,” said Alice, “will our families be alive?”
Jerren nodded. “I told you: Chief won’t waste ammunition, and he’s protective of the children. Doesn’t want them seeing anything bad.”
The water was warm, but we were cooling down from our run now. The sun was obscured by dark clouds gathering to the southwest. We climbed onto the catamarans and lay across the canvas sheets.
I beckoned Alice over to me. “What Kell was saying—”
“No.” She huffed. “I know what you’re thinking, and Dare’s dead, all right? You saw him drown.”
“I saw him go underwater and not resurface.”
“Kell was just trying to scare us. Make us think we needed to keep him with us.” She waved a hand in the direction of Sumter. “Did you see another ship arrive during the night? If so, where’s it hidden now?”
“Dare could’ve anchored it behind one of the islands,” suggested Jerren.
“We’d see the mast. Unless you think he made the voyage in a cutter.” She gave a disdainful look. “Listen, this is exactly what I’m talking about. Kell wanted to get inside our heads, and distract us. It’s working too.” She turned to me. “You know as well as I do, there were no other ships back on Roanoke Island, right? And no boats big enough to make a voyage like ours, either.”
“No, there weren’t,” I agreed, but my pulse continued to race.
From the corner of my eye I noticed Nyla watching me. She opened her mouth, but it was a while before she spoke. “Does Griffin . . . see things?” she asked.
Her question put me on my guard. There was no way she should have known about Griffin’s element unless he had told her, and he’d never do that. “What do you mean?”
“Something happened before we left. Something . . . weird.” She clicked her tongue. “Chief came for him this morning before we left, and Griffin went crazy.”
I froze. “Crazy, how?”
Nyla seemed to be regretting the conversation now, but kept going. “He was holding my hand. It was the first time. Felt nice. Then Chief came over and patted him on the back. After that, his grip got real painful. I tried to pull away, but I couldn’t. It was like . . . he wasn’t even himself anymore.”
So that’s why they’d kept Griffin away from me. He’d had a seizure, a vision of something terrible that was about to occur. I hated knowing that I hadn’t been there for him. Or that Nyla sounded so calm about it.
“When we were in the fort,” I asked her, “did one of the rats bite you?”
She didn’t answer at first. Then, slowly, she lifted the fabric of her pants. Though the water had rinsed the blood away, the wound remained visible: a bite mark just above her ankle.
Alice dropped her food and began to clean it right away. Jerren tore his tunic so that he could bandage it. “It’s just one bite,” he said. “I’ve heard of people who survive.”
Through it all, Nyla remained completely still, just watching me. So that’s why she’d been able to pull the trigger when her brother couldn’t. Once she’d been bitten, she must’ve guessed what Griffin’s seizure had meant.
Strange to think that with Rose so hurt and broken, it was Nyla, still perfectly healthy, who was as good as dead.
CHAPTER 32
It was evening. The clouds had darkened throughout the afternoon as a storm rolled toward us. Occasionally we’d peer over the rocks at the edge of the cove and spy on Fort Sumter. It didn’t look any different. Whatever horrifying things were going on were hidden behind those thick, forbidding walls.
Alice and I had repelled the rats twice more, but after each time, I’d needed to rest. No one disturbed me either. They knew that without me, Alice’s element wouldn’t stop anything.
Rose drifted in and out of sleep. When she was awake, I fed her morsels of food and held her head as she washed them down with sips of water. One time, she ran her hand around her neck and discovered that her pendant had gone, the cord no doubt severed by Kell’s knife. Such a small thing really, but it caused a round of silent tears. She gave up eating and remained perfectly still as I brushed her hair from her face and wrapped my arms around her. A moment later, she’d drifted back to sleep.
Alice joined me. She held my hand, just as she had done back on Roanoke Island, but it felt different now. Same hand, same skin, same pressure as her fingers twined with mine, but this touch was all about reassurance and friendship. It was about letting me know she was on my side. Rose’s side too.
I wanted to ask her about Eleanor, but not with Jerren and Nyla around. Besides, we’d seen enough death for one day. There was no need to revisit past horrors.
“You should give her mine,” said Alice, running her pendant along the cord. “It would mean more to her, I think.”
There was a deeper meaning to those words, and we both knew it. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” She loosed my hand and turned away so that I could reach the knot. “It’s a sheet bend knot though, right?”
“How do you know that?”
“I could tell by your movements when you put it on me back at Roanoke. I was kind of pleased actually—it’s such a permanent knot—but now I think you were just nervous.”