The Disappearance of Ember Crow (27 page)

But even as I spoke, it began to slide upwards, revealing sand and hills and a starry sky. We shot into the desert, barely making it out under the still-rising wall. Ember was navigating by a screen that showed her the contours of the surrounding countryside, and she didn’t slow down one bit, even though we were now bouncing over rocks. We lurched one way, and then another, as she wrestled the wheel left and right. My teeth rattled and my chest hurt from being thrown against the seatbelt; all I could do was hang on and hope that it would end. Soon. Really soon.

It didn’t. We bounced and swerved for hours, and almost overturned twice when Ember took a turn too sharply. When she finally screeched to a halt, the orange rays of what was sure to be a spectacular sunrise were shooting across the sky.

She’d parked us in front of a huge cave. Em flung open her door and ran to it, calling over her shoulder, “Bring Jules.” I staggered out, feeling battered, and took in a few calming breaths. When my legs felt steady enough, I made my way into the cave, following Connor and the floating, still-unconscious Jules.

I arrived in time to see what appeared to be a solid rock wall sliding back. At this point, I wasn’t a bit surprised to find another hidden space.
There are layers and layers to this world …
The room beyond the wall was filled with – well, stuff, but that was about all I could tell because everything was covered with dust sheets.

Ember dragged one of the sheets off some kind of giant elongated metal container, and stood at the panel set into one side of the thing. She pressed a button and a lid rose, revealing a cushioned interior.

“Connor? Put him in there.”

Jules floated in and Ember shut the lid.

“Are you sure he can breathe?” I asked.

“He’s fine.” She pressed a few more buttons. “He’s in stasis.”

“I don’t know what that is, Em.”

“This chamber will preserve him exactly as he is. He won’t get any better, but he won’t get any worse either. At least, not for a while.” She smiled at Connor. “Thanks for the help.”

He nodded at her and didn’t look at me. “I’ll be outside if you need me again.”

I cast a glum glance at his retreating back. “I should go talk to him.”

I didn’t actually move. I was hoping Ember would argue with me, or give me a task to do, because I didn’t want to talk to Connor, not yet. I was terrified he was going to say that I’d gone too far and it was over between us.

Ember was unhelpfully silent. Then she whispered, “Ash …” She sounded stricken.

I dashed to her side. “What is it?”

She waved her hand at a small display. “This is … it’s all information about what’s wrong with Jules.”

The display was filled with numbers and symbols that were completely mysterious to me. “And?”

“And he’s been affected worse than I thought. Much worse.”

“But you’ve got lots of time to fix him now.”

“Not that long. This chamber is an experimental model. Anyway, it isn’t that. He’s in such a bad state, I only know one way to save him.”

“Um. Surely you only need one way?”

“It’s not that simple, Ash! What I’d have to do – I’m not sure if it’s what he’d want.”

“So wake him up and ask.”

“I can’t. By the time he recovers from stasis well enough to hold a conversation, it’d be too late to act. If I’m going to do this, I have to start the moment I take him out the chamber.” Her gaze fixed on mine. “I need your advice. About death.”

“
Death?
Em, I’m not sure that’s something I’m good at giving advice about.”

“You have to be.” She looked a little panicked. “You see, my family, we have trouble dealing with – endings. It’s part of the reason Terence hates Illegals. Before Dominic … we didn’t know that we could die.”

I could see how it would have upended Terence’s world to discover he might not be immortal after all. “It isn’t only what happened to Dominic that makes him hate us, is it? He’s afraid of the
idea
of death. Of having to end.”

She nodded. “Then there’s Leo. The love of his life died over a hundred and twenty years ago, and he still hasn’t recovered.”

“Is that who he’s searching for in the taffa dreams?”

“Yes. You would’ve liked Peter, Ash. He was a Mender.” She reached out to put her hand on the chamber. “We built this for him. Leo wanted to stop him from deteriorating while he found a way to extend his life.”

“What happened to Peter? Did the government hurt him?”

She laughed. “No. He was dying of old age. He and Leo were together for nearly sixty years, except he wouldn’t let Leo help him in the end. He said, everyone has their time to move on to the next existence.”

“Jules isn’t old, Em.”

“I know,” she answered impatiently. “What I’m saying is, Peter didn’t
want
his life extended by artificial means. And to help Jules …” She bit her lip, and said in a rush, “I’m going to have to flood his system with nanomites. To have them take over the functions his body would normally perform on its own.”

That really didn’t sound so terrible. “And there’s a reason why that’s bad?”

“First off, I’m not sure how it’ll affect him, or even if it will work. Second, if it does work, he won’t be completely organic any more. He’ll be something else, and I don’t know what that’ll mean for him. He might feel he’s less … human.”

Now
I got it.

“I need you to tell me what to do, Ash,” Ember whispered. “Because I’d do anything to save him. But I’m not sure he’d do anything to live.”

I didn’t answer her right away. This was a serious question, and it deserved serious consideration, although she’d chosen the most unsuitable person in the world to ask. I’d actually walked in the greater Balance once, when I’d been dying, and I
knew
– as Grandpa had once told me – that death was a great transformation, not an end. Despite that, I’d
still
done something stupid to hang on to Connor, making a choice for him that I’d known he’d never make for himself.

Everything became clear in my head.

“Em, this isn’t about what I think, or what you think. It’s about what
Jules
would think. What choice he’d make.”

I weighed everything I knew about Jules. How he lived life as it came, making what deals he could today and letting tomorrow take care of itself. How he hated Terence – but not Ember. He was capable of understanding that composition didn’t determine character.
Or greatness of soul
. “For what it’s worth, if Jules was offered the choice, I think he’d choose to live. I think he’d take the bet.”

Ember stared down at the shell, her gaze drilling into it as though she could see through the metal. As though she could see him. “I hope he doesn’t hate me for saving him.”

The way Connor hates me right about now
. I rubbed at my chest. “I have to go talk to Connor. Are you okay on your own?”

She blinked, as if she’d temporarily forgotten I was there. Then she enveloped me in a hug. “Thanks, Ash. For coming after me. For believing in me.”

I hugged her in return. “You’re my Tribe. My family. My sister. You know that.” I let her go and added fiercely, “But from now on, you tell me the truth. Always.”

“I will. I’m really sorry.”

I nodded and stepped back. “Go save Jules, Em.”

She pushed me towards the opening in the wall. “Go make up with Connor, Ash.”

I made my way out into the cold morning air. Connor was leaning against the car with his back to me, looking towards the far-off trees of the Firstwood. They were a long way away, over rocks and red sand and pale spinifex grass, a faint blur of green beneath an endless orange-streaked sky. I suddenly, desperately wanted to go home. No, I wanted to go
back
. Back to the Firstwood, and back to how things had been between Connor and me, before Spinifex City.

I stopped a few paces away. He didn’t turn around. But he spoke.

“I know about Talbot.”

Anger roared through his voice. He was radiating so much fury that standing near him was like standing beside a bonfire. But I’d take heat over cold. I’d take anything, over the deathly chill of distance.

“Jules told you?”

“He had to. He was too sick to come after you, and he wanted me to know what I was walking into.” He spun to face me, blue eyes ablaze. “You should
not
have shot me.”

“I was trying to protect you–”

“Because you didn’t trust me! You thought I would abandon you to chase after Talbot.”

“If I had the chance to get the people who killed Cassie …”

“I have a little more self-control than that, Ashala.” he spat.

“Well, I don’t. And I watched you die once already.” I tried to make him understand. “Connor, when you’re in danger, I see that moment when you fell from the sky. It’s as if I’m back there, experiencing it all again, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t escape it.”

“Then try harder!”

“Don’t you think I have been?”

“I think you’re acting as if it’s your job to stand between me and danger,” he shouted. “I am
not
every other member of the Tribe, Ashala.”

“No,” I yelled back. “You’re not. Because you matter more!”

“What?”

“You matter more. And you shouldn’t, because I’m the leader and I’m supposed to care about everyone the same. But I don’t.” It was hard to say something out loud that I’d only ever admitted inside my own head. “Everyone else … they all rely on me for something. They all look to me as if I’ll always be able to make everything right. And I … I rely on you.” I stared towards the Firstwood, seeking comfort from the distant trees. “Ember told me once about these binary systems, two stars orbiting each other. When you fell from the sky – it was as if I was falling too. Endlessly and forever. You’re the person I can’t lose, Connor.”

He was quiet. After a while, I dared to switch my gaze from the trees to him. He didn’t seem quite so angry. Instead he seemed – thoughtful?

“Do you know how Georgie and Ember knew you were alive when we were in Detention Centre 3?” he asked.

I frowned. “They couldn’t have known. I always thought they must have been really worried.”

“They weren’t – at least, not that you were dead. Because they knew that if you’d died, I would have gone through the place like a tornado. If the centre was still standing, it meant you were alive.” He sighed. “Do you really think I don’t understand, Ashala? You’re the person I can’t lose either.”

I took a hopeful step, only to freeze when he added softly, “The difference is, I was willing to let you risk your life when you asked me to.”

I hunched my shoulders. “I guess that makes you braver than me.”

He bit back a laugh. “No one is braver than you. Only I knew that if I didn’t respect who you are, I would lose you. And Ashala, if you cannot respect who I am, you will lose me.” He shook his head in frustration. “Do you even know who I am any more? Who we are together?”

“Of course I know–”

“Then tell me what you said to me when you asked me to let you walk into the centre!”

“I don’t remember.”

“Yes you do.”

And I did, of course. “I said … I said that the Tribe and the Firstwood were the essence of who I am. My soul.” I shoved my hands in my pockets and muttered the last bit, “That they were the part of me that went on, which was more important than my life.”

Connor nodded. “I am of the forest now, as you are, and this is not a safe world. There will always be times when we both need to stand between the Tribe and the trees, and danger. Ashala, you and I – we are warriors. We are partners. Or we are
nothing
.”

I stared at the ground. He was right, I knew he was right. But I couldn’t shake off the way I’d felt when he died, or the terror of it happening again. Which was why I’d shot him.
Now I’m in danger of losing him, because I’m scared of losing him …
I’m creating what I fear
. More than that, I was betraying him. Betraying us. I’d always been a better person with him than I was on my own. Except I hadn’t been that person for him.

And that I could not bear.

I lifted my head. “I shouldn’t have shot you.”

“No. You shouldn’t.”

There was a wariness, in his eyes and in his voice. It wasn’t enough to apologise; he needed to know that I really understood I’d been wrong. “I think … I’ve been trying to move past that moment when you died in one big leap. Only that’s not how it works. It has to be done in lots of little steps. Lots of choices, every single day. I made a bad choice.” I drew in a shaky breath. “Sorry isn’t even a big enough word. But I
am
sorry. And I know the choice was bad, and I won’t make it again, and – and I love you.”

He took three quick steps towards me. I flung my arms around his neck, burying my head in his shoulder and holding on very tight. He was laughing now. “I’m not going anywhere, Ashala.”

I haven’t lost him
. I clung on tighter all the same. Then I let go, just a little. Enough so I could see the laughter lighting up his eyes, the perfect curve of his lips.

Enough so I could kiss him.

Heat engulfed us, a firestorm of shared emotions that burned away all thought and left only a multitude of glorious sensations. It was a perfect moment, and I could have lived in it forever. I would have too, except I gradually became aware that I could hear Leo’s voice, calling out Ember’s name. We broke apart, and I leaned against Connor’s chest, dizzy and pleasantly disorientated.

Leo spoke again. Somehow, his voice was coming from the car. “Ember.
Ember
. Are you there? Answer the radio, little sister. There’s going to be trouble in your part of the world.”

We darted around the side of the car.

Connor flung open the door and threw himself into the front seat. He grabbed hold of a small black device connected by a cord to the dashboard, and spoke into it. “Leo, it’s Connor. Ember’s with Jules. Is someone coming our way?”

It seemed an eternity before Leo responded. “Not to where you are now. But there’s going to be some kind of attack on that detention centre near your forest.”