“Brilliant,” she says, “as usual.”
Nouria smiles.
“I didn’t realize that was your strategy,” Castle says, the smile fading from his face. “Don’t you think, based on how things turned out the last time, that m—”
“Why don’t we discuss this after we’ve sent the kids off on their mission? Right now it’s more important that we get them situated and give them a proper send-off before it’s officially too late.”
“Hey, speaking of which,” I say quickly, “what makes you think we’re not already too late?”
Nouria meets my eyes. “If they’d done the transfer,” she says, “we would’ve felt it.”
“Felt it how?”
It’s Sam who responds: “In order for their plan to work, Emmaline has to die. They won’t let that happen naturally, of course, because a natural death could occur in any number of ways, which leaves too many factors up in the air. They need to be able to control the experiment at all times— which is why they were so desperate to get their hands on Ella before Emmaline died. They’re almost certainly going to kill Emmaline in a controlled environment, and they’ll set it up in a way that leaves no room for error. Even so, we’re bound to feel something change.
“That infinitesimal shift—after Emmaline’s powers recede, but before they’re funneled into a new host body— will dramatically glitch our visual of the world. And that moment hasn’t happened yet, which makes us think that Ella is probably still safe.” Sam shrugs. “But it could be happening any minute now. Time really is of the essence.”
“How do you know so much about this?” Nazeera asks, her brows furrowed. “For years I tried to get my hands on this information, and I came up with nothing, despite being so close to the source. But you seem to know all of this on some kind of personal level. It’s incredible.”
“It’s not that incredible,” Nouria says, shaking her head. “We’ve just been focused in our search. All rebel groups have a different strength or core principle. For some, it’s safety. For others, it’s war. For us, it’s been research. The things we’ve seen have been out there for everyone to see— there are glitches all the time—but when you’re not looking for them, you don’t notice them. But I noticed. Sam noticed. It was one of the things that brought us together.”
The two women share a glance.
“We felt really sure that part of our oppression was in an illusion,” Sam says. “And we’ve been chasing down the truth with every resource we’ve got. Unfortunately, we still don’t know everything.”
“But we’re closer than most,” Nouria says. She takes a sharp breath, refocusing. “We’ll be holding down our end of things while you’re gone. Hopefully, when you return, we’ll have flipped more than one sector to our side.”
“You really think you’ll be able to accomplish that much in such a short period of time?” I ask, eyes wide. “I was hoping we wouldn’t be gone for more than a couple days.”
Nouria smiles at me then, but it’s a strange smile, a searching smile. “Don’t you understand?” she says. “This is it. This is the end. This is the defining moment we’ve all been fighting for. The end of an era. The end of a revolution. We currently—finally—have every advantage. We have people on the inside. If we do this right, we could collapse The Reestablishment in a matter of days.”
“But all of that hinges on us getting to J on time,” I say. “What if we’re too late?”
“You’ll have to kill her.”
“Nouria,” Castle gasps.
“You’re joking,” I say. “Tell me you’re joking.”
“Not joking in the slightest,” she says. “If you get there and Emmaline is dead and Ella has taken her place, you must kill Ella. You have to kill her and as many of the supreme commanders as you can.”
My jaw has come unhinged.
“What about all that shit you said to J the night we got here? What about all that talk about how inspiring she is and how so many people were moved by her actions— how she’s basically a hero? What happened to all that nonsense?”
“It wasn’t nonsense,” Nouria says. “I meant every word. But we’re at war, Kishimoto. We don’t have time to be sentimental.”
“Sentimental? Are you out of your—”