I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, elbows propped up on my knees, face dropped into my hands.
“Are you ready?” he asks me.
I look up. Stand up. Shake my head.
“Breathe, sweetheart.” He stands in front of me, slips his hands around my face. His eyes are bright, intense, steady, and so full of confidence. In me. “You are magnificent. You are extraordinary.”
I try to laugh and it comes out all wrong.
Warner leans his forehead against mine. “There is nothing to fear. Nothing to worry about. Grieve nothing in this transitory world,” he says softly.
I tilt back, a question in my eyes.
“It’s the only way I know how to exist,” he says. “In a world where there is so much to grieve and so little good to take? I grieve nothing. I take everything.”
I stare into his eyes for what feels like forever.
He leans into my ear. Lowers his voice. “Ignite, my love. Ignite.”
Warner has called for an assembly.
He says it’s a fairly routine procedure, one wherein the soldiers are required to wear a standard black uniform. “And they will be unarmed,” Warner said to me.
Kenji and Castle and everyone else are coming to watch, care of Kenji’s invisibility, but I’m the only one who’s going to speak today. I told them I wanted to lead. I told them I’d be willing to take the first risk.
So here I am.
Warner walks me out of his bedroom door.
The halls are abandoned. The soldiers patrolling his quarters are gone, already assembled and awaiting his presence. The reality of what I’m about to do is only just starting to sink in.
Because no matter the outcome today, I am putting myself on display. It is a message from me to Anderson. A message I know he’ll receive.
I am alive.
I will use your own armies to hunt you down. And I will kill you.
Something about this thought makes me absurdly happy.
We walk into the elevator and Warner takes my hand. I squeeze his fingers. He smiles straight ahead. And suddenly we’re walking out of the elevator and through another door and right into the open courtyard I’ve only ever stood in once before.
How odd, I think, that I should return to this roof not as a captive. No longer afraid. And clinging fast to the hand of the same blond boy who brought me here before.
How very strange this world is.
Warner hesitates before moving into view. He looks at me for confirmation. I nod. He releases my hand.
We step forward together.
