Before she can say another word, I throw back the deep plum-colored covers of her bed and slide in. I pull them resolutely up almost all the way over my face as I turn toward the wall. “We’ll meet Lachlan after dark,” I mutter, and close my eyes. “Be ready to put your plan into action.”

“Rowan, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. It just never seems to be the right time.”

What could she tell me? How sorry she is, again? Exactly what she feels for me? I really don’t want to hear it now.

I pretend to fall asleep quickly. All the while, I don’t hear Lark move. Finally I do fall asleep. I know, because at some point I’m awakened by another body sliding under the sheets beside me. She doesn’t embrace me, doesn’t touch me. But she is there, the warmth of her body filling the bed.

But against my stomach the gun is still cold as death.

I SLEEP ALL day, and at night I take Lark to the location I told Lachlan we would meet him—an innocuous little take-out place with enough traffic to make us completely inconspicuous. But when we arrive, there’s no sign of Lachlan.

As we wait, I look longingly at the takeout, kebabs redolent with salt and synthetic fat, because I haven’t eaten in forever. I feel like at any moment we’ll be too obvious even here, standing for a long time without buying anything. It is apparent that Lark and I are waiting, impatient.

“I thought you said you trusted him,” Lark snaps.

“I do,” I assure her. “Maybe . . .” But the list of maybes is too long, and for the most part too terrible to articulate. Maybe he was captured. Maybe Flint turned against him.

Maybe, now that he knows that Flame can make convincing lenses, he’s decided not to risk his life helping me save Ash. Maybe he’ll convince her to help the second children. Maybe he’ll even turn her over to Flint for his particularly unpleasant brand of “convincing.”

“We can’t wait any longer,” I say at last. So with great reluctance I leave the rendezvous site and make my way to my house.

I know the heart is just about pumping blood, an engine and nothing more. It’s not the seat of emotions, the repository of love and hope and happiness. All the same, when I stand at the base of my courtyard wall at the sheltered side where no one else can see, and look up at the walls that held me in all my life, the walls that held everything I knew and loved, I swear it is my heart that hurts. A pain, that must be physical, seems to stab me in the chest.

Home.

Without Mom and Ash inside it is really nothing more than an empty shell. Still, it was my shell.

“Give me about ten minutes,” I tell Lark. “Maybe fifteen. With luck he’s not home. He used to work late all the time, but now, I don’t know. I’ll let you in the front door.”

“What if he is home?” Lark asks.

“I don’t know.”

“I do,” Lark says, and I’m surprised at the fury in her voice. “If he’s there, he needs to be punished for what he did to Ash . . . and to you.”

My father, who hated me, who betrayed his own son to the Center, deserves to be punished. If Lachlan were here, so strong and capable, with so much violence lurking just beneath his usual joking exterior, he would willingly be the one to mete it out. But could Lark? Could I?

I find myself hoping he’ll be out. Not because I wouldn’t relish the sight of Lark beating his face to a bloody pulp . . . but because I would. That frightens me. What am I turning into?

“Whether he’s home or not, I can get in silently. I’ve spent a lifetime doing it. Then after I let you in we can get his credentials. With them, we’ll be able to move anywhere inside the Center.”

When my fingers curl around the first handhold, I feel that stab again, but I take a deep breath—which turns into a sigh—and start to climb. I can feel her eyes on me, but I don’t dare look down. I’m barely holding on. Literally.

The outside of the wall isn’t as intimately ingrained on my memory, my fingertips, as the inside. But still it is connected to some of the happiest moments of my life, the bittersweet ending to each clandestine night with Lark. All the more bittersweet because of what came of our friendship. Each touch of a new rock beneath my hands seems to spark a new memory. Lark showing me the stars from the rooftop. Lark’s kiss.

After tonight, I may never see her again. I’ll be embedded in my mission, under my new identity. It’s probably for the best. I can’t look at her without thinking how her careless trust of the wrong person cost my mother her life, and ultimately condemned Ash to his death sentence. I know she didn’t mean to, that it tears at her almost as much as it does me. Still, it might be best that we’re going our separate ways.

At least I’ll still have Lachlan, helping me with my mission.

Don’t cry, I tell myself firmly as I climb down on the inside. All your tears are already shed. Now is the time for strength.

My feet hit the moss inside the courtyard, and in an instant I feel caged again. What if I’d never ventured outside of my familial prison? What would have been different? Would I have found a way to grasp at happiness? I manage to walk across the springy moss Mom tended to so lovingly without a single salty drop falling. Sure, my eyes are already heavy and wet, but that’s just from the surgery.

I let myself into the house. Everything is just the same, as if I’d never left. I half expected new locks, a regiment of Greenshirts stationed inside. At the very least, some sign of chaos. Broken knickknacks, an overturned chair. An unwashed dish left on the countertop in a moment of grief, or even distraction. Dust.

But everything is perfect. Just as if Mom is still there, ruling so sweetly over the family.

I move through the quiet house, touching things, smelling Mom’s side of the sofa, the place where her ponytail would rest when she flopped down after a long day at work. And I listen for the sound of my father. The house is silent.

Cautiously, I creep toward my parents’ bedroom. There, finally, is a small sign of disruption. The bedclothes are disheveled. Did he forget to make the bed, plagued by guilt? Did he simply not know how to perform a task Mom usually did? Or has he been unable to sleep in their bed since her death? I don’t know, but at least something is different.

If it wasn’t made mostly of stone, I’d like to burn this whole house to the ground.