Chapter 2
I drop the roses, their claret color mirroring the pool growing beneath my mother.
I can’t think, can barely breathe, but my body knows what to do.
I leap forward, already deciding which supplies I’ll call for—suturing, certainly, and antiseptic, and will there be time for a painkiller?
—when a grip clamps down on my arm. I’m startled to see Tomris of the Guardian House holding me, her face implacable.
“Let me go! I’m an Apothecary,” I yell. If this weren’t an emergency, I wouldn’t dare direct a Guardian, but there’s no time for hesitation. I twist, trying to pull free, but it’s no use. Tomris is a solid wall of muscle.
My gaze lurches back to Jonas. The bloodless silver blade trembles in his grip.
Hand-forged, three-and-a-half inches long, the knife is one of our basic first aid supplies.
He must have pulled it out to defend Mom.
It falls from his hand as he drops to his knees to examine her for the source of bleeding—it’s what I would do—but two Guardians yank him to his feet before he can touch her.
“Let him treat her!” I cry. I can’t look away from the horror unfolding in front of me.
Mom’s chest, every part of her, is still.
What was the last thing I said to her this morning?
Something short-tempered, I’m sure, something about how I didn’t mind that she wouldn’t be walking with me to my wedding. I moan.
Augustus of the Plumber House stands just behind her body, his expression stark and unreadable. I thought he and Mom were friendly. Why isn’t he doing anything? Why isn’t anyone rushing to help?
I plead with Tomris again. “Let me go!”
There’s an angry noise several feet to my left. I turn to see Gryphon, brow furrowed, also in the grip of fellow Guardians. He looks like he was trying to reach Jonas and my mother, but his comrades held him back.
“Quiet!”
The booming voice silences us all. Jarek Tzu, Gryphon’s father and head of the Council, pushes through the crowd toward my mother.
On him, Gryphon’s strong nose appears beaklike, his night-colored eyes too deep-set.
Still, Jarek has an undeniably commanding presence.
Like a hawk among songbirds. Surely, he’ll wake us all up from this nightmare. He’s the face of the system, after all.
Jarek kneels when he reaches my mother, careful to avoid the blood, and places surprisingly gentle fingers against the side of her throat. He appears stricken as he stands, the three lines tattooed below his left eye stark against his sudden paleness. “She’s gone.”
My legs give out and I drop to the ground, the movement catching Tomris by surprise. Her hands loosen. I take advantage of that to scramble forward, reaching my mother’s side before anyone can stop me.
It’s true. Her pulse is still.
“No, no, no,” I whisper, tasting ash. This can’t be real.
Her beautiful blue eyes stare half-open, the warmth already leaving them.
Her chest is bloody, the darkest concentration in three distinct spots forming a rough triangle, exactly as if she’d been stabbed.
But Jonas’s knife was clean. I saw it. I drag my gaze to my brother, held fast by two Guardians.
His eyes are saucers. His mouth opens and closes.
“Jonas,” I demand. “What happened?”
“Jonas Allgood has done something unspeakable!” Jarek roars, cutting off Jonas’s answer. Then he turns to the crowd, his voice slicing clean through their wildfire exclamations. “He has committed murder!”
The word hits like a physical blow. Murder. I know it only from history class, a reference to a horrible act from the Before Times. There is no murder in the Valley.
“No!” I yell as Tomris and another Guardian begin dragging me away. “Jonas would never hurt our mother! He was trying to help her!” But the villagers are already buzzing, whispers echoing like a dark wind through the red-clad crowd.
“Jonas’s knife!” I scream. “It was clean! He must have been trying to protect her.”
A number of my fellow villagers glance toward the blade, which is now swimming in a pool of blood. Was I the only one who noticed the pristine metal before it dropped?
Jonas’s face is a mask of anguish. “Rose, I didn’t mean—”
“Stop your manipulation!” Jarek commands, cutting him off again. “The entire village just witnessed you standing over your thrice-stabbed mother, holding a knife. What can this be but murder? A most unnatural act, worthy of a most unprecedented consequence.”
Eyes flit to Eden’s Gate, the basket resting against it like a threat.
The word “Harvest” slithers through the crowd, soft and low, passed from tongue to tongue.
First as a question, then growing in conviction.
But that can’t be. The Harvest isn’t a punishment.
It’s our greatest honor. I feel sick all over again.
Jarek cocks his head as if to listen to the people, his expression lurching from grief to fury until he, too, looks at the basket leaning against Eden’s Gate, his jaw muscle tightening.
Cold fear licks my spine. They wouldn’t. By the Wall…what is happening?
Jarek taps his chin, a terrible mimicry of thoughtfulness as he addresses the crowd.
“You think that to safeguard the whole, Jonas should act as this month’s early Harvest?
” His voice carries to the farthest corners of the square.
“That could be a reasonable suggestion.” He considers some more.
“More than reasonable, in fact. An honor a killer hardly deserves.”
Every cell in my body is screaming. I stare around in wild hope.
These people know and love Jonas. He’s one of the town clowns, a boy of good cheer, and he’s an Apothecary.
Of course he’d run to help an injured person.
But to my horror, instead of speaking up, Valley citizens begin to turn their backs.
One by one, they face away and kneel, every villager but those of the Priest House.
They alone remain standing, eyes pinned on Jarek.
My bones turn to water. When everyone else is looking away—even Aunt Florence and Uncle Richard have their backs to us, their necks white with shock—Jarek nods curtly.
“The village has spoken.” He turns to my brother.
“Your people have chosen to favor you despite your actions.” He flicks his hand at his son. “Man the Harvest basket.”
Whatever fight momentarily animated Gryphon has vanished.
He moves woodenly, turning toward the Wall like a puppet on strings.
Jarek strides to the stage, the place I was supposed to be exchanging vows with Gryphon at this very moment.
He climbs onto it. Once he towers over us all, he signals a Guardian to lead Jonas to the basket and another to haul me before him.
My sweet brother stumbles toward his fate with his shoulders squared and chin lifted, a lamb dressed as a lion. Something is building in my throat, clawing to escape. I open my mouth, but no sound comes out.
“May the Wall protect us,” Jarek declares, beaming down at me.
There’s something predatory in his eyes.
“You look so much like your mother, you know,” he says, as if he and I are alone rather than standing in front of the entire village, my mom freshly murdered, my brother about to ascend to the Heavens.
“I’m so grateful you were selected for my House. ”
My twin. My sibling. He of the crooked smile and duck-fuzz hair, so friendly that he was elected May Day prince every school year from kindergarten on, and not a single boy could find it in himself to be jealous. My best friend—my only friend, really—and the kindest human I know.
He’s about to be Harvested.
The worrying, the rule-following. It wasn’t enough.
“No!” I croak. The awfulness of it scrapes my veins, turning everything orange and raw. “Jonas is my brother,” I say to Jarek upon the stage. My voice cracks, but it carries. “We’re Apothecaries.”
Jarek knows this, of course he knows this, but I can’t stop speaking even though my brain is slippery with terror.
“We cannot be chosen for Harvest. My—” I start to say “my mother” and choke it down.
“I’m sorry, but all Apothecaries are exempt.
As much of an honor as it is, the needs of treating another potential outbreak require our exclusion.
You can find a different way to punish Jonas, can’t you?
” I know my twin didn’t kill our mother, but I’ll say anything to keep his feet on the ground, even if that means invoking the very whipping posts I was recently keen to save him from.
Once everyone’s calmed down, we’ll figure out what really happened.
Jarek tips his head and beaks out his lips, the picture of sympathy.
“You should be grateful your community has shown Jonas such compassion. Murder surely overrides your House’s Harvest exemption,” he says.
“And in any case, the Council has recently updated that directive. Our food shortage demands it.”
An icy wave of powerlessness threatens to drown me. But those were the rules. They can’t be changed at the drop of a hat.
Then something unexpected happens.
I feel a snap inside, and a burst of hot rage blooms in my chest.
I want to hurt Jarek. Obedient, quiet Rose wants to rip out his throat.
No. That’s not me. With the exception of smuggling medicine to the elderly, I always do what I’m told. I try to push down the fury, but it won’t budge.
Jarek continues unaware. “Gryphon, guide Jonas to his ultimate sacrifice, won’t you?”
Gryphon’s exquisite face is a tight mask.
His arms flex, and I have the wild hope that he’ll refuse, that he’ll reveal this as a cruel prank, a leftover from our childhood days, back when he and I used to be inseparable.
But instead, he glides forward with the grace of a mountain lion.
He takes Jonas from his handlers and begins to guide him toward the Wall.
They’ve almost reached the basket when Jonas breaks free of Gryphon’s grasp. Jarek cries out in rage as my brother races toward me, slipping between the other Guardians.
“Rose,” he whispers when he reaches my side.
The whites of his eyes are visible all around his pupils.
He smells of iron and fear as he embraces me, speaking close to my ear.
“I didn’t kill her. You’ll find the truth in the Record Keeper cottage.
Go to the vault. But protect yourself, Rose. Let no one see you there.”
I sob and cling to him. Protect myself? All I’ve ever wanted was to keep him safe. Too soon, Gryphon wrenches him from me, and the hatred I had for Jarek finds a new home. I will never forgive Gryphon for leading my brother to his death.
“Remember, we’re not what we seem!” Jonas cries.
The air feels liquid, everything around me moving too quickly and too slowly all at once. I rush forward, but strong arms circle my waist. If only I’d been better. More obedient. If I’d never snuck medication to the aged—
I look to the villagers for help. “This is not the law!” I yell.
Simon, who Jonas said allowed him into the vault this morning, is as white as whey. He melts into the crowd. His father, David, stares toward the cast on his newly broken foot, a tear trickling down his cheek.
Not one person will meet my eyes.
Desperate, I launch myself toward Eden’s Gate, but new hands have latched onto me. They belong to Leonidas Khan, a Guardian and Gryphon’s closest friend. I could sooner break free from the grave. Still, I twist and snarl, biting at his hands.
They don’t loosen.
“Jackrabbit!” I wail. Please, if there’s any prayer left to say—
Gryphon and Jonas reach the Harvest basket. For the first time in my memory, Guardians stand on either side of the welded metal cage with their swords at the ready.
“I love you!” I sob. I mean to send it as protection, as a plea, as a promise.
My twin steps into the basket. He wobbles, steadies himself. Then he tosses me a gruesome imitation of a smile, so wide and sad that it slices me in two.
I love you, too, he mouths.
He’s still meeting my gaze when Gryphon whispers something in his ear. Jonas’s eyes go wide, and then the basket is closed. Someone has brought Jarek the tablet that operates it. He jabs its screen, and the basket begins to hover up the Wall, lifting my cowlicked brother toward the sky.
From where no one has ever returned.