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I wished the Bishop hadn’t lifted the curse. At least then he’d have a reason not to listen to me. At least then, I wouldn’t be looking up into eyes like mine, like Len’s, like Troy’s, looking back at me as if
I
were the monster.

The statue had been moved so that it sat next to the stage. Undoubtedly the piece had started its life as a car, but it was impossible to get close enough to see how it was put together since so many people were wandering around, running their hands over the metal. Down the side of the car, an inscription:
In the hope of a peaceful tomorrow.
The words made me shudder. In exchange for a violent today?

I was still pondering the underside of the sculpture when I saw Nelle and Perry making their way down Main Street. Though the Bishop was nowhere in sight, I knew he was resting, waiting for the final pieces to be set in motion, watching me react to the statue. Planning a way to hide, to escape. I doubted he’d be wasting much more energy on Hindsight, but I didn’t want to take any chances. Best he thought we were trying to deal with the crisis at hand.

“Jayne, would you let me talk to Nelle for a moment?”

To her credit, the confusion passed quickly over her face. She followed a few paces behind, then launched into distraction mode. “Perry,” she said. “Is your mother holding up?”

Perry struggled for words. Which was a shame, really. As repellant as his personality could be, I missed the sharp-witted, intelligent Perry who might have assisted in helping me clear the square. He groped at Nelle as if she were a safety blanket, even as I pulled her away.

“Nelle, that thing, that sculpture. It’s going to blow.”

She peered over my shoulder, then ducked a bit. “Mace. Goddamn him.”

“Mace?”

“Mangold. My husband. I’ve never seen that thing before. Paul must have sculpted it. And you’re probably right. Ten to one the rest of our explosives are inside.”

“Nelle, make a run for it now. Take your people and fight your way out of the gate.”

“I’m going to the reservoir today, Cas. I’m supposed to head over to finish the repairs for the power station in a few minutes. I can’t just not—”

“We have a plan to neutralize the Bishop, Nelle. Don’t touch the Ward.”

Almost silently, Dr. Mangold had walked up behind me. I backed away from Nelle, and ran smack into him. My head rushed with relief. “Is Syd with you? Len?”

“No, no, no stomach for action. They were going to pieces at the gate last I saw them. Join them, should you see fit, but do it fast.”

I tried to catch Jayne’s eye, but Perry had already talked himself out of her orbit and was making a beeline toward Mangold.

Perry put an arm around Nelle and held out the other to Dr. Mangold. “This is my fiancée, Nelle,” Perry said. “And you are . . .?”

Mangold let loose a big laugh. “Poor boy. I’m Mace Mangold. Nelle’s husband.”

Perry drew back and looked at him. Then, down at the ground. Then he looked at Nelle, as if coming to for the first time in a week. “I’m afraid I don’t understand?”

“Once, a very long time ago,” Nelle said, her voice dropping an octave, “I understood you and, once, I loved you. And I thought we could help each other. That’s all.”

We’d all been blaming Syd—in whole or in part—for Nelle. But really, this was my fault. I brought Perry back when he should have stayed out wherever he was. He would have been able to make a difference, help some small community build itself back up.

Nelle was still trying to explain. “Your obsession with our lives at school—lives we led as children. It’s not real.”

“Stop, Nelle,” I said. “You’ve said enough.”

“You’ve
done
enough,” Perry said, face vacant.

I put my arm around my long-lost brother. “Perry, come back from wherever you are. Please. I need your help. You have to get the Governor to move that statue away from the square.”

Perry looked at me, dubious. “Are you telling me the truth, Casandra?”

I would have felt better if Perry was listening to me because he believed me. Instead, he was listening because he was out of options, but at least he was listening. He hesitated a moment, and then he turned and made his way toward my father. A queue of people vied for the Governor’s attention, but he ignored them all, talking into Cedar’s ear and pointing in our direction.

“I wish you weren’t here, Mace,” Nelle said, looking up at the sky.

“We have to find shelter,” Mangold said, grabbing her hand. They started west toward the bridge, and Nelle turned back to stare at the Sanctuary.

I’d no sooner followed her gaze than Jayne fell backwards. Cedar clamped one hand over my mouth and the other around my midsection. Once he’d put me off-balance, he stuck a syringe into my arm. The world, once again, went dark.

I woke up tired of serums and injections. Tired of shadows and hands and people depositing me wherever. I woke up as angry as I’d ever been. It seemed to please the Bishop when I flung myself from the couch of the candlelit Acolyte apartment. But for once I was prepared for what was to follow.

He beckoned, fingers thin and crooked. “Perhaps reconsider: You and I, Casandra.”

I took a deep breath. “Why don’t you simply ask for my gift if you want it so badly?”

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong, my dear. I don’t want your gift; I want to combine our gifts. To be the sire of gods—that is my immortality, so to speak. And that of my children. Never again in danger of being lured away from the Spirit. Never again in danger of forgetting my name. Children who are never again in danger at all. What if your mother was immortal? Would you dream of leaving her side?”

“That’s a stupid question. My mother hates me.”

“Only because she never became her own best self. It was left to you, instead. She wanted everything for you. And yet the spotlight was ill fitting, wasn’t it, Casandra? Pity you can’t accept your true greatness, her dream, my offer.”

“Your offer? You think
your offer
has any meaning? After all we’ve lost?”

“What would you know about loss?” he said, storming across the room. “What would you know about pain?”

“Six days ago, nothing,” I said. “Today, everything.”

I finally understood Syd’s desperation, how she could just swing blindly, hoping to save a piece of whatever was left. “What kind of world will you leave behind? Will it honor your daughter, this future wasteland?”

“I made New Charity for you,” he said. “And yet you continue to reject my gift.”

I squinted at him. “For me?”

“For my future bride. I rid the world of that which the Spirit disapproved of. I am as good a God as any. I simply need a Goddess.”

“I’m sorry I can’t be that, Bishop.”

“Ah, but you can. You simply are choosing not to.” He grabbed my wrist and pulled me to him. “So we shall remedy that.”

I turned my face away as he pawed at my shirt. I tried to take a deep breath for what came next. “Good girl,” he said. “Just relax.”

“You’ve made an error,” I said. “Looking backwards too often blinds you from what’s ahead.” I grabbed his wrist. Inside the curtains of his mind, I began to push.

He was ready, pushing back into my Foresight. I watched as he anticipated the impending bloodshed of New Charity, laughing at the easy way the town had let itself be slaughtered, the confused faces of Mangold and Nelle walking into his cadre of guards at the floodgate.

I pushed back harder into his memories and I found Cal on the couch, choking down the poisoned wine. Cal writing in his journal. Still before, when the Bishop collected the gifts, under the guise of genuine need. Earlier: The Bishop inoculating the town. The Bishop losing his daughter, on his knees sobbing as my father had over Troy. I tried to push back even further, but he finally stopped me.

I allowed myself a moment to look out the window. The Governor was about to take a seat in the sculpture car, one of the Survivors giving a thumbs-up from about twenty paces out. Just as the Governor clambered in to take a seat, Perry was there, hauling him from the car and running toward us. Toward the Sanctuary.

Currents of air began to swirl around the room, and I let them. I wanted the Bishop to think the advantage belonged to him. I wanted him to believe he’d escaped the worst of things.

He could paw at me all he wanted. For once, he had no idea who was in front of him. The power of Foresight—my visions—was about as involuntary as powers could be, but elemental magic felt different, like weight and breadth, at various times complex and simple and boundless, and on a third try like a simple tug-of-war.

The Bishop had made a mistake letting me travel so far back into his timeline, and it had sapped his reserves. He reached forward into my mind, pushing at the edges of my visions, but he was too tired to get very far. Certainly too tired to once again wield the slice of wind magic he’d stolen from Cal.

He was in better shape in the bodily world. He’d torn my sweater and had me pinned against the wall. It was time to show him that I could best him here, too. I concentrated on every grain of sand in the concrete walls around me, and I pulled. Just slightly. The walls around us flexed.

He stumbled back from me. Horrible recognition flooded his face. “She didn’t.”

I could pull the whole place down around us if I wished.

“She did,” I said. And with the planks of wood beneath our feet at the ready, I threw the boards under his boots up about three feet. He fell down hard. I grabbed his wrist again.

He raised his free palm to buffet me with wind, using the last of his strength. Even before he could let loose, I pulled the dust from the swirling air, touching it to the candles lining the room.

There was an explosion like nothing I’d ever dreamed of. It might have been the car. It might have been the Sanctuary.

There was fire and then there was darkness.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Syd

Len and I are rocked off our knees by heat and light. Though the blast is soundless, the ground under the gate heaves and the two halves sag open—the steel horses coil in on themselves, the guards confused and injured and bleeding. We waste no time in sprinting through.

People are running from the square, and there is blood, but not the carnage we expected from Len’s vision. And even stranger, the sculpted Cress is intact.

I’m trying to study faces, but people have their heads down. Smoke is coming from somewhere. A woman, Becky Purcell’s mother, is lying on the ground, the skin on her arms and legs striped pink as if she’s been hit by lightning. Len dashes away and returns soon after with a hay cart from the courthouse stables.

Another man helps him load Mrs. Purcell and a few others with similar injuries. Sheriff Jayne arrives and starts a second evacuation brigade.

“I’m going to find Cas,” I say. Len nods at me gratefully.

Mangold and Nelle pass us as they head toward the gate. Her hands cover her mouth as she coughs and retches from the smoke. They both look confused, but she’s still looking up at the top of the Sanctuary. Smoke billows from the crippled building, which is sagging like a wet cardboard box.

I know Cas is in there. I ask more of my legs than I did in a lifetime of dance.

Pi is standing just outside the Sanctuary. He’s still bearing the trappings of the altercation at the gate, though his arm is loose of his sling, and a bandage on his head flaps in a hot breeze. I grab his hand as I pass.

I’m about to jump through the busted Sanctuary door when an arm reaches out to clothesline me. I fall hard, the back of my head pounding me dizzy. I look up at James.

“What are you doing, you crazy bitch? You can’t go in there. It’s on fire.”

“My friend is inside,” I say, struggling to stand.

He wrenches my arms behind my back. “I’m trying to help you, Syd.”

“Let me go.” At first, he doesn’t seem to hear me. And then I feel his arms go slack. I hear him hit the ground with a thud. I turn to see Pi standing behind him, panting, crowbar in hand.

“You might need this,” he says, handing me the bar and sinking to his knees.

“Are you okay? I’ll get you some help.”

“Syddie?” he says. “I’m fine. I love you. Hurry.”

Time slows in front of me. The word
I
comes out of my mouth as James struggles to his knees.
Love
comes as James swings a piece of rubble at Pi’s head. I know I’m screaming as Pi crumples to the ground. I sink to my knees and gather my uncle in my arms.

James’s arms snake back around me.

“Why?” I am wailing, kicking. If I could get ahold of his neck, I’d strangle him.

“He tried to kill me.”

“Get away from me.”

“You’re in shock. Out of your mind. I’ll take you somewhere.”

My foot connects with something, maybe a knee, and he twists my arm hard. I scream. I use every epithet I have. I struggle. His hands are around my neck. A gunshot cracks, loud, and a pink mist sprays. I fall, then he falls, face away from me.

Jayne drops to my side, tears thick with snot. She cradles Pi’s head in her hands. “Pi, please,” she says. I shake my head and close my eyes. I wish James had killed me. It’s too much. I can’t do this anymore.