Zoe sat across from Kamila – though ‘lay across from her’ might have been the better term. The Invictus soldier looked weak, pale, but still much better than she’d looked the last time Kamila had seen her. “So,” Kamila asked, “I’m here. You’re going to leave my father alone now, correct?”

“That’s right,” Zoe said. “Good Stepan Zelenko will remain in his library, out of the way, and will continue to do nothing.” Zoe smiled. “Just like what he did when he saw his wife killed.”

Kamila blinked. The corners of her lips twitched but she forced her face to remain impassive. Zoe grinned and began to laugh – the laugh quickly turned into a cough. Zoe continued to speak: “And in exchange for this, you are considering my offer?”

“I’ll do it,” Kamila said. “On the condition that you leave my father alone, and that I am to be guaranteed safe passage from here. In addition you’ll stop any ongoing manhunt for Aleks, and if he returns to Etyslund you’ll provide him with the same safe passage you guarantee me.”

“That can be done.” Zoe waved her hand dismissively. “Easily enough. And you do not have the identities of any other Mirshal operatives to give me?”

Kamila growled and kicked at the floor. “To my knowledge, there are no others.”

Zoe smiled. “Supposing I believe you, even then, this is a good deal for me. I do appreciate your cooperation. You are remarkably receptive, for an Abrist swine.”

Kamila snorted. “That was a weak attempt at unsettling me, Zoe. We can move past the idiotic insults.”

“Where will it be done, Kamila?”

“The library seems appropriate. And a plausible place for us to stop by on the way out.”

“Very well. And that way, I can keep a close eye on Stepan, just in case I need to… discipline you.” Zoe chuckled.

“Fuck you.”

“Well, well, is there a problem?” Zoe Bari’s face was a mask. It was sealed tight but Kamila could see it - this was not the same person she’d spoken to days before, not even the same person she and Hilda had fought with outside the orchard.

Hilda. Guilt and hatred twisted Kamila’s gut. Hatred for Zoe and the soldiers, hatred for herself. The hate was held in place by fear. Kamila opened her mouth to say something, but the words wouldn’t come out. I can’t do this. I can’t do this. She couldn’t show weakness - so she displayed rage instead.

“I’m agreeing to help you murder my sister, is that not good enough for you? You have to hold the gun to my father’s head as well?”

“I need insurance.” Zoe laughed again, and Kamila felt no mirth or warmth from that laugh.

She’s going to betray you, Kamila thought. This is all going to be for nothing. But Zoe Bari was her only chance out of this mess, and at the cost of a life that was going to be cut short by war whether Kamila did anything or not. I have to try to save myself.

“You really are some actor, Zoe.” Kamila stood up. “Or perhaps I’m not the judge of character I once thought I was. We spoke for over an hour yesterday, and I never got the sense you were a sadistically cruel person. And yet.”

“We all are what we must be, Kamila Zelenko.” Zoe’s grin was manic, and Kamila couldn’t look anywhere else. It was like that smile was at the center of a tunnel, and the tunnel was the world, and Kamila held transfixed in its glare. It looked… false. As though Kamila had it backwards – as though this was the mask, and the Zoe she’d spoken to before was the real one.

“We are all only what we must be to make our lives possible.”

“Yeah, I remember.” Kamila said, voice a rasp. “And are you going to hold your end of the deal?”

“Obviously,” Zoe said. “But of course, you’ll need to handle Hilda. And in order to do that, we need to make it seem like we escaped from you, and not the other way around.

“It’s time. No delays. If I don’t see Hilda Zelenko in an hour I’m going to kill Stepan.”

Kamila wanted to scream, so instead she laughed in Zoe’s face. “You think you’re going to get away with all this? Surely even the Invictus must have tribunals. Won’t you just be court-martialed for attacking civilians like this?”

“Maybe – if we were closer to the Core. Out here? Nobody cares what we do. Nobody will even hear. I could blow your head off right now and the gossips back home would neither hear nor speak a word of it. You’re ours, to do with as we please.”

Zoe stood up. “Now I want you to attack us.”

Kamila scoffed. “What… just like that?” Zoe stepped away, and Plato lowered the barrel of his gun – that impaling darkness vanished – and Kamila pushed herself up to her feet.

Plato shrugged, and held his weapon aside, and Zoe smiled, nodding. Kamila shook her head, sighed, and stepped forward. With each step she felt her energy returning, like that stun weapon had never fired.

She felt a jolt of guilt, even as she punched one hand into the other open palm. But the inherited memories of a long-dead empath echoed in her head, of the uselessness of trying to play God in a world that had already killed what was left of its spark. What was the point of preventing the Desert if the world really was the Desert, if the apocalypse was forever? And if there was no point, then what was the point of Hilda?

This, this was mercy.

That’s nonsense and you know it. That voice in her head - it was a familiar memory but one she’d sought to suppress for a long time. The head doctors at Kivv told her she had ‘Inherited Memories’, wanted to study her. Well, that was unacceptable. For years Kamila hadn’t been bothered by that voice - the voice of a long-dead “Karla.” One of the old humanity. And now she was back.

You’re just trying to feel better about your own selfishness, the voice said. Just like the people I spent so many years trying to save. Kamila shook her head as she stepped toward Zoe and Plato, who started to back off, their weapons lowered, feigning fear.

Finally, Kamila had a chance to get out of this mess. Finally, she might be free, after so many hours of sleepless terror.

And in the process, she’d get to feel her fist in Zoe Bari’s face just one more time.

When Zoe and Plato were gone – chased out of the house, with a few injuries from Kamila’s fists and feet for good measure – Kamila checked that the door was shut securely, moved the rug aside and opened the hatch.

Kamila began to climb down the ladder, rung by rung. Halfway down. She started to turn towards Hilda’s corner.

A crossbow bolt struck the wall next to her, and she flinched, falling off the ladder. It wasn’t a long fall, but Kamila was already disoriented and the impact, surprisingly, hurt quite a lot. Kamila slammed a fist into the ground and stared up at Hilda, who had dropped her crossbow and let out a startled squeak as soon as Kamila fell. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” Hilda covered her face with a hand, pushing herself up with the other. “Kamila are you okay? I thought they took you away, or…”

“I’m fine,” Kamila groaned. “But Hilda. We don’t have time to argue. We need to get out of town today.”

“What?” Hilda glanced up at the hatch. “What’s going on?”

“I sent those two packing, but couldn’t get my hands on them even after I tried to shut them in. They’re slippery, and now not only do we not have a hostage, but they know exactly where we are. We have to get to Kivv and we have to leave now.”

Hilda nodded and went to pick up her crossbow. “So you’ve come around?”

“Not really. I think our first priority should be to get ourselves out. Aleks, too, if we can find him.”

“Dad?”

Kamila chuckled. “He won’t leave that library if he can help it. Anyway, I’m sure dad will be fine. He always was good at talking his way out of bad situations. We should stop by there first, though. Send a message ahead to Kivv if we can, to let them know we’re coming, and we’ll take any data Dad might have collected on this whole… mess.”

Hilda nodded. “Okay. Let’s do it. Right now.”

Kamila sighed, and nodded, and tried not to look her sister in the eye. That was… easy.

The voice of that old dead girl in her head: Kamila, you’re a heinous monster.

Not my thoughts. Not my memories. Not even real. It’s just my brain trying to piece together what that person would have said, would have thought, even though she’s been dead for hundreds of years.

Kamila turned and gestured up the ladder. “Come on then, let’s go.”

The trip through the center of the village and to Stepan’s library was a quick one. Hilda & Kamila had to move quickly, relying as they were on the opening left by the two fleeing Invictan soldiers, knowing that more would be back as soon as they successfully regrouped. They made their way along the edge of the town, amid carefully placed and cultivated trees that kept their southern walls sheltered from the wind. The trees grew just as they were made to grow, strategic placements of wire keeping them on their paths for the optimal placement of shade.

How convenient, with the afternoon sun shining diffusely in the west, that the shadows of the leaves above them stretched long.

Last chance to turn back. Karla’s voice, fainter but still strong enough. Kamila struggled to push it back down. You can still save her. Get out of here. Kamila turned her head to the north. It was true, if she fled with Hilda, they could make it to Kivv. Hilda must have noticed Kamila slowing her step, staring at her sister with troubles on her face. “Kamila? Is something wrong?”

Kamila opened her mouth, and nearly told her sister everything. Then in her mind she saw her father’s face, streaked with blood and tears, mouth agape in an unmoving scream. She saw the back of Aleks’ head as he ran, and something made him fall.

Kamila turned away. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m just nervous, that’s all.”

When they came to Stepan’s library Hilda, limping but moving at a steady pace, made her way first to the back. She bent down and placed her hands on the iron bars of a grate, while Kamila, leaning protectively over her, looked around the corner for any approaching soldiers. In the distance she saw Zoe, seated on a bloodstained rock in the middle of town.

A bloodstained rock –

Kamila felt her heart flutter and the rush of fear and shame in her throat. She grew lightheaded for a moment, watching that spot, that rock, and Zoe sitting there with her spear –

With a quiet scratching noise, the grate came free and Hilda set it aside. By the time Kamila turned her gaze back down Hilda was already halfway into the opening. “You send the message,” Kamila said, “And I’ll stand guard.” Hilda called back with an assenting noise, and Kamila, following her sister into the back entrance, pulled the grate closed behind the two of them.