“Focus on your healing,” Noah said just before his hand landed on his shoulder.

  Before Zach could say anything, the air around them rushed in, and they were shot through the air, heading back to the camp. Like before, they made multiple stops before they finally arrived back in the apartment, the nearby papers blowing away from their appearance.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing,” Noah said, stalking away to the back rooms.

  Zach lifted the disk in his hands, trying to see if he could hear anything. That’s when more of the memory hit him.

  He was standing in a dark hallway, peeking through a door slightly ajar. The room beyond was even darker, but there were two people inside. Their mere presence exuded nothing but cruelty.

  “He’ll do it, whether he wants to or not. Look at him, he’s starving. He doesn’t have a choice. He’ll do whatever we say. Won’t you?”

  “I’ll bring her. I promise I’ll bring her,” he cringed away from the desperation in his voice. From the deep, painful hunger he remembered feeling.

  “Why?” Noah shouted, walking back in with a fairly large bag of what looked like dried meat. “Why are you pushing this?”

  “Because I know what it is to be hungry,” Zach replied slowly, knowing it was true the minute he said it. He glanced up at Noah and spoke with more conviction. “I know what it feels like to be hungry. And... and I don’t think anyone ever helped me.”

  Noah froze with a large stick of dried meat raised halfway to his mouth. He looked at a loss for words, his eyes softening at the unexpected confession. No matter how he framed it, that was the only way Zach saw it. He’d confessed.

  He didn’t like how vulnerable it left him. Almost as if he’d expected people to help him in his previous life and gone on bitterly because they hadn’t. No, that wouldn’t do. It helped to know what drove him to help them, but still, he had to change the conversation immediately.

  “And I’m going to remind you, you’re the one who Stepped us there. It’s your fault.”

  He knew his words sounded childish and fully expected Noah to point that out. But Noah just stared at him, that guarded look slipping over his features. He opened his mouth once, but chose not to say anything. If Zach was ever going to get an answer, it wasn’t today.

  Tonight, he corrected. The sun had already fallen.

  “You idiot,” Lucas swore, walking out from the bedroom off to the left of the apartment.

  Noah froze, his face going somewhat white. At least his brother could shut him up.

  “You were here the whole time?” Zach asked, wondering why he’d been so quiet. Noah’s Stepping caused enough of a disturbance that he would’ve heard it.

  “I was trying to find you,” Lucas snapped. “I traced you all the way to the mountains. I lost you when you Stepped again. It took me a second before I realized you were coming back. What do you think you’re doing?” The question was for Noah.

  “I thought the shield stopped people from sensing Theurgy. And that Stepping isn’t Theurgy,” Zach added, looking between them.

  “The other day I told you about the link,” Lucas sighed out. “That link is ours; no one can find it, touch it, or sever it. If you don’t have any more questions—”

  Lucas broke off when he looked at Zach. More specifically, what he was carrying. His eyes landed and stayed on the stone disk with intense interest. “The ward?” he asked, fixing his attention back on Noah.

  “He heard someone there,” Noah said, as if explaining himself to a parent. “Crying. I thought... someone might need help.”

  Lucas’ expression softened slightly as he breathed out through his nose. “Noah...” he licked the corner of his lip. “She’s gone, alright? She’s not coming back.”

  Abruptly, he paused, a frown deep enough to rival Noah’s coming over his features as he slowly turned back to Zach.

  “You heard the ward?” he asked. “He heard the ward?” he immediately asked Noah before Zach could respond.

  “The wall was made with Theurgy,” Noah said conspiratorially, a hint of excitement lighting his tone. “Lucas, the strength—it shut us out, slammed us right back into our minds. You need to test him.”

  Zach studied Noah, and seeing the dried meat he was eating, remembered what, or rather who, they’d found in the mountains. “I have to see John. I have to tell him about the... erosians in the mountains.” Oliver’s mind told him that was the correct term.

  “Erosians?” Lucas asked.

  Noah explained everything. Lucas kept his expression neutral at the mention of all the Stepping and the number of refugees they’d seen, only showing a slight reaction to the idea of an ongoing war. But there was one thing that got an even bigger reaction.

  “What do you mean they’re coming here?” he asked. “You told them to come here?”

  Zach had already had this conversation with Noah and was in no mood to have it again. He turned for the door. His hand gripped the handle when Lucas shouted after him, “What exactly are you planning on doing?”

  “I’m going to find John,” he said, not liking how empty that plan sounded. Unfortunately, Lucas heard it, too.

  “And then what? Tell him you somehow went to the mountains in the east and back, all in the span of a few hours? Tell him you spoke to refugees and promised them food? What exactly do you think he can do?”

  Zach paused, working at the skin around his nail—a habit he thought he’d successfully curbed. No. Lucas was right. John wouldn’t be able to help, and there was a lot he wouldn’t be able to explain. But there was one person he could go to.

  “The Head,” he said. “She’s the only one who can okay something like this. John and Eve keep saying Oliver and Leo were always there. Maybe I can use that?”

  Even if their relationship didn’t seem to be built on mutual respect or even love.

  “Please tell me you’re not that impulsive,” Noah said.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  I promise I’ll get her. It almost felt as though those words were the only thing keeping him going.

  “I’m impulsive?” Zach asked, taken aback. “Again, you’re the one who took me there. You were in a rush to get there. I didn’t know what we’d find. I told you about the woman crying, and you jumped. Didn’t you want to help?”

  “I didn’t,” Noah said, some strange emotion moving in his eyes.

  “Then why did you go there?”

  “He thought it was our mother,” Lucas said, earning a glare from his brother. “I understand your need to help, I do, but can you do it without exposing how you know about them?”

  “I won’t expose you, I promise,” he said, turning back for the door.

  “Wait,” Lucas called behind him, but he didn’t stop.

  He walked down the stairs and out of the building with a determination he hadn’t felt in a while. He couldn’t run, not the way he wanted to, and that meant he had to walk with his thoughts. With the memory still beating its way through his mind.

  They’d had their afternoon rations at the base, and Zach hadn’t used Severity. Yet he was still racked with a deep hunger that twisted his stomach into a knot. His heart gripped with a sorrow, borne from guilt, that surrounded his mysterious promise.

  Could a memory be that powerful?

  Workers returning from the Agricultural Function walked the streets, their clothes covered in blades of grass. He paid them no mind, barely noticing the wide berth they gave him. Now that he could focus uninterrupted, he found a vague impression of that elusive memory.

  He remembered wearing something loose and coarse, and of being lured away by two men. They were the ones he’d made the promise to. In typical fashion, when he tried to grasp more, the scene slipped through his fingers.

  He kept replaying that image until he arrived at the gates of the farmhouse, where two enforcers stood guard. They glanced at each other, hesitantly standing aside. Of course they wouldn’t stop him. This used to be the norm. A grandson visiting his grandmother.

  Up ahead, standing before the porch, the Function heads stood in a circle, arguing about something while the Head watched silently from the porch. She was the first one to notice him.

  “Here to fetch your father, hm?” she asked mockingly as he approached.

  The group broke off, their eyes turning to him. John stepped forward, asking, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Zach answered, keeping his eyes on the Head. “I need to speak with you.”

  Too late, he remembered the dynamic of their relationship. She tilted her head just a fraction at the brazenness in his tone.

  “We’ll bring them to the council meeting,” she said to the Function heads. “The camp will decide their fate. I take it you meant in private,” she addressed the last bit to Zach.

  He nodded. She gave a small nod to John and the others before she turned and walked into the house. As they broke away down the driveway, Kevin went up the porch stairs, giving Zach a warm pat on the shoulder.

  “Oliver?” John said, stepping closer. “What are you doing?”

  Was that worry in his eyes?

  “Just go on, John,” Kevin called from the door. “I promise nothing will happen to Eve’s boy.”

  “I’m fine,” Zach assured him. “I’ll be quick.”

  John still looked hesitant, but nodded slowly. “I’ll wait for you.”

  Zach nodded and walked up the stairs, trying not to react to the care in John’s words, in his bearing. Darlene was already making herself a drink at the small table. She’d said something to Kevin, who walked across the room and turned into the hall toward the back.

  They waited until they heard a door close before either of them said a word.

  “You’ve got some balls on you, boy, I’ll give you that,” she said, nursing her drink from where she stood underneath her rifle. “What’s this about?”

  He didn’t remember enough of her conversations with Oliver to beat around the bush. Especially not with something as delicate as this. Better to speak bluntly.

  “There are refugees in the mountains to the east,” he said, carefully watching her reaction. “Close to the shore.”

  She was quiet, her eyes fixed on his face with startling intent. Zach had the impression many people had shifted under that gaze, but ghostly hunger kept him from flinching. That and Severity’s silent rage.

  “Refugees from where?” she finally asked, slowly lowering her glass.

  “Erosa,” he said, hiding his surprise that that was the first question she asked.

  “How many?”

  “At least a hundred,” he said, recalling their faces as they stood on the mountainside. “A lot of children, and most of them are weak from hunger.”

  Like I was.

  “How do you know this?” she asked, her tone far too knowing. When he failed to answer, she tsked, leaning back against the table. “When you came here after you were freed from the hold, I asked what you could do. Remember that? How do you know about the refugees?”

  Zach swallowed. He remembered that well. That was the reason he’d come here in the first place. To help them, that was a secret he was willing to part with. And if that wasn’t enough, he had another one she’d almost certainly take.

  “I need to know you’ll help them first,” he said, trying and failing to sound meek.

  “Help them?” she asked, genuine confusion on her face. “You spotted a threat to the camp. Isn’t that why you’re here? To prove your loyalty to Camp Twelve?”

  “They aren’t a threat,” he said defensively. “They’re weak. They’re hungry. They’re scared. They’re...” the word caught in his throat, but he forced it out. “They’re dying.”

  Again, she was quiet, studying him once more. Before she spoke, she took a healthy gulp from her glass and turned to refill it. “What exactly do you expect me to do, hm?”

  “Feed them. They have important information about a war going on in Erosa. A new war.”

  Noah had seemed interested in that bit of information; surely she’d be interested, too. Unfortunately, he was wrong. She barely reacted to the news.

  “I’m going to ask again, how do you know this?”

  “Are you going to help them?” he asked.

  “You think I’m going to risk the camp? You think I’m going to take in refugees and dwindle our food supply because you’ll tell me what you can do.” She scoffed, shaking her head in disbelief.

  “Whatever you can do, I can’t do it. I’ll just be trading resources for knowledge. Like I’m begging you to tell me something no one else knows. I’m not Emily, boy. If you thought that would be enough, then you’re wrong. I think we’re done here.”

  She picked up the glass, already walking away. Zach saw his hopes going with her. But he had one more secret. At the thought of uttering it, Severity raged within, refusing to part with something so vitally important.

  But he knew if he let this go, if he gave up on those refugees, his buried memories would tear away at his soul and on what little sanity he had left. That knowledge drove him on.

  “I know where you can find the book.”

  Darlene paused, everything about her growing so still she might as well have been turned to stone.

  “What do you mean you know where the book is?“

  “I know where it is,“ he repeated, fighting to calm Severity’s anger at the next few words. “If you help them, I will give it to you.”

  Zach had her. He could see it in her eyes, in the intense way she studied him now.

  “How do I know you’re not lying? What did it say?”

  “It’s a journal,” he replied simply. “Cardinel’s journal.”

  That’s when he realized. From her expression, he knew she’d never read it. That was part of what drove her anger. She clearly had a lot of questions, but she couldn’t ask any of them. Not, and admit she didn’t know what he was talking about.

  But she believed him.

  “You little rat,” she said with a sneer. “I knew you had it. Which one of you took it, hm? I teach you about your history, and you do this to me? To me?”

  “Help them,” he said, some of Severity's anger bleeding into his words.

  “I want something else as well. You will let me study you.”

  “Fine,” he said without any hesitation.

  Whatever it takes.

  I'm thinking of renaming the story. Which of these do you think sounds better?