Page 46 of The Infinite Glade
Cian steered the Berg farther away from the City of the Godhead. The glow of the fire grew small and distant, but the panic inside Isaac exploded in size.
His friends were down there.
“Stop!” he yelled. “What are you doing? We need to get down there to help our friends!”
They didn’t stop.
Alexandra pulled out what she could use from the cabinets, letting her inner knowledge guide her. Vials. Liquids. Needles. She had Sadina,Dear Sadina.She’d use the digits. The sacred digits. The Flaring Discipline. All of it. The Goddess spread everything she’d pulled out onto the table in the center of the room.Think, Alexandra, think.But it was hard to conjure thoughts with noisy children carrying on.
“Stop that!” She turned to their chaos and laughter, and the young ones froze, beakers in their hands. “Take that off,” Alexandra said to Dominic, who had put on one of the women’s lab coats. “Reverence. Please.”
“I don’t know what that means . . .” the boy mumbled.
“Respect!” the Goddess answered. “Don’t you have respect for objects, people, places?”
Roxy set her knife on the table, right in front for Alexandra to see. “All due respect to you, they’re still children.”
“And what’s your excuse?” the Goddess said.
“Excuse me?” Roxy leaned in with her hand on her knife.
Alexandra shook her head. “I’m sorry. You’ll understand that I’ve been grieving. The stress of this . . .” She smoothed out her cloak. “This robe . . . was a gift from my dear friend Flint, who perished from an arrow in his back—from your war-crazed people.” She pointed at Roxy and the other soldiers.
“Yeah, not me. I’m from ya-never-heard-of-it-ville, not that Remnant Nation. But I’ll cut anyone who hurts these children. Any of them . . . they’re all my kids now.” She pulled her knife back from the table. “And they’ve been through a lot, too. If they want to play dress-up, let ’em.”
Alexandra breathed in for three seconds, held her breath for three, exhaled for three. She composed herself. She’d use this to her advantage. She just needed the children’s blood. She needed them. “I’m sorry, you’re right. Thank you,” she gently said to Roxy, who picked her knife off the table with a nod. “I need your help. All of you. Gather close.”
“We’re not scientists, just so you know,” Dominic said.Of course he wasn’t, neither was Alexandra.But anything was possible with the digits, the Flare, the discipline.
“What can we do?” Sadina asked. Helpful. Sweet. Immune Sadina.
Alexandra didn’t have a plan, but she had the tools. “Come closer. Quickly.” She lifted the sleeve of her cloak to show them the marking Nicholas had given her when he first taught her about the digits. “This sequence of numbers makes up all life. Makes up all of time. Makes up all of nature . . .”
“And makes up the Cure?” Sadina asked. Alexandra smiled her first true smile since the war had started.
“Yes, Dear Sadina.”It would.
“Is it magic?” Trish asked in the most imbecilic of voices. Alexandra looked at the girl’s face next to Sadina and she couldn’t help but touch her cheek. How soft and innocent, yet mind-maddening dumb, children were. She then placed her other hand on Sadina’s cheek, a descendant of Newt.The past could be the future again.She believed it to be true more than she believed anything. The Goddess pulled Sadina to her.
“Yes. In a way, someone might call it magic . . . yes.” Alexandra continued to break Nicholas’ rules: to share the secrets of the digits, the Sacred Truths, and the Flaring Discipline with the unanointed . . . because soon enough . . . the whole world would be anointed with the Cure, with the gifts of the Evolution, and she would need a group of Devout Evolutionaries underneath her. To help her usher in the new world.
She traced the lines of her tattoo. “There is a spiral that connects us all. Every piece of nature, every person, every part of history is a part of the spiral.” Part of the whole. Every person a digit. Every outcome already set in motion.
“Spiral? Like a pig’s tail?” the worthless Dominic asked. Only he would acquaint something so sacred as the digits to an animal’s ass. The thought of a squealing pig sent a shiver of death through the crown of Alexandra’s head.
The Goddess shook her vision clear. “No. Nothing like that.” She scoffed at him. “The Golden spiral. The Sequence. It connects to everything in life and in death, in space and time.” She traced her finger around the spiral of the tattoo to show them. They all leaned in to see, and even Minho and Orange came from around the corner to listen.
Minho interrupted her speech. “That’s great and all, but we went through the whole place, and there’s no food. No water. Pipes aren’t working. What’s your plan,Goddess?” He poked his gun’s tip against a hanging medical skeleton in the corner. “We need a plan or this is going to be all of us pretty soon.”
“Nonsense,” the Goddess replied. “We’re safer here than anywhere.” But if the soldier was right that the women were gone . . . they’d taken all the supplies with them.She looked through the cabinets for something, anything—she’d know it when she saw it.
“He’s right. We can’t stay here,” Orange joined in.
“How is a wavy line . . . magic?” Dominic followed the Goddess’ steps, trying for another glimpse at her wrist as she searched through the cabinets.Those damn women couldn’t have taken everything.She bumped into Dominic, constantly in her way.These damn children are impossible.
“The symbol isofthe digits.” Alexandra motioned for the annoying boy to move aside. She pulled out metal drawers, one by one. Scales. Gloves. More measurement tools. She moved to the cabinets.
“There’s nothing.” Minho almost taunted her.
