Page 62 of The Infinite Glade
Erros stepped back to the numbers in the snow, looking at them just like he’d stared at Isaac after he almost crashed the Berg.
“This first one points up. North. And this one. . . . Must be east.” Frypan had to be right.
“They do look like they could be Kletter’s attempt at arrows,” Isaac chimed in.
“Thosearecoordinates,” Cian exclaimed, then practically tackled Erros. “We’ve got coordinates!”
Jackie and Miyoko looked over in disgust at this outburst of emotion, but Isaac couldn’t help from smiling at Ximena. They’d figured out something important. “Those are it, aren’t they? The coordinates to the Senado de los Secuenciadores.” He whispered it to Ximena. She could lead Cian and Erros to the Sequencers after all. She wasn’t lying.
“You’re pronouncing it wrong, but yes.” She returned his smile. “The Senate of Sequencers.” She looked back at the numbers then spoke up to the brothers.
“I could have directed you, but coordinates will be much easier to navigate.”
They gave her a knowing grin.
A wave of peace settled into Isaac’s bones, shadowed by the sorrow for Trish. It was the first time in a long time, other than finding Miyoko, that something finally went their way. And it wasn’t just the coordinates to this Senate thing that made him feel this way. Because there were other markings, one in particular.
It had a phrase scribbled next to it,Isla de los Immunes.And Isaac didn’t need Ximena to translate that one.
The Island of Immunes.
CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO
Deadheads
Brute soldiers did their best to intimidate Alexandra by taunting her with the hallowed ground, but the Maze wasn’t a punishment to the Goddess. No. It was her solace. Especially this place, where some of the original Gladers had been buried so long ago.
“They’re going to kill him . . .” Dominic exhaled the words, barely above a whisper.
“No,” Sadina said with her head in her hands.
“Shhh . . .” Roxy shushed the others through her teeth.
The Goddess observed them and the other Remnant soldiers and Pilgrims all around her. Seeing so many moving bodies in the Glade was very foreign to her eyes. And the sound of so many voices, foreign to her ears. Beatings. Screaming. Death. She tightened the hood of her cloak over her face. The entire Remnant Nation brought a madness born from Mikhail. A madness she didn’t yet know the depths of.
“Where are we?” Dominic covered his mouth as he spoke. The guard to their left was busy commanding others in the cemetery to get back.
“Is this the Glade?” Sadina asked Alexandra.
The Goddess nodded.The Deadheads to be exact.And Nicholas’ dead head was buried around there somewhere, a hilarious detail for her at the time. Her fingers found moss below her and she clutched it and dug her knuckles into the dirt as deep as they would go. She had to stay in control of this situation. Alaska was her home. Her sacred ground. She wouldn’t let any remnants of society take it from her. She looked around for a sense of what the soldiers would do to them and rubbed the back of her neck. She recited the digits and then used the tools of her mind.
She imagined releasing the Remnants’ hold over her. With every digit she imagined herself escaping the Glade.One. The probability of her escaping the Glade doubled. Two. Then multiplied again. Two steps back for one step forward.Three. And again.Five. The Sequence empowered her vision.Eight. Escape was inevitable.Thirteen.
A shot echoed in the Glade and Alexandra jumped. A body under a Pilgrim’s cloak fell to the ground with a thud. Remnants kicked the corpse. Another shot it again.
Sadina whimpered, butshewasn’t the one wearing a Pilgrim’s cloak. Alexandra tightened her hood around her again and watched as boots covered in ashes kicked the murdered body. That was her Pilgrim. And her ashes. Her sacred ground. Her city. Her Maze.
Enough with this already. She was the Goddess of this city, the Goddess of all. She stood up and lowered her cloak’s hood, and walked away from the cries of Sadina.
“Hey, where are you going?”
Alexandra ignored the lowly soldier. She would walk right up to a man standing nearby, wearing a cloak similar to the one Mikhail had worn. She would tell this man something he didn’t know. She would tell him something that no one knew—whothe Master of the Golden Room was. Mikhail had given her one gift before he died, the greatest gift of all.
Knowledge.
Hell, maybe the man had planned it all from the very beginning.
Jackie and Miyoko sat in the Berg together, ready for takeoff with the dead body—decorated with pine-tree limbs—between them. Ximena’s Village respected their dead and treated each burial with respect, and it was important to her that the islanders got to do the same. The tree branches around the body looked silly to her but at least it would keep the growing decay from smelling too bad, worse with every passing hour. Soon enough the sun would rise, the Berg would heat up, and that body would start to stink.
