Chapter 1

The flames danced higher from their nightly fire, and Isaac watched as his friends carried on in a circle around the camp as if they were all back on the island after a feast. As if everything were the same as it ever was. But, no. Everything had changed. He could see that change most in Jackie's face, how the loss of Lacey and Carson took the spark out of her eyes. Or maybe killing a bald-headed half-Crank with her bare hands changed her. Either way, with every mile they traveled closer to the coast and farther away from the broken Grief Walker, away from Lacey and Carson, Jackie seemed further and further away too.

She didn't talk about what happened all those weeks ago, and Isaac understood that perfectly. He never wanted to talk about losing his mom, dad, and sister either. Talking about it made it real. And it didn't need to feel any more real than the empty space that remained in their place. Isaac half-smiled and half-frowned at Jackie, the only way he knew how to send a sympathetic but supportive look, letting her see that he knew the grief and torment of what she was going through. It wasn't just the loss of her friends that Isaac understood all too well, but the feeling of what Old Man Frypan once called ‘survivor's guilt'—the feeling of still being alive when those you loved weren't. Jackie half-smiled and half-frowned right back at him.

"Hey, who wants to hear a spider bark?" Dominic stood up to stretch, and before Miyoko could push him out of the circle, he did it again. He let one rip. Since escaping the Bergs, Dominic's gas had become the biggest weapon of destruction the group had to avoid. Trish glared at Dominic. She had a steadfast rule of not farting near the campfire.

"You're going to catch us all on fire one day, you know." Trish rolled her eyes and then inched closer to Sadina, intertwining Sadina's fingers with her own. After Sadina and Isaac were kidnapped, Isaac couldn't help but notice Trish tethered herself more than ever to Sadina, in whatever ways she could. Isaac understood that too. He was thankful for the group, but he himself felt untethered, as if a bad wind could come along and just blow everything away. Maybe because they slept outside as if they were on the run. He missed the safety of the yurt he'd built back home. He looked around at the trees and available resources; it'd take some time, but he could build a shelter here for everyone.

"Thanks for dinner, ol' Man," Isaac said as he collected the carved wood they used for bowls and helped clean up. Isaac had never seen Old Man Frypan happier than when they settled in between the mountains, eating rabbits and plants and cooking for everyone when he had the energy.

Minho leaned back to stretch. "You even managed to make Roxy's stew taste better, which I swore wasn't possible."

"Some kind of spiky herb he added from the forest," Roxy added as she helped Isaac clean up.

"It's called Rosemary. I don't know how I remember that, but I do." Old Man Frypan inched closer to the fire.

Roxy took all the bowls from Isaac and stacked them together. "I'll forage first thing in the morning, go out a little farther east and see what I can find up there."

"I'll go with you and maybe find some squirrels to hunt." Orange tugged at the annoying burs that had gotten stuck in her hair from hunting earlier. "Ow! These things really hurt for how small they are." The weeds, vines, and brush had weapons of their own in this part of the world. The harshest things back on the island were rocks, water, jellyfish, and the weather, but out here there were too many dangers to count. Every day it seemed like Isaac learned something new to watch out for. Besides Cranks and giant killing machines.

"How's your insect bite?" Isaac asked Dominic.

"I don't think it bit me. I think it was a stinger." Dominic looked at his bicep. "Kinda looked like a bee but that sucker was way bigger. Do you think Grievers can shrink down and fly?" Everyone but Old Man Frypan laughed.

"Grievers are nothing to snark at," the grizzled veteran said, and the group hushed out of respect.

"Maybe the bees bite out here?" Miyoko asked.

"I don't see any teeth marks." Dominic examined his arm even closer.

Roxy went over to check on the poor guy. "Hmmm. . . . It's not ants or you'd have more of them with the same marks. Sounds like it could have been a murder hornet. That's not good."

"A murder hornet? Is my arm going to fall off?" Dominic looked at Roxy, concerned, and Isaac couldn't tell if he actually believed it. "Am I going to die?"

"I bet that sucked the gas right out of you!" Trish laughed until Sadina elbowed her.

Roxy held in her own laugh. "I'm just messing with you. It'll probably be sore for a few days, but you'll be fine." She looked closely at Dominic's arm, then patted it lovingly. "Lucky he didn't get you more than once."

Miyoko and Trish combed their fingers through Orange's ginger locks and removed the spiky balls of nature that had attached themselves, tossing her hair into a bird's nest. Despite Minho and Orange being more intimidating than Ms. Cowan at times, Isaac was glad to have their leadership within the group. Without Orange they'd all be dead.

He sat back down by the fire, taking everything in. The wind kicked up and the sparks of the fire reminded him of the sparks in the forge. He'd give anything to go back to being a blacksmith apprentice at home, but he had a feeling that even life on the island wasn't exactly "life on the island" anymore. The fire made Isaac feel safe, and the smoke had a way of cleansing the group enough that they all didn't smell like the hammers of hell in between stream baths. The wind pushed again, longer and harder. "Anyone else notice it's getting colder at night?" Isaac had only felt it in the last few days, but right before dusk the temperature dropped further and each whoosh of the wind lasted longer than the day before.

"Yeah, it sure is," Dominic answered.

Ms. Cowan inched closer to the fire. "Never had this kind of chill back home."

The flames flickered and highlighted the shadows of stress on Cowan's face. Along with the drop in temperature, she had been uncomfortably quiet the last few nights. Isaac imagined that the weight of her decision to leave the island and to go against the government must have continued to weigh on her, especially after losing Wilhelm and Alvarez. But there was no way she could've known the trip would result in so many deaths.

"You think everyone back home is doing okay?" Isaac asked her, but Cowan didn"t blink. Slowly, one by one, heads looked up in her direction.

". . . Ms. Cowan?" Isaac asked again.

Even Orange, Minho, and Roxy, who had never been to the island, waited on Cowan's response but she just stared at the fire.

"Mom?" Sadina shouted over the fire.

Ms. Cowan finally blinked, "What's that, dear?"

"Do you think everyone back home is doing okay?" Isaac asked again.

Cowan looked at him as if it were a trick question. "Yes, of course. They're all fine, I"m sure." But the way her voice lowered slightly at ‘they're all fine' gave Isaac a pang in his gut. A pang that said it was them, the eleven souls sitting around the fire just then,who weren't fine.

"How many Bergs are on your island?" Minho asked while adding wood to the fire, and everyone from back home looked at each other.

Trish replied. "None of us knew what that . . . thing you call a Berg was until we flew on it."

"No, we didn't have Bergs on the island. The islanders weren't meant to leave . . ." Cowan's last words seemed coated with regret. Isaac felt the mood shift along with the cold air but Cowan finally snapped out of her trance. "Look, if we hadn't left the island, Lacey, Carson, Wilhelm, and Alverez would still be alive. I know that." She took a slow deliberate breath. "But we owed it to humanity to work for a Cure, and if we'd succeeded . . . we could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Maybe millions. Who knows."

". . . if there's that many people left," Roxy responded in the grimmest voice possible.

"We can still do that," Miyoko said while she finished the braid in Orange's hair. "The Villa Kletter talked about wasn't far from where we were when we arrived on land. Maybe a few miles?" She paused before adding, "I think she said it was a two-day hike before she . . ." and Isaac knew why she stopped talking when she did: because there's no polite way to say before Kletter got her throat slit open.

Sadina chimed in at that. "Yeah, we were supposedly really close to the Villa. And that's why Letti kidnapped us and kept saying the same thing: not to trust the people there or Kletter."

"You trust a word that came out of Letti's or Timon's mouth?" Isaac didn't think he had to remind his best friend that the two crazy people who forcibly took them probably weren't the best ones to take advice from. Sure, there were moments when Isaac thought that maybe Letti and Timon were helping to protect them from something, the way they allowed them to leave clues for the rest of the group to stay on their trail, but they'd never fully explained what the so-called Evolution was or how people could die.

"I vote we go home," Dominic said, and a silence fell over the entire group, even from Minho and Orange, whose home sounded awful.

The fire crackled. "We could all go with Minho to Alaska," Roxy added optimistically, but the mention of Alaska made Old Man Frypan stand up and leave the circle. He had understandably seen enough of that place to last several lifetimes.

"I didn't live this long just to go back to the the Maze. I'd rather die right here than step one foot in that Godforsaken country." After his airing of grievances he sat back down. "Some wounds aren't meant to be re-opened."

What might happen if they did go back home, Isaac wondered. The way they left on the Maze Cutter, mysteriously leaving after the whole island got knock-out drunk from poisoned wine, might have seemed like the best solution at the time but what would Cowan say if they went back? Lie and blame it all on Kletter? "She poisoned everyone on the island and kidnapped us." Or be honest and say, "Hey, we tried to save the world but it turns out there's a lot more to it. A bunch of scientists wanted us dead, the Cranks have evolved, and some of us escaped thanks to two orphans from the Remnant Nation. No big deal. We're back!"

And even so, what if by returning to the island they only caused more people like Kletter to come after Sadina and the islanders again? The Gladers of old wanted to protect the immunes and their descendants from ever being found. It seemed selfish to put everyone back home at risk again. But what did that mean? Spending the rest of their lives on the run?

"Alright then. Should we put it to a vote?" Cowan asked. And just like that the nightly campfire improbably turned into some kind of government meeting. Isaac had never wanted part in any kind of decision making. He'd just wanted to learn how to forge and be a blacksmith. But his throat felt itchy with the pressure of needing to speak up.

"I motion we move to vote," Dominic said as he stood up, sounding like a stranger. Isaac wasn't sure what he wanted to do when they reached the coast. . . . Stay in the wilderness and build a yurt? Go home to apologize for ever leaving? Go to Alaska and finish some mission they didn't understand? See the Maze of old? Go to the Villa to find the scientists? It was too much, as usual, for him to process.

Sadina also stood up. "Mom, can't we just—"

"No. We had a democracy at home and we'll have one here." Cowan acted as if this entire trip hadn't revolved around Sadina and the possibility that her blood might change the world. Also, poisoning your people because they might not agree with you wasn't exactly what Isaac would call a democracy. "We'll vote by show of hands. Only vote once."

Issac looked at Sadina and mouthed the words, "I'm sorry."

At times she had been glad to have her mom on the trip with her, but this was not one of those times. Why couldn't they discuss the decision for a few days and present options, and listen to everyone's opinions? Why did her mom always have to do everything in such a public forum? Like the poisoning at the amphitheater. Sadina never would've brought the entire town together just to poison them all and then sneak away and pretend to be taken forcibly.

If the truth wasn't an option, why couldn't they have disappeared in the middle of the night on the ship and left a note about their true intentions? If a cure was such a good and noble thing, then why hide what they did? It shouldn't have mattered that some of the island Congress disagreed—that's always the case. Sadina just wanted logical sense sometimes. Like now. Why couldn't they sleep on it and have an open discussion in the morning?

But her idea of what was fair didn't matter. It never did with her mom.

Sadina couldn't control what happened next any more than she could control having special blood. She could only hope her friends chose the best option—whatever that might be. Letti and Timon thought Kletter was evil enough that they killed her the minute they had the chance. They could have killed Isaac and everyone else in the group except Sadina if they wanted to make it easier on themselves to manipulate her, but instead they let everyone live. And weren't they working with the Remnant Nation somehow? They never killed anyone else, despite having the chance to do so. It was the one thing Sadina kept coming back to because she couldn't shake how fast they'd killed Kletter. Because the Villa was bad.

"Vote with me," Sadina whispered to Trish.

"Wherever you go, I'll go." Trish clasped her fingers around Sadina's and held her hand fiercely, so tight that Sadina's knuckles hurt.

"Wherever you are, I'll be," she whispered back.

Sadina's mom cleared her throat. "Let's handle this like a proper vote. Meaning, no outbursts, no arguing. Whatever has the votes will be what we do, period. Understood?"

Everyone in the group nodded their heads but said nothing.

Sadina couldn't tell if her mom was being more of a mom at this moment or more of a senator. Both titles sometimes put off a "because-I-said-so" tone to them, something Sadina could have done without. What if the majority vote isn't the best way to spend their time?

"All those in favor of staying here, raise your hands," Sadina's mom asked. Old Man Frypan's hand shot up as if it were connected to a shooting star in the sky. Jackie's hand joined his arm in the air. But theirs were the only votes for staying, and once the senator pointed at them each as if to say "Your vote has been seen," Old Man Frypan and Jackie's hands lowered.

"Why do you want to stay here?" Dominic whispered to Jackie, but Sadina's mom hushed them all.

"All those in favor of going back home, raise your hands," Sadina's mom announced next, but Dominic's hand was the only one to go up. He looked at Jackie with a frown as if her vote and his combined could have tipped the scales of the majority and they'd have all just gone home. Sadina looked over at Isaac. She thought for sure Isaac would've voted to go back home. All he had talked about in the last few days was setting up his own forge, fishing at the Point again, and checking in on the gray-haired firstborn of the island, Ms. Ariana.

Sadina nodded to Isaac; he must have been waiting to vote with her and for that she was thankful. Why was she so nervous about this? She took a breath so big that all the little bones in her neck cracked. She couldn't believe Old Man Frypan actually voted to stay put, night after night forever, because even her body ached from sleeping on the stony ground. The tiniest rock or clump of clay woke her up in discomfort every night. Trish made Sadina a woven grass pad to sleep on but it didn't help much. There weren't enough grass pads in the whole mainland to keep her there. Heck, even the wooden boards and half-broken cots on the Maze Cutter were more comfortable.

"Next vote." Sadina's mom cleared her throat again as if that made whatever she had to say next more official. "All those in favor of going to Alaska, raise your hands."

Sadina watched as one by one, Minho, Orange, and Roxy raised their arms with confidence. If Sadina had to be anywhere when trouble came, she'd want Minho and Orange to be around. She couldn't shake the feeling, like a tickle in her spine, that Alaska was where she was supposed to be. Letti and Timon might not have known everything but the one thing they knew for sure was that the Villa wasn't going to help in the way Kletter thought it was. Or the way Kletter lied that it could. Sadina squeezed Trish's hand and locked eyes with her. One set of clasped hands rose because Trish wasn't letting go of Sadina—not even to vote. Because Trish had Sadina's back no matter what. Even if Sadina was wrong.

But Sadina looked at Isaac in confusion. Did he forget to vote? She waited for his hand to go up, but it didn't.

"All those in favor of going to the Villa, raise your hands." Cowan asked the final question, the only option left, and Sadina watched as Isaac and her mom both raised their hands, along with Miyoko. How could one of her best friends and her mom both think that they knew better than her when it came to what she did with her own DNA? Sure, Kletter scared them into coming off the island but were they all forgetting how she killed the crew of eight people before she got there? What if Kletter was just a master manipulator? What if those eight people she killed were all scientists too? There was just too much yet to learn and it sounded like going to Alaska to meet the Godhead was the only way they'd have answers. Real answers.

Sadina shook off Trish's hand. "The Villa? Really? You do remember scientists were to blame for all of this in the first place?" She couldn't hold it in. "The Flare Virus. The Flare Coalition, WICKED, the Maze, the Trials—and here you are voting to just trust those in the same position?" Sadina couldn't believe she was the only one to question things. Isaac and her mom lowered their hands, but they didn't say anything.

How could they not speak? Sadina had so many questions running through her head that kept her awake at night. Like what if . . . what if the scientists wanted to infect Sadina and the islanders to send them back so that everyone on the island, all the way up to poor Ms. Ariana of the firstborns, got infected with something new? What if it wasn't about curing anyone at all? What if all they wanted were fresh new test subjects? What if the trials never ended? Who could Sadina actually trust? All questions that floated through her mind and kept her up at night.

"Well, I guess it's decided then. Alaska has the votes," Sadina's mom said with failed enthusiasm.

"What if we took the top two and we all voted again to see if—" Dominic suggested but Sadina's mom cut him off.

"This isn't a swimmers' champion bracket like Midsummer Day on the island. These are the majority rules. We are going to Alaska."

Even though her vote for Alaska won the majority, Sadina hated how they'd reached their solution. Why did Isaac's vote, Jackie"s vote, and Miyoko's vote feel like betrayal?

Sadina watched as Old Man Frypan pulled out his Book of Newt and Jackie stared deep into the fire. Isaac finished cleaning up dinner with Roxy and everyone but Minho looked heavy from the responsibility of choosing what path lay next.

"Alaska it is." Minho tossed a handful of brush onto the fire and it seemed to sizzle and clap with approval.

"You okay?" Trish asked Sadina.

"Yeah," she replied without thinking.

"Are you lying to me?" Trish shot back.

Sadina stopped to think. Trish was right, she knew her better than anyone. "Why do I feel like this is the last time we'll all be together? That not everyone will go to Alaska?" She waited for Trish to make the face she always did when Sadina was being extra dramatic, but it didn't come.

"I know what you mean," she replied instead. "I kind of had the same feeling."

She stood alone on her balcony and watched in wonder as the full pallet of colors from the Aurora Borealis filled the sky like never before. The milky-green of the northern lights had never left, coating the town in a fog-like feel. But tonight, the sky lit up to reflect all the colors of the rainbow. Bright blues, oranges, and purples appeared as ribbons after so many years without them. Pinks hung low, pulling at the purples, and if Alexandra looked closely enough, she could even see a swirl of red racing above as if to announce something more. Could it be? Yes. It was time.

Alaska was ready for the Evolution.

Alexandra was ready.

And this moment she embraced before her was all too perfect. The lights danced in the sky, named lifetimes ago after Aurora, the Roman Goddess of Dawn and the God, Boreas, of the north winds. It was nearly midnight, but to Alexandra it was the dawn of a new day. The Evolution. She took in a deep breath full of cold Alaskan air and imagined the ancients-of-old and how they must have been shocked upon seeing the lights for the first time. Alexandra had the luxury of time and knowledge that they had lacked. Unlike them, she didn't need to create any fairy tales to tell the people of Alaska about Gods and chariots, she'd simply tell them the truth. The sky was no place for Gods. The only Gods needed on Earth were stationed on the Earth. Scientists. Academics. And those who were blessed with the infinite knowledge of the world—like her.

Even without ever viewing this many colors of the Aurora Borealis before, it took Alexandra only one look at the sky's brilliance for her mind to flood with information. Instant facts about the event—and it was truly an event. The solar winds were more active than ever. Coronal Mass Ejections operated independently from solar flares and blasted particles millions of miles toward space and into the magnetic field of anything in its way. They were blessed with particles that danced with oxygen from the lower atmosphere and produced green flowing curtains of light. Bright blues struck the massive display in places where magnetic winds mixed with nitrogen, and the rare purple lights woven from hydrogen molecules in the atmosphere.

To see such magnificence and not understand it would be a . . . sin.

Yes, a sin.

She took note of the emerald swaths that spread farther and stronger than the other colors, just like she would soon be the strongest voice of the Godhead. A green no longer murky but one that held bright life within it. How she wished Nicholas and Mikhail could see her triumph over Alaska like the lights that floated in front of her.

In a way, Nicholas was there to see it. She turned and opened her balcony curtains just enough so that Nicholas' severed head, in its sealed glass box, could take in the view. With the eyelids removed, Nicholas' eyes bulged out to remind her of his outrageous expressions when he presumed to have read minds. The color of his face and the frayed skin of his neck made her stomach twist, thinking how much pressure Mannus must have used to release each muscle, tendon, and bone from its place.

She found humor in the fact that part of the Godhead was literally just a head now. Nicholas, always the scholar, would've appreciated the play on words. "As soon as they find the rest of you, you're out of here."

She set the glass box on the table. She didn't think discovering Nicholas' body should have taken so long, but with all the traveling he did and all of his secret trips, no one had even noticed the weeks without him. No one missed him. She certainly didn't miss him hovering over her thoughts. The freedom that Nicholas' death afforded her went beyond the ability to finally execute her plans, it freed her mind from his intrusiveness. Even now, she looked forward to the day she'd be fully and finally freed from him once and for all and not have to stare at his decaying face. But she needed to keep what remained, just long enough for Mikhail to know that she was in control now.

She was the One above all. The Goddess of the new Dawn.

Bright, colorful streaks swirled prominently above, brighter than ever before, and below Alexandra's balcony the Pilgrims came out in flocks to look up at the night sky. People pointed upward, arms skinny from a weak harvest season and their mustard yellow cloaks dirty from everyday life. But this moment allowed them hope. And she, Goddess Romanov, would be the one to deliver on that hope.

A knock at the door made her ears buzz. She shook the noise from her head and quickly shuffled to place a cloth cover over the glass box holding Nicholas' head. "What is it?"

Flint swung the door open as if the rapture was upon them, out of breath like a flight of stairs could kill him. He'd never have survived in the times of the Maze. Sometimes Alexandra thought of sending Flint down there just for a week or three to prove it.

"Well, what is it? You're fluffing and puffing like the world's on fire."

"The lights. The skylights!" Flint pointed to the balcony as if Alexandra didn't have her own eyeballs.

"Yes. Of course the lights are back." Alexandra moved the covered head of Nicholas closer to the balcony so he could watch her change the world. She smirked. How many times had Nicholas begged her to be patient. Begged her not to be brash. "The lights are a sign of the Evolution. Everything is evolving, Flint. This is just the beginning."

"People are crying in the streets. Talking of sacrifices."

"Don't be an idiot." Alexandra dismissed his fear.

"I'm scared there will be more Hollowings tonight." Flint stood at the doorway, neither in nor out—exactly how he acted within life—teetering on the edge of faith or fear. Alexandra had no time for teetering. The Evolution was finally, after years of pause, upon them. "Nicholas should calm the people and—"

She cut Flint off, "I will calm the people. Tell the Pilgrims their Goddess will address them tomorrow and that if any Hollowings take place tonight, I'll see that the sacrificers are the next to be sacrificed. Can you handle that?"

He nodded. He bowed. He left.

Alexandra ripped the cover from Nicholas' box.

"Enjoy the view."