Total pages in book: 210
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
My head starts spinning. There is a terrible, awful ache in my chest, and for a moment, I think I might actually pass the fuck out. Because he just said… food.
I fed the woman I love to a god. I really did. And I knew this was a possibility, but it was something far-fetched. Something inconceivable. Something… impossible.
And now it is not only conceivable, it is real.
“Finn? Are you paying attention? I’m trying to write as fast as I can, but it’s taking too long to find the right letters!”
I turn and realize Jasina is the tapping out words on the glass. She is frantically trying to write down everything my father is saying by tapping on letters that are lit up on the glass.
She yells at me. “Pay attention!”
I turn back to my father and force myself to listen.
Something about trains. Something about tunnels. There are other places outside of Tau City. And men who aren’t men, but something called augments.
“And the bookshelves, Finn,” my father continues. “The ones outside this room. They are hidden doors to secret passageways that lead to towers. One to the Maiden Tower—it opens up into the Little Sister dorm—but the other one leads to the God’s Tower. This is the important one and here is what you need to do…”
I listen and Jasina taps behind me. My father goes on at length, taking great pains to give me details, most of which I can’t make sense of. But I trust him and I know that if I do as he says, one day I will understand.
When he finally stops, after he says a final goodbye and the triangle ceiling tiles return to the view of the night sky and a clock appears counting down ten hours, I let out a long breath and turn to look at Jasina. She’s still tapping on the glass, trying to get the last of his words down, so I wait until she stops before asking, “Can we watch it again?”
She looks bewildered for a moment. Her hair is a bit messy, her face is pale, and she’s slightly out of breath. “Let me try.”
If she wasn’t here, I’d be lost right now. There’s no way I’d have figured out this glass top, not the way she did. I’d have missed the message. Hell, I’m fairly certain it would’ve never occurred to me to take notes.
“I don’t think so, Finn. I think the clock up there?” We both look up at the countdown. “It was a signal that the message was over.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
“But I need a notepad and a pencil. Oh!” She holds up a finger. “In your desk.” Then she’s rushing to the door and pulling it open. The night sky disappears and so does the countdown, but we know that’s because the door is open and that seal has been broken.
I follow her out. “How do you know what’s in my desk?”
But she’s not at the desk. She’s staring at the window. And when I turn my gaze to the window, I realize why. There is a bright cyan-blue light floating up from down below.
“What the hell is that?” I walk over to the window and look down, squinting my eyes, because…
“Is that… Clara, Finn? Kissing some man?”
It is. But not. It’s… like an outline of Clara made of spark. And she is kissing a man, also just an outline of blue spark—in fact everything is blue spark down there. I’ve processed this for barely a second when movement above draws my attention to a bubble of spark rising up past the dome of the Extraction Tower. There is a man floating in the middle of this bubble. The same man who is kissing my Clara in the apparition down below. Only he’s not an outline, he’s… like real.
We lock eyes. His narrow. Then they suddenly light up—like there’s spark inside him.
And then, even from all the way up here and from behind glass, I begin to hear the crowd.
Dozens of people have gathered and all of them are watching Clara Birch kiss a man who looks nothing like the god I imagined inside that tower.
Who isn’t a god. Can’t be a god. Because my father just told me that there are no gods in the tower.
Did he actually say that? It’s… life-altering, this revelation. And yet, it’s like it hasn’t hit me yet. I can’t seem to make any sense of things. Especially this man floating out in front of my tower.
But he’s not a man, either.
My father made that clear as well. And even though his speech didn’t come with a picture of what this man is, I don’t need a picture.
I know.
Men who aren’t men, but something called augments.
He’s an augment.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Iknow it’s Anneeta at the door before Clara calls out, “Who is it?” and Anneeta answers, “It’s me.”