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)
I turn again, so my body is facing the Maiden Tower, and I realize that if I knew which of the windows in that tower across the canal belonged to Clara, I could wave to her from here. Though she wouldn’t be able to see me. All she would see was a blue dome. But maybe I could see her.
The Maiden Tower is an enormous building for having never housed more than ten people at a time, except during the three months of Choosing when the Little Sisters live in ground-floor dorms. But most of the auxiliary buildings are classrooms and communal centers where thousands of teenage girls learn how to be good little ladies for the monster in the tower because god forbid they enter said tower not knowing which fucking fork to use while eating their salad.
It’s so ridiculous. Actually, no that’s the wrong word. It’s gross. The way we send those teenage girls to those classes and how we have set up Extraction Day as some kind of contest to win.
And how, if you’re Chosen, but not actually Chosen—i.e. you are numbers two through ten—then we will give you celebrity status. We, the good, honest, trustworthy people of Tau City, will give you coin, and pretty dresses, and gorgeous bedrooms, and a lady’s maid to make you feel beautiful every single morning. So that you get through your day without having to think too hard about how your participation in this whole Extraction event is really just your tacit consent to sacrifice one of your friends to a god who lives in the tower that runs our city through the power of spark—which might as well be magic, that’s how much we understand it.
Even after a thousand years, we know so little about how the world works. It’s pathetic.
But that’s not the point.
The point is that we pay them off with promises so that they never have to think about how close to death they actually are. Because while they are living in a very nice tower, and while they are wearing the very finest silk dresses, and while they are both entertaining the city and being entertained—what they’re really doing is waiting to be a meal for that god in the tower, should his appetite for Spark Maidens ever increase.
Of course, none of them want to be number one, but they all know someone will.
And still, nearly every twelve-year-old girl in Tau City signs up to be a Pledge to the god. And their parents allow this. They allow their little girls to volunteer to be offerings. Thousands of them, every decade. And then they spend their entire teenage life learning how to be good little sacrifices so if they actually are Chosen, they don’t scream in public when they end up standing in front of that black door, watching their friend disappear. Or, heavens forbid, they themselves have to walk through and vanish, never to be seen again.
Then these Chosen few—these sacrificial Spark Maidens—they spend the next decade getting paid to shut up about the fear they swallow every night with those fancy dinners. Bribes to make sure that the Little Sisters coming up after them don’t think about how they will be killed, or raped, or whatever, should that god inside that tower ring a bell and make them walk through those doors.
I was there. I was there with Clara through this whole godforsaken ritual. I went with her to sign up when she turned twelve. I walked her to the classes every weekend. I was her partner for all the Choosings, I clapped when she was Chosen, I let out a breath when I learned she was number nine, and then I comforted her that night when Imogen Gibson walked through the tower doors lit up in bright blue spark.
But it was still just a tradition.
Then I watched the creeping fear build inside her as, time after time, the insatiable god called for more, more, more. I watched the relief on her face each night after one of her friends disappeared into the tower. Because it was over now and the fear could be forgotten. It was something to be tucked away. Put into a little compartment in her head where she didn’t have to think too hard about what just actually happened.
And still, it was just our custom.
How did I not see it for what it was?
How did I fail Clara Birch so spectacularly?
I don’t sleep.
I don’t think anyone in the whole city sleeps because those fucking bells are ringing nonstop and they will continue to ring nonstop until the eighth Maiden—say her name, at least, Finn. Say her fucking name. Give her that much respect—they will ring until Haryet Chettle walks through those massive, black doors at midnight tonight, never to be seen again.