The Ask and the Answer

And so it’s in Mistress Coyle’s arms that the last bit of my journey is taken. And it’s in Mistress Coyle’s arms that I enter the camp of the Answer.

Finally the cart stops and the panel is removed almost immediately.

“We’re here,” says the younger soldier, the blond one. “Everyone okay?”

“Why wouldn’t we be?” Mistress Coyle says sourly. She lets go of me and scoots her way out of the compartment, extending a hand to help me out, too. I ignore it, getting myself out and looking at my surroundings.

We’ve come down a steep rocky path that’s barely fit for a cart and into what looks like a gash of rocks in the middle of a forest. Trees press in on every side, a row of them on the level ground in front of us.

The ocean must be beyond them. Either I dozed off for longer than I thought or she lied and it’s closer than she said.

Which wouldn’t surprise me.

The blond soldier whistles when he sees our faces, and I can feel caked blood under my nose. “I can get you something for that,” he says.

“She’s a healer,” Mistress Coyle says. “She can do it herself.”

“I’m Lee,” he says to me, a grin on his face.

For a brief second, I’m completely aware of how terrible I must look with my bloody nose and this ridiculous outfit.

“I’m Viola,” I say to the ground.

“’Ere’s yer bag,” Wilf says, suddenly next to me, holding out the canvas sack of medicines and bandages. I look at him for a second and then I pretty much throw myself at him in a hug, pulling him tight to me, feeling the big, safe bulk of him. “Ah’m glad to see yoo, Hildy,” he says.

“You, too, Wilf,” I say, my voice thick. I let him go and take the bag.

“Corinne pack that?” Mistress Coyle asks.

I fish out a bandage and start cleaning the blood from my nose. “What do you care?”

“You can accuse me of many things,” she says, “but not caring isn’t one of them, my girl.”

“I told you,” I say, catching her eye, “never call me that again.”

Mistress Coyle licks her teeth. She makes a quick glance to Lee and to the other soldier, Magnus, and they leave, quickly, disappearing into the trees ahead of us. “You, too, Wilf.”

Wilf looks at me. “Yoo gone be all right?”

“I think so, Wilf,” I say, swallowing, “but don’t you go far.”

He nods, touching the brim of his hat again and walking after the soldiers. We watch him go.

“All right.” Mistress Coyle turns to me, crossing her arms. “Let’s hear it.”

I look at her, at her face full of defiance, and I feel my breath quicken, the anger rising up again so fast, so easily, it feels like I might crack in two. “How dare you–”

But she’s interrupting, already. “Whoever contacts your ships first has the advantage. If he’s first, he tells them all about the nasty little terrorist organization he’s got on his hands and can they please use their guidance equipment to track us down and blow us off the face of New World.”

“Yes but if we–”

“If we got to them first, yes, of course, we could have told them all about our local tyrant, but that was never going to happen.”

“We could have tried–”

“Did you know what you were doing when you ran towards that tower?”

I clench my fists. “No, but at least I could have–”

“Could have what?” Her eyes challenge me. “Sent out a message to the very coordinates the President’s been searching for? Don’t you think he was counting on you trying? Just why exactly do you think you haven’t been arrested yet?”

I dig my nails into my palms, forcing myself not to hear what she’s saying.

“We were running out of time,” she says. “And if we can’t use it to contact help, then at the very least we prevent him from doing the same.”

“And when they land? What’s your brilliant plan then?”

“Well,” she says, uncrossing her arms and taking a step towards me, “if we haven’t overthrown him, then there’s a race to get to them first, isn’t there? At least this way, it’s a fair fight.”

I shake my head. “You had no right.”

“It’s a war.”

“That you started.”

“He started it, my girl.”

“And you escalated it.”

“Hard decisions have to be made.”

“And who put you in charge of making them?”

“Who put him in charge of locking away half the population of this planet?”

“You’re blowing people up!”

“Accidents,” she says. “Deeply regrettable.”

Now it’s my turn to take a step towards her. “That sounds exactly like something he would say.”

Her shoulders rise and if she had Noise, it would be taking the top of my head off. “Have you seen the women’s prisons, my girl? What you don’t know could fill a crater–”

“Mistress Coyle!” A voice calls from the trees. Lee steps back into the rocky gash. “There’s a report just come in.”

“What is it?” Mistress Coyle says.

He looks from her to me. I look at the ground again.

“Three divisions of soldiers marching down the river road,” he says, “full out for the ocean.”

I look up sharply. “They’re coming here?”

Both Mistress Coyle and Lee look at me.

“No,” Lee says. “They’re going to the ocean.”

I blink back and forth between them. “But aren’t we–?”

“Of course not,” Mistress Coyle says, her voice flat, mocking. “Whatever made you think we were? And whatever, I wonder, makes the President think we are?”

I feel an angry chill, despite the sun, and I notice I’m shaking inside these big stupid puffy sleeves.

She was testing me.

As if I would tell the Mayor where–

“How dare you–” I start to say again.

But the anger suddenly fades as it comes flooding back.

“Todd,” I whisper.

Ocean all over his Noise.

How he promised to hide it.

And how I know he’d keep that promise–

If he could.

(oh, Todd, did he–?)

(are you–?)

Oh, no.

“I have to go back,” I say. “I have to save him–”