Page 70 of Fable for the End of the World

“Maybe,” I say, in a voice that seems too distant to be my own. “We have to try.”

My limbs feel dull and heavy as I cross the room to Inesa. I take her hand and pull her to her feet. She swallows and squares her shoulders, as if to steel herself, and then, with a surprising show of strength, she hurls the chair away from the door. Almost dragging me after her, she bursts out of the cabin, into the cold, brisk air that seems to cut my eyes like broken glass.

The fire is so vivid that the real world is just its backdrop now. The Dogs, still caught in the cabin walls, start to reverse, their robotic legs pumping in a furious gyre.

We only have enough time to make it to the trees before they’ve extricated themselves. They back up with mechanical precision, eyeless metal hulls trained on us. Their sides are scuffed with bullet marks, and one of them is limping, the end of its front leg missing.

Inesa still has her fingers laced with mine, the bottle of kerosene grasped in her other hand. She raises her arm, the bottle arcing over her head. I lift my rifle, bracing it on my shoulder, and try to tunnel my vision into the scope, but suddenly everything is engulfed in flames.

And then the real world drops away. Memories flower up in its place. I can feel the heat of the remembered fire, taste the smoke in the air. And I can see Keres in front of me, black hair loose and wild around her shoulders, her eyes smoldering like embers. Their fury sears my skin.

She’s holding a gun—a handgun, not a rifle, silver instead of black. It’s Azrael’s gun, I realize with a start, the one he always keeps tucked under his coat. She raises it until the barrel is pointed at her temple, her finger trembling over the trigger.

Azrael’s voice comes, and it’s too smooth, too casual.

“Put that down, Keres,” he says, as slick as oil. “That’s enough now.”

“No,” she bites out.

We’re in her room. I’ve been here a hundred times before. There’s the bed, the sheets tucked in neatly by the anonymous hands of a maid. There’s her wardrobe door, flung open, dozens of identical black suits hanging like strung-up corpses. There’s the window, spreading from floor to ceiling behind her, the City lights gleaming behind the glass. And to her left there’s the fireplace, flames licking upward, the only disturbance in the still, heavy air.

I think I’m too stunned to speak. The rest of the memory returns in increments. Moments ago I had been lying in Keres’s bed, our limbs entwined, our hair tangled on the sheets. And then there was Azrael, wrenching me from my half-dreaming state, pulling me up by my elbow and marching me to the door. And then there was Keres—up on her feet in the span of a breath, grabbing the gun strapped to his belt.

“You can’t keep doing this to us,” she says, her voice strangled with tears that will never fall. “I’m finished. I’m done.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Azrael says. “You’re making a fool of yourself.”

“Shut up!” she cries. “Just shut up!”

Her finger brushes the trigger, but she can’t bring herself to pull it. A hard lump is lodged in my throat and my mind is swimming. All the words I might say are lost to me, falling and falling endlessly through a thousand black spaces.

“Put it down,” Azrael says, more sternly this time. “I mean it. Or I’ll do the final Wipe and you’ll be on Van Wyck’s arm in a week.”

I remember now. I’d been having nightmares about the girl. Sanne. I’d snuck into Keres’s room, in the cold cover of night. She’d blamed herself, for not being able to do the Gauntlet, for Azrael making me do it in her place. She was still woozy from the painkillers, from the antirejection medication, some of her stitches still leaking, and she told me she’d hardly slept in weeks. She told me her body was betraying her. She told me it had never really been her own.

She was a fuse that had burned nearly to its end.

Azrael takes a step closer. Keres doesn’t move. Her arm is trembling, the barrel of the gun pressed hard against her temple. Her blue eyes are like smoked glass.

“Come on, now,” Azrael says. He’s mere feet away from her. Close enough, almost, to reach out and grab the gun. “It’s not worth this, Keres. I’ll do a Wipe, and you won’t even remember it by tomorrow.”

Her gaze flashes, welling with impossible tears. Her lips pull back into a snarl, half anger, half pain, like a wounded animal, and she says, “No.You’ll never do that to me again.”

And then she shoots—but not at herself. In the space of a breath, she aims the gun at the base of the fireplace and pulls the trigger. The bullet flies.

“No!” I shout. I lunge for her.

But the fire divides us. Her bullet hits the gas tank, and the world explodes in red and gold. Heat billows outward. Smoke engulfs her. I inhale it and it chokes me and I drop to my knees, gasping. There’s the acrid scent of burnt leather in the air. And then there’s Azrael, his hand on the collar of my shirt, dragging me backward as if I’m a dog he’s got by the scruff of its neck. Keres has vanished behind the flames.

The memory melts away and the real world resurrects itself before my eyes.

I’m in a universe of ice and snow. Keres is gone; Azrael is gone; there are only the Dogs pacing toward me, crunching the frost under their robot feet, and Inesa, still holding my hand. The warmth and pressure of her grip bring me back to myself. She’s real; she’s here; she’s alive.

I can save her. I might have failed Keres, but I won’t fail her.

In one brisk, rough motion, I yank the bottle of kerosene from her hand. She’s too shocked to protest, to fight back. Her eyes grow wide with bewildered horror.

I give her a harsh shove and she tumbles backward, falling into the snow. I feel the reverberation of the impact in the soles of myfeet when she hits the ground. She scrambles upright, brushing her hair out of her face, but by the time she processes what I’m about to do, it’s too late. I step between her and the whirring, man-made monsters.

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