Page 41 of Fable for the End of the World

The Wend collapses, arms and legs folding in on themselves. Gagging, the Lamb shoves its limp corpse off her. Her chest rises and falls in short, panicked breaths. Tears shine in the corners of her eyes.

Then her gaze lifts to mine. I can see the deep-earth shade of her irises perfectly—not quite green, not quite brown. A color I don’t have a name for.

“Thank you,” she says softly.

The wooziness is returning, and I don’t trust my voice not to shake. I just nod.

The Lamb gets to her feet, panting, hair strewn wildly about her face. It’s dark brown, somehow both soft and deep. She brushes it back with shaking hands.

I don’t tell her the truth. I can barely even admit it to myself. Instead it hardens inside me like a pearl, this shameful secret. It would have been easy to let her die like this. Azrael wouldn’t have blamed me—neither of us had prepared for the Wends. But I never once considered letting them kill her.

Fifteen

Inesa

The clearing is littered with the bodies of the Wends, some ofthem still twitching. Hideous, gray, rotting things that had looked half dead even when they were alive. The smell that clouds the air is thick and oily enough to taste.

A few of them, including the one that nearly killed me, still have their eyes open. On its back, gaze flung skyward, the last thing it saw were the gauzy gray-blue clouds, speared through with thin beams of sunlight. I wonder if its mind was too far gone, or if it could still recognize this as something beautiful.

Luka thinks I’m crazy for believing that anything about this world is beautiful, from the vivid, irradiated sunsets to the reflection of the moon on the murky reservoir. If he were here, he would tell me I’m insane for feeling a knot of pity in my stomach for the Wends. Why should I feel anything but hate and revulsion for these barely human creatures, creatures that almost tore out my throat with their teeth?

Beside me, the Angel sways on her feet. The rifle has slippedfrom her grasp, the exertion of the past few minutes overpowering her at last. Instinctively, I move to catch her, and manage to grab her arm before she collapses.

“I’m fine,” she bites out.

I struggle to sling her arm around my shoulders. “You need to rest.”

Her eyes shift blearily around the clearing. “Will there be more?”

“I’m not sure.” I bite my lip. “I think... I think we’re safe for now.”

The Angel gives a small, tight nod. The bruise that Luka left on her temple looks more black than purple now, darkened with deep, tar-like blood.

“I’m sorry,” I blurt out.

As soon as I speak, I realize how absurd I sound. How absurd it is that I’m helping her limp across the clearing instead of running without looking back—or, better yet, sinking my knife into her chest. Well,herknife, the one Luka jerked from the tree in the clearing. It would be a tragically ironic, cinematic ending—if only the cameras were here to capture it.

The Angel just stares at me, gaze remarkably steady. Even her left eye, the prosthetic, seems somehow focused. There’s a depth to it that I hadn’t noticed before. I can see more than just my own reflection.

At last, she says, “I don’t blame you.” A pause. “Or your brother.”

“We all do what we have to do in order to survive.”

The response is automatic, conditioned. Dad repeated it so many times that it’s engraved in my mind. The law that governs all nature. The law that can be used to justify anything, if you can twist and warp the words to fit. Dad was especially clever about it. I’m sure, in the end, he convinced himself that he left us behind in the name ofsurvival.

The Angel blinks slowly. Her white-blond hair falls like a sheet over her shoulder, shimmery as silk, seemingly unaffected by the dense, humid air.

“Yes,” she says. “We do.”

We stagger through the woods like a single awkward, lurching creature. I’m not even trying to orient myself anymore. I’m too exhausted to pay attention to the placement of the moss or the weakening, watery shafts of sunlight.

Inevitably, the rain picks up again. It’s just a light patter at first, gentle, almost soothing. I can imagine myself back in Esopus, tucked into my cot while the rain beats against our tin roof. I can see Luka’s shadow through the curtain that divides our beds, silent but steady. Neither of us needed to speak. The air was heavy, and I could feel the pulse of the words that rose in both our chests.I’m here. I’m here.

The Angel tenses suddenly, jolting me from the memory. Her head snaps up, panic in her eye.

“We have to get out of here,” she says hoarsely. “To shelter.”

Her teeth are chattering, and her skin is mottled blue. The abrupt switch in her demeanor unnerves me. I shift my position soI can get a better grip on her, wrapping my arm more tightly around her waist and dovetailing our fingers together.

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