Page 61 of Fable for the End of the World

Once the words start coming, I can’t stop them. I’ve never spoken about this before, to anyone. Luka and I don’t talk about it, because we’ve lived it, and what is there to say? But there’s an odd relief in being able to piece it all together into a story. A weight lifts from my chest. It’s like the first breath after surfacing from the water.

“Luka was always her favorite,” I go on. “She never yelled at him the way she yelled at me. He always seemed to know how to do the right thing. And if she was angry, he could shake it off. He never complained. Never cried. Not even when Dad left, even though I know how much it hurt. I suppose...”

I trail off, a lump hardening in my throat. Melinoë is still watching me steadily.

“I suppose,” I say, voice thick, “that if I were my mother, I’d have chosen to keep Luka, too. He’s the strong one. He’s the one worth saving.”

A little bit of fresh blood seeps through the bandages. I fold my fingers shut over my palms.

“I’ve never heard you complain,” Melinoë says quietly. “And I’ve never seen you cry.”

I can’t help but give a short laugh, because my eyes are almost watering as we speak. “Maybe you haven’t been paying attention.”

Moments drip by, like water through a crack in the wall. Then, in the same low tone, she says, “I’ve been paying attention.”

Twenty-Four

Melinoë

My hour or so of sleep has just left me more disoriented. At least,that’s the only reason I can imagine why my heart hums as I listen to Inesa speak. It’s not a droning, choppy sound like helicopter blades, but a soft, insistent murmur that warms me from my cheeks to the tips of my gloved fingers.

Inesa stands up, hiking the borrowed pants up around her waist. “Well, come on,” she says. “I’ll show you how to light the stove.”

“You look ridiculous,” I tell her, gesturing at the oversize clothes.

The corner of her mouth lifts in a deadpan smile. “Maybe Caerus should outfit the Lambs with fancy suits, then. It’s only fair that we should get to look so graceful and pretty, too.”

She says it in an offhand way and then immediately turns her back to me, so I’m sure that I’ve misheard. I stay glued to the floor, heat rushing to my face.She thinks I’m pretty?

She’s been paying attention to me, too. I still can’t believe thosewords slipped from my tongue. We must both be decompensating from hunger.

Inesa kneels in front of the stove and opens the firebox. There’s nothing but soot and ashes inside, the remnants of a fire that burned out a long, long time ago. There’s also no wood or coal to be found in the cabin. It makes me wonder again if the owner died of sickness, because something must have prevented him from chopping down the trees just outside.

As it turns out, it’s even simpler than that—we don’t need the axe at all. There are enough fallen logs on the ground, and branches that we can break off with just our hands. Carefully avoiding the trip wire, we gather as much wood as we can. Then we bring our piles inside and heap them next to the stove.

The main problem is that all the wood is damp. Inesa strikes match after match, trying to get the wood to catch, but the flame keeps sizzling out against the wet bark. Her eyes search the room. Then she stands up, suddenly, and seizes a white bottle tucked in the corner behind the door.

“Kerosene,” she says. “It’s what’s inside the oil lamps. We can use it to start the fire, too.”

She starts to douse the wood, then stops. Giving a humorless laugh, she says, “My dad would be so ashamed of me, if he could see this. Norealsurvivalist would have to resort to kerosene to make a fire.”

“You’ve survived longer than ninety-six percent of Lambs.” Azrael’s statistics are stamped inside the most rigid part of my brain. “That must count for something.”

“I think it’s possible there are other explanations for that.”

My cheeks prickle with warmth.

When she’s finished dousing the wood, she places the kerosene bottle at a safe distance, then goes over to rinse her hands in the bucket. The bandages on her palms have become almost completely saturated in blood, both old and new. I’ll have to replace them. For some reason, my skin prickles at the thought of this, of touching her again.

“Just to be safe,” says Inesa when she returns. “It’s not as flammable as gasoline, but—well, you’ll see.”

She strikes a match and tosses it inside, then quickly slams the door to the stove shut. The explosion follows a fraction of a second later. I find myself jolting slightly forward, as if to pull her back, but I manage to quash the instinct. Behind the door, flames burst to life, roaring red and orange, licking ferociously at the soot-stained glass. Heat swells outward.

Something pulls my gaze to the fire behind the glass. I can’t blink, and I can’t look away. It happens so suddenly that I’m stunned to silence, just watching the flames flicker and rise, yellow tongues licking within the wisps of smoke, and I think,I’ve seen it before.

A memory, surfacing from somewhere deep within me. Layered across my vision, another fire blooms. A sensation unfurls from the pit of my stomach—the shaky juddering of adrenaline. And for some reason, my brain forms a word, a name.

Keres.

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