There were others, quite a few, who were not sleeping either. The night was alive with wakeful souls. Galen Strauss, for one: standing at his post on the north wall-Firing Platform Ten-squinting into the pooling glow of the lights, Galen was telling himself, for the hundredth time that day, that he wasn't a complete fool. The need to say this-he had actually caught himself muttering the words under his breath-meant of course he was. Even he knew that. He was a fool. He was a fool because he'd believed he could make Mausami love him, as he loved her; he was a fool because he'd married her when everyone knew she was in love with Theo Jaxon; he was a fool because when she'd told him about the baby, spouting her stupid lie about how many months it was, he'd swallowed his pride and plastered an idiotic smile on his face, saying only: A baby. Wow. How about that.

He'd known damn well whose baby it was. One of the wrenches, Finn Darrell, had told Galen about that night down at the station. Finn had gotten up to take a leak and, hearing a noise from one of the storage rooms, had gone to check it out. The door was closed, Finn explained, but you didn't have to open it to know what was happening on the other side. Finn was the kind of guy who took a little too much pleasure from giving you news he thought you needed to hear; from the way he told the story, Galen guessed he'd stood outside the door a lot longer than he needed to. Jeez, Finn said, she always make noises like that?

Fucking Finn Darrell. Fucking Theo Jaxon.

And yet, for a hopeful moment, Galen had entertained the notion that maybe a baby would make things better between them. A dumb idea, but still he'd thought it. But of course the baby only made them fight more. If Theo had returned from that ride down the mountain, probably they would have told him right then; Galen could pretty much imagine the scene. We're sorry, Galen. We should have told you. It just kind of ... happened. Humiliating, but at least it would have been over by now. The way things stood, he and Maus would have to live with this lie between them forever. Probably they'd end up despising each other, if they didn't despise each other already.

He was thinking these things while also dreading the morning to come, when he was supposed to ride down to the station. The order had come from Ian, though Galen had the feeling it wasn't his idea, that it came from somewhere else-Jimmy, probably, or maybe Sanjay. He could take a runner with him, but that was all; they couldn't spare the hands. Box it up and wait for the next relief crew, Ian had said, three days tops. Okay, Galen? You can handle this? And of course he'd said he could, no problem. He'd even felt a little flattered. But as the hours passed, he'd found himself regretting his quick compliance. He'd been off the mountain only a few times before, and it was awful-all those empty buildings and slims cooking in their cars-but that wasn't the worst of it, not really. The problem was that Galen was afraid. He was afraid all the time now, more and more as the days went by and the world around him continued its slow, hazy dissolving. People didn't really know how bad his eyesight was, not even Maus. They knew, but they didn't really know, not the full extent, and every day it seemed to be getting worse. As things stood, his field of vision had shrunk to less than two meters; everything beyond that quickly faded into a gassy blankness, all lurching shapes and formless colors and halos of light. He'd tried a variety of eyeglasses from the Storehouse, but nothing seemed to help; all he'd gotten for his troubles were headaches that felt like someone sticking a blade into his temple, so he had long since stopped trying. He was pretty good with voices and could generally aim his face in the right direction, but he missed a lot of things, and he knew this made him seem slow and stupid, which he wasn't. He was just going blind.

Now here he was, a Second Captain of the Watch, riding down the mountain in the morning to secure the station. A trip that, considering what had happened to Zander and Arlo, pretty much felt like suicide to Galen Strauss. He was hoping he'd have a chance to talk to Jimmy about it, maybe make him see some sense, but so far, the guy had not shown up.

And, come to think of it, where was Jimmy? Soo was out there someplace, and Dana Curtis; with Arlo and Theo gone, and Alicia off the Watch for good, Dana had come out of the pits to guard the Wall like everybody else. Galen got along with Dana, and the fact that she was Household now, he reasoned, might give her some sway with Jimmy. Maybe the two of them should talk about this whole go-down-to-the-station thing. Soo was on Nine, Dana on Eight. If he was quick about it, Galen could be back to his post in a matter of just a few minutes. And in point of fact, wasn't that sound he was hearing-a sound of voices nearby, though noises traveled well at night-wasn't that Soo Ramirez? And wasn't the other voice Jimmy's? If Galen could round up Dana too, might it be just a matter of a few right words to get Jimmy to see a little sense? Maybe get Soo or Dana to say, Well, sure, I can go down to the station, I don't see why Galen should be the one?

Just a couple of minutes, Galen thought and, taking up his cross, he began to make his way down the catwalk.

At the same time, hidden away in the old FEMA trailer, Peter and Alicia were playing hands of go-to. With just the light of the spots to see by, the game had an unfocused quality, but both had long since stopped caring who won, if they'd ever cared in the first place. Peter was trying to decide what he should tell Alicia about what had happened in the Infirmary, the voice he'd heard in his mind, but with each passing minute it became more difficult to imagine actually doing this, how he might explain himself. He'd heard words in his head. His mother missed him. I must be dreaming, he told himself, and when Alicia broke his train of thought with an impatient lift of her cards, he only shook his head. It's nothing, he told her. Play your hand.

Also awake at that hour, half-plus-one on the log of the Watch, was Sam Chou. Sam longed for nothing so much as the comfort of his bed and his wife's affectionate arms around him. But with Sandy bedding down in the Sanctuary-she had volunteered to take over for April until someone else could be found-he had suffered a disruption to these customary rhythms, leaving him staring at the ceiling. He was also troubled by a feeling that, as the day had moved into night, he had recognized as embarrassment. That funny business at the lockup: he couldn't quite explain it. In the heat of the moment, he'd honestly believed that something had to be done. But in the intervening hours, and after a trip to the Sanctuary to visit with his children-who seemed none the worse for wear-Sam had discovered that his feelings about the whole Caleb situation had moderated substantially. Caleb was, after all, just a kid, and Sam could now see how putting the boy out would solve very little. He felt a little guilty about manipulating Belle the way he had-with Rey down at the station, the woman was probably out of her mind with worry-and though there was certainly no love lost between him and Alicia, who was too full of herself by half, Sam had to admit that under the circumstances, with that fool Milo egging him on, it was a good thing she'd been there. Who knows what might have happened if she hadn't. When Sam had spoken to Milo later, following up on the day's conversations, most of which had presupposed that if the Household didn't do anything they would take it upon themselves to put the poor kid out, and suggested that maybe they should rethink the situation, see how things looked tomorrow after a good night's rest, Milo had responded with a look of unconcealed relief. Okay, sure, said Milo Darrell. Maybe you're right. Let's see how we feel in the morning.

So Sam was feeling a little bad now about the whole thing, bad and a little confounded, because it wasn't like him to get so angry. It wasn't like him at all. For a second there, outside the lockup, he really had believed it: somebody had to pay. It didn't seem to matter that it was just a defenseless kid who probably thought someone on the catwalk had told him to open the gate. And the most extraordinary thing, really, was that in all that time, Sam hadn't given much or even any thought to the girl, the Walker, who was the reason the whole thing had happened in the first place. Watching the lights of the spots playing on the eaves above his face, Sam wondered why this should be. My God, he thought, after all these years, a Walker. And not just a Walker-a young girl. Sam wasn't one of those people who believed the Army was still coming-you'd have to be pretty stupid to think so after all these years-but a girl like that, it meant something. It meant somebody was still alive out there. Maybe a whole lot of somebodies. And when Sam considered this, he found himself strangely ... uncomfortable with the idea. He couldn't say quite why that was, except that the notion of this girl, this Girl from Nowhere, felt like a piece that didn't fit. And what if all these somebodies just showed up out of the blue? What if she was the beginning of a whole new wave of Walkers, seeking safety under the lights? There was only so much food and fuel to go around. Sure, back in the early days it had probably seemed too cruel to turn the Walkers away. But wasn't the situation a little different now? So many years gone by? Things having achieved a kind of balance? Because the fact was, Sam Chou liked his life. He wasn't one of the worriers, the fretters, the keepers of bad thoughts. He knew people like that-Milo, for one-and he didn't see the sense in it. Awful things could happen, sure, but that was always true, and in the meantime, he had his bed and his house and his wife and his children, they had food to eat and clothes to wear and the lights to keep them safe, and wasn't that enough? The more Sam thought about it, the more it seemed that it wasn't Caleb that something needed to be done about. It was the girl. So maybe in the morning, that's what he'd say to Milo. Something needs to be done about this Girl from Nowhere.

Also awake was Michael Fisher. In the main, Michael viewed sleep as a waste of time. It was just another case of the body's unreasonable demands upon the mind, and his dreams, when he cared to remember them, all seemed to be lightly retooled versions of his waking state-full of circuits and breakers and relays, a thousand problems to be solved, and he would awaken feeling less restored than rudely shot forward in time, with no discernible accomplishments to show for these lost hours.

But that was not the case tonight. Tonight, Michael Fisher was as awake as he'd ever been in his life. The contents of the chip, having disgorged itself into the mainframe-a veritable flood of data-was nothing less than a rewriting of the world. It was this new understanding that had inspired the risk Michael was now taking, running an antenna up to the top of the Wall. He'd started on the roof of the Lighthouse, connecting a twenty-meter spool of eight-gauge uninsulated copper wire to the antenna they'd stuffed up the chimney, months ago. Two more spools had gotten him to the base of the Wall. That was it for the copper he could spare. For the remainder he had decided to use an insulated high-voltage cable he would have to strip by hand. The trick now would be getting it up to the top of the Wall without being seen by the Watch. Having retrieved two more spools from the shed, he stood in the pocket of shadow underneath one of the supporting struts, weighing his options. The closest ladder, twenty meters to his left, led straight up to Platform Nine; there was no way he could climb this unnoticed. There was a second ladder situated midway between Platforms Eight and Seven, which would be ideal-except for the runners, who sometimes used it as a shortcut between Seven and Ten, it had very little traffic-but he didn't have enough cable to reach that far.

That left only one option. Take a spool up the far ladder, move down the catwalk until he was suspended over the cutout, anchor the end of the wire, drop it to the ground below, and descend once more to connect the second wire to the first. All without anyone seeing him.

Michael knelt in the dirt, removed his wire cutters from the old canvas rucksack he used as a toolbag, and set to work, pulling the cable from its spool and stripping the plastic conduit away. At the same time he was listening for the clanging footsteps above his head that would signify a runner going through. By the time the wire was stripped and spooled back up, he'd heard the runners move through twice; he was reasonably certain he'd have a few minutes before the next one came. Depositing everything into the rucksack, he hurried to the ladder, took a deep breath, and began to ascend.

Heights had always been a problem for Michael-he didn't like so much as standing on a chair-a fact that, in his determined state, he had failed to figure in his calculations, and by the time he reached the top of the ladder, an ascent of twenty meters that felt like ten times that many, he was beginning to doubt the wisdom of the entire enterprise. His heart was galloping with panic; his limbs had turned to gelatin. Getting down the catwalk, an open grate suspended above a maw of space, would mandate every ounce of will he possessed. His eyes had begun to sting with sweat as he pulled himself up from the final rung, sliding belly-first onto the grate. Under the glare of the lights, and without the customary reference points of ground and sky to orient him, everything seemed larger and closer, possessing a bulging vividness. But at least no one had noticed him. He cautiously lifted his face: a hundred meters to his left, Platform Eight appeared to be empty, no Watcher on station. Why that should be, Michael didn't know, but he took it as an encouraging sign. If he acted quickly, he could be back in the Lighthouse before anyone was the wiser.

He began to move down the catwalk, and by the time he was in position, he had begun to feel better-a lot better. His fear had receded, replaced by an invigorated sense of possibility. This was going to work. Platform Eight was still empty; whoever was supposed to be there would probably catch hell, but its vacancy gave Michael the opening he needed. He knelt on the catwalk and pulled the coil of wire from his rucksack. Constructed of a titanium alloy, the catwalk would make a serviceable conductor in its own right, adding its attractive electromagnetic properties to the wire's; in essence, Michael was turning the whole perimeter into a giant antenna. He used a wrench to loosen one of the bolts that attached the catwalk's decking to its frame, curled the stripped wire into the gap, and tightened down the bolt. Then he dropped the spool to the ground below, listening for the soft thud of its impact.

Amy, he thought. Who would have thought the Girl from Nowhere would have a name like Amy?

What Michael didn't know was that Firing Platform Eight was empty because the Watcher on station, Dana Curtis, First Family and Household, was already lying dead at the base of the Wall. Jimmy had killed her right after he'd killed Soo Ramirez. Whom he honestly hadn't meant to kill; he'd only wanted to tell her something. Goodbye? I'm sorry? I always loved you? But one thing had led to another in the strangely inevitable manner of that night, the Night of Blades and Stars, and now all three of them were gone.

Galen Strauss, approaching from the opposite direction, witnessed these events as if through the fat end of a telescope: a distant splash of color and movement, far beyond the range of his vision. If it had been anybody else on Platform Ten that night, someone whose eyesight was more robust, who was not going blind from acute glaucoma as Galen Strauss was, a clearer picture of events might have emerged. As it was, what occurred on Firing Platform Nine would never be known by anyone except those directly involved; and even they did not understand it.

What happened was this: The Watcher Soo Ramirez, her thoughts still bobbing in the currents of Belle of the Ball and, in particular, a scene set in a moving coach during a thunderstorm so vividly rendered that she could practically recall it word for word (As the heavens opened, Talbot seized Charlene in his powerful arms, his mouth falling on hers with a searing force, his fingers finding the silken curve of her breast, waves of ardor roiling through her ....), turned to see Jimmy hoisting himself onto the platform; and her first impression, punching through her feelings of conflicted irritation (she resented the interruption; he was late) was that something wasn't right. He doesn't look like himself, she thought. This isn't the Jimmy I know. He stood a moment, his body oddly slack, his eyes squinting with perplexity into the lights; he looked like a man who had come to make an announcement, only to have forgotten his lines. Soo thought maybe she knew what this unspoken declaration was-she'd had a feeling for some time that Jimmy considered the two of them as more than friends-and under different circumstances, she might have been glad to hear this from him. But not now. Not tonight, on Firing Platform Nine.

"It's her eyes," he said faintly; he seemed to be speaking to himself. "At least I thought it was her eyes."

Soo stepped toward him. His face was turned away, as if he couldn't bring himself to look at her. "Jimmy? Whose eyes?"

But he didn't answer her. One hand reached down to the hem of his jersey and proceeded to tug at it, like a nervous boy fumbling with his clothes. "Can't you feel it, Soo?"

"Jimmy, what are you talking about?"

He had begun to blink. Fat, jeweled tears were spilling down his cheeks. "They're all so fucking sad."

Something was happening to him, Soo knew, something bad. In a burst of motion he yanked his jersey over his head and flung it over the edge of the platform. His chest was glazed with sweat that shone in the lights.

"It's these clothes," he growled. "I can't stand these clothes."

She'd left her cross resting against the rampart. She turned to reach for it but she'd waited too long, Jimmy had her from behind, his hands were sliding under her arms, wrapping the back of her neck, and with a sudden twisting motion something snapped at the base of her throat; and just like that her body was gone, her body had drifted away, her body was no more. She tried to cry out but no sound came; flecks of light were drifting in her vision, like shards of silver. (Oh Talbot, Charlene moaned as he moved against her, his manhood a sweet invasion she could no longer deny, oh Talbot yes, let us end this absurd game ... ) She was aware that someone else was coming toward her; she heard a sound of footsteps on the catwalk where she now lay helpless; and then the shot of a cross and muffled, breathy cry. She was in the air now, Jimmy was lifting her up; he was going to throw her over the Wall. She wished she'd lived a different life, but this was the one she had, she didn't want to leave it yet, and then she was falling, down and down and down.

She was still alive when she hit the ground. Time had slowed, reversed, started again. The spots were shining in her eyes; in her mouth, a taste of blood. Above her she saw Jimmy standing at the edge of the nets, naked and gleaming, and then he, too, was gone.

And in the last instant before all thought left her, she heard the voice of the runner Kip Darrell crying from the rampart high above: "Sign, we have sign! Holy shit, they're everywhere!"

But he spoke these words into the darkness. The lights had all gone out.

THIRTY-SIX.

The meeting was called for half-day, under a sky bulging with rain that would not fall. All souls had gathered at the Sunspot, where the long table had been carried out from the Sanctuary. Seated before the assembly were just two men: Walter Fisher and Ian Patal. Walter looked his usual, disheveled self, a wreckage of greasy hair and rheumy eyes and stained clothing he had probably worn for a season; that he was now serving as acting Head of the Household, or what remained of it, was, Peter thought, one of the day's more unpromising facts.

Ian looked far better off, but even he, after the night's events, seemed halting and uncertain, at pains even to bring the meeting to order. It was unclear to Peter what, precisely, his role was-was he sitting as a Patal or as First Captain?-but this seemed a small concern, far too technical to worry about. For now, Ian was in charge.

Standing at the edge beside Alicia, Peter scanned the crowd. Auntie was nowhere to be seen, but that did not surprise him. It had been many years since she'd attended an open meeting of the Household. Also among the missing faces he sought were Michael, who had returned to the Lighthouse, and Sara, still in the Infirmary; he saw Gloria, standing close to the front, but not Sanjay, whose whereabouts, along with Old Chou's, were the source of much of the talk around him, a hum of worry from people who simply had no idea what was happening to them. And it was worry that he heard, at least so far. Outright panic had yet to set in, but Peter saw this as only a matter of time; night would come again.

The other faces he saw, wishing he hadn't, belonged to those who had lost someone, a spouse or child or parent, in the attack. Among this group were Cort Ramirez and Russell Curtis, Dana's husband, who was standing with his daughters, Ellie and Kat, all of them looking benumbed; Karen Molyneau with her two girls, Alice and Avery, their faces washed by grief; Milo and Penny Darrell, whose son Kip, a runner, had been just fifteen years old, the youngest killed; Hodd and Lisa Greenberg, Sunny's parents; Addy Phillips and Tracey Strauss, who looked like she had aged ten years overnight, all vitality drained from her; Constance Chou, Old Chou's young wife, who was fiercely clutching their daughter, Darla, to her side-as if she, too, might slip away from her. It was this grieving body of survivors-for they stood as one, the scope of their loss both forming a cohesive bond among them while also separating them from the others, like a magnetic force that both attracted and repelled-to whom Ian seemed to aim his words when the crowd fell quiet long enough to bring the meeting to order.

Ian began with a recitation of the facts, which Peter already knew, or mostly. Shortly after half-night, for reasons unexplained, the lights had failed. This had apparently been caused by a power surge, which had flipped the main breaker. The only person in the Lighthouse at the time of the incident had been Elton, sleeping in the back; the engineer on duty, Michael Fisher, had briefly stepped out to manually reset one of the vents on the battery stack, leaving the panel unmanned. In this, Ian assured the crowd, Michael was not to blame; leaving the Lighthouse to vent the stack was entirely proper and there was no way Michael could have foreseen the surge that would cause the breaker to flip. All told, the lights had been out for less than three minutes-the time it had taken for Michael to race back to the Lighthouse and reset the system-but in that brief interval, the Wall had been breached. The last report was of a large pod massing at the fireline. By the time power was restored, three souls had been taken: Jimmy Molyneau, Soo Ramirez, and Dana Jaxon. All had been sighted at the base of the Wall, their bodies being dragged away.

That was the first wave of the attack. Ian was clearly at pains to maintain his composure as he related what had next occurred. Though the first, large pod had dispersed, a second, smaller pod of three had approached from the south, mounting an assault on the Wall near Platform Six-the same platform where, sixteen days before, the large female with the distinctive shock of hair had been killed by Arlo Wilson. The split seam that had allowed her ascent had since been repaired, so the three had found no purchase; but that, apparently, was not their intention. By now the Watch was in disarray, all hands moving toward Platform Six; under a storm of arrows and cross bolts, the three virals had tried, again and again, to ascend; while meanwhile, at the unmanned Platform Nine, a third pod-perhaps a part of the second, which had split in two; perhaps a wholly different pod in its own right-had managed to make its way over the Wall.

They'd come straight down the catwalk.

It was a melee. There was no other word. Three more Watchers had been killed before the pod had been repelled: Gar Phillips and Aidan Strauss and Kip Darrell, the runner who had first reported the massing pod at the fireline. A fourth, Sunny Greenberg, who had left her post at the lockup to join the fight, was unaccounted for and presumed lost. Also among the missing-and here Ian paused with a deeply troubled look-was Old Chou. Constance had awakened in the early-morning hours to find him gone; nobody had seen him since. So it seemed likely, though there was no direct evidence of this, that he had left his house in the dead of night to go to the Wall, where among the others he'd been taken. No virals had been killed at all.

That's all, Ian said. That's what we know.

Something was happening, Peter thought; the crowd could feel it too. Never had anybody witnessed an attack like this, its tactical quality. The closest analogue was Dark Night itself, but even then, the virals had given no evidence of presenting an organized assault. When the lights had gone out, Peter had run with Alicia from the trailer park to the Wall to fight with everyone else, but Ian had ordered them both to the Sanctuary, which in the confusion had been left undefended. So what they'd seen and heard had been both softened by distance and made worse because of it. He should have been there, he knew. He should have been on the Wall.

A voice cut through the murmuring of the crowd: "What about the power station?"

The speaker was Milo Darrell. He was holding his wife, Penny, to his side.

"As far as we know, it's still secure, Milo," Ian said. "Michael says there's current still flowing."

"But you said there was a power surge! Somebody should be going down there to check it out. And where the hell is Sanjay?"

Ian hesitated. "I was coming to that, Milo. Sanjay has taken sick. For now, Walter here is serving as Head."

"Walter? You can't be serious."

Walter seemed to regain focus, stiffening in his seat to lift his bleary face toward the assembly. "Wait just a damn minute-"

But Milo cut back in. "Walter's a drunk," he said, his voice rising, becoming bolder. "A drunk and a cheat. Everybody knows it. Who's really in charge here, Ian? Is it you? Because as far as I can tell, nobody is. I say open the Armory, let everybody stand the Wall who wants to. And let's get somebody down to the station right now."

A buzz of acknowledgment shivered the crowd. What was Milo trying to do? Peter thought. Start a riot? He glanced at Alicia; she was staring intently at Milo, her body in a posture of alert, arms held from her sides. All eyes.

"I'm sorry about your boy," Ian said, "but this isn't the time to go off half-cocked. Let the Watch handle this."

But Milo paid him no attention. He swept his gaze over the assembly. "You heard him. Ian said they were organized. Well, maybe we need to be organized, too. If the Watch won't do anything, I say we should."

"Flyers, Milo. Calm down. People are scared, you're not helping."

It was Sam Chou, stepping forward, who spoke next: "They should be scared. Caleb let that girl in here, and now, what, eleven people are dead? She's the reason they're here!"

"We don't know that, Sam."

"I know it. And so does everybody else. Caleb and that girl, that's where this all started. I say let it end with them, too."

Peter heard it then, voices rising here and there: the girl, the girl, people were saying. He's right. It was the girl.

"Just what do you want us to do about it?"

"What do I want you to do?" Sam said. "What you should have done already. They should be put out." He swiveled to face the crowd. "Everyone, listen to me! The Watch won't say it, but I will. Crosses can't protect us, not against this. I say we put them out now!"

And with that, the first echoing voice rose from the crowd, then another and another, gathering into a chorus: Put them out! Put them out! Put them out!

It was, Peter thought, as if a lifetime of worry had come suddenly un-dammed. Up front, Ian was waving his arms, bellowing for silence. The scene seemed poised on the verge of violence, some terrible act. There was nothing to stop it; the pretense of order had been stripped away.

He knew it then: he had to get the girl out of here. Caleb too, whose fate was now bound up with hers. But where could they go? What place would be safe?

He turned to Alicia, but she was gone.

Then Peter saw her. She had barged her way through the roiling mass of people. With an agile hop she mounted the table and spun to face the assembly.

"Everybody!" she cried. "Listen to me!"

Peter felt the crowd tense around him. A fresh dread bored through his veins. Lish, he thought, what are you doing?

"She's not the reason they're here," Alicia said. "I am."

Sam hurled his voice toward her: "Get down, Lish! This isn't up to you!"

"All of you. This is my fault. It's not the girl they want, it's me. I was the one who torched the library. That's what started this. It was a nest, and I led them all right back here. If you're going to put anybody out, I should be the one. I'm the reason those people are dead."

It was Milo Darrell who made the first move, lunging toward the table. Whether or not he was trying to get to Alicia, or Ian, or even Walter was unclear; but with this provocation a force of violence was suddenly unleashed in a wave of pushing and shoving, the crowd surging forward, a vaguely coordinated mass propelled only by itself. The table was overrun; Peter saw Alicia tumbling backward, enveloped by the mob. People were screaming, shouting. Those with children seemed to be trying to move away, while others wanted only to get to the front. The only thought in Peter's mind was to reach Alicia. But as he labored to move forward, he, too, was caught in the crush of bodies. He felt his feet snarling up below him-he sensed that he was stepping on someone-and as he tumbled forward he saw who this person was: Jacob Curtis. The boy had dropped to his knees and was holding his hands protectively over his head against the rain of trampling feet. They impacted with a mutual grunt, Peter somersaulting over the boy's broad back; he scrabbled to his knees and launched forward again, rising through a mass of arms and legs, propelling himself like a swimmer through a sea of people, flinging bodies aside. Something struck him then-a blow to the back of the head that felt like a punch-and as his vision flared he turned, swinging, his fist connecting solidly with a bearded, heavy-browed face that only later did he realize belonged to Hodd Greenberg, Sunny's father. He had by this moment neared the front of the crowd; Alicia was on the ground, fleetingly visible through the throng that surrounded her. Like Jacob, she had drawn her hands up over her head, curling her body into a ball as a pummeling storm of hands and feet fell down upon her.

It wasn't even a question. Peter drew his blade.

What might have happened next, Peter never learned. From the direction of the gate came a second rush of figures: the Watch. Ben and Galen, holding crosses. Dale Levine and Vivian Chou and Hollis Wilson and the others. Weapons drawn, they quickly formed a battle line between the table and the crowd, their presence immediately sending everyone scurrying back.

"Go to your homes!" Ian shouted. Blood was soaking his hair, running down the side of his face into the neck of his jersey. His cheeks were crimson with anger; spit was soaring in bright specks from his lips. He swept his cross across the crowd, as if unable to decide whom to fire on first. "The Household is suspended! I am declaring a state of martial law! An immediate curfew is in effect!"

Everything seemed held in a brittle silence. The mob had separated around Alicia, leaving her exposed. As Peter dropped to his knees beside her, she pivoted her dirt-streaked face toward him, the whites of her eyes enormous in their urgency.

She mouthed a single word: "Go."

He rose and backed away, melting into the throng-some standing, some on the ground, a few who had fallen being lifted to their feet. Everybody was covered in dust; Peter realized his mouth was choked with it. Walter Fisher was sitting by the overturned table, clutching the side of his head. Sam and Milo were nowhere visible; like Peter, they had faded away.

A pair of Watchers, Galen and Hollis, came forward and pulled Alicia upright; she offered no resistance as Ian stripped her of her blades. Peter could tell she was injured but did not know how; her body seemed both limp and rigid at the same time, as if she were holding the pain in check. A smear of blood was on her cheek, another on her elbow. Her braid had come undone; her jersey was torn at the sleeve, hanging by threads. Ian and Galen were holding her now, each on a side, like a prisoner. It was then that Peter understood: by drawing the fury of the crowd down upon herself, she had deflected it away from the girl and bought them some time. If only to keep control of the crowd, Ian would have to put her in the lockup now. Be ready, her eyes had told him.

"Alicia Donadio," Ian said, loudly enough for all to hear, "you are under arrest. The charge is treason."

"Put the bitch out now!" someone yelled.

"Quiet!" But Ian's voice was thin, trembling. "I mean what I say. Go to your homes now. The gates will stay closed until further notice. Anyone seen out and about will be subject to arrest by the Watch. Anyone carrying a weapon will be fired on. Don't think I won't do it."

And while Peter looked on helplessly, in a world that had become completely strange to him, among people he felt he no longer knew, the Watch led Alicia away.

THIRTY-SEVEN.

In the Sanctuary, Mausami Patal, having passed a restless night and an even more restless morning in the second-floor classroom among the Littles-the story of the night's terrible events having reached her via Other Sandy, whose husband, Sam, had come in at first light-had made a decision.

The idea had come upon her with quiet suddenness; she hadn't even known she was thinking it. But she had awakened with the distinct impression that something had changed inside her. The decision had made itself known simply, almost arithmetically. She was going to have a baby. The baby was Theo Jaxon's. Because this baby was Theo Jaxon's, Theo could not be dead.

Mausami was going to find him, and tell him about their baby.

The moment to make her exit would be just before Morning Bell, at the changing of the shift. That would afford both the cover she needed and a full day's light to make it on foot down the mountain; from there she could figure out where to go. The best place to exit would be over the cutout, with its limited angles of sight. Once Sandy and the others had gone to sleep, she would slip away to the Storehouse and equip herself for the journey: a strong rope to ride down the Wall, food and water, a cross and blade, a pair of good sturdy boots and a change of clothes and a pack to carry everything in.

With the curfew, no one would be about. She would make her way to the cutout, keeping to the shadows, and wait for dawn to come.

As the plan blossomed in her mind, assuming shape and detail, Mausami came to see what she was doing: that she was staging her own death. She'd actually been doing it for days. Since the resupply party had returned, she had given every indication of a mind in distress: breaking curfew, moping like a crazy person, making everyone scramble around, worried for her safety. She couldn't have built a more convincing case if she'd tried. Even that tearful scene at Main Gate, when Lish had made her stand down, would play its part in the backtracking narrative people would assemble to explain her fate. How did we fail to see this coming? they would all say, mournfully shaking their heads. She gave us all the signs. Because in the morning, when Other Sandy awoke to discover that Mausami's cot was empty, perhaps waiting a few hours before noting the oddness of this fact but eventually reporting it, and others in due course went to search for her, the rope over the cutout would be discovered. A rope with only one possible meaning: a rope to nowhere and nothing. There would be no other conclusion people could draw. She, the Watcher Mausami Patal Strauss, wife of Galen Strauss, daughter of Sanjay and Gloria Patal, First Family, pregnant and afraid, had chosen to let it go.

Yet here was the day. Here she was, knitting her booties in the Sanctuary-she'd made almost no progress-listening to Other Sandy chattering away, keeping the Littles occupied with games and stories and songs, the news of Mausami's death like a fact delayed-like an arrow that, once launched from its bow, had merely to sink itself into its target to reveal the meaning of its aim. She felt like a ghost. She felt like she was gone already. She thought about visiting her parents one last time, but what was there to say? How could she say goodbye without saying it? There was Galen to consider, but after last night she didn't want to see him ever again in her life. He hadn't gone down to the station after all, Other Sandy had told her, thinking this would be good news to her. Galen was among the Watchers who had arrested Alicia. Mausami wondered if Galen would be the first person they told, or the second, or the third. Would he be sad? Would he cry? Would he imagine her sliding down the Wall and feel relieved?

Her hands had paused over her knitting. She wondered if she really might be crazy. Probably she was. You'd have to be crazy, to think that Theo wasn't dead. But she didn't care.