TWELVE

The life inside him had never been so full and rich.

But the life outside, what Diamond carried on his shoulders and soul, was nearly lost. Home and that wonderful room were lost. The wooden soldiers were ashes, and so was Mother. Mother was lost everywhere but inside his mind, and he didn’t have time or the resolve to make those memories even passingly real. Not thinking about his mother, Diamond felt ashamed. His good brief life was in ruins. Besides the tattered school uniform, he owned nothing physical. There was nothing to carry but thoughts and shifting urges, memories on the surface and memories buried and ideas that didn’t deserve being called plans and emotions that scalded and brightened, too quick and far too restless to be tamed. Diamond had to shoulder his misery. Huge and relentless, the sense of grievous loss made his body tremble while roiling, bitter sensations kept finding ways to share the agony, the despair. A perfect indestructible mind could never leave any notion behind. The boy was convinced that he would never stop suffering, and indeed, he would have argued and maybe fought with any voice claiming that one day, with time, these horrific losses would stop slicing him down the middle.

But even now, more than devastation lived inside him.

That bizarre, wonderful sister emerged from hiding long enough to give him glimpses of the world she saw, which was different from the world Diamond knew. Quest was wondrous, and if she wasn’t blessing enough, in those last moments together, Quest gave Diamond their second sister—another splendid creature, but this one more similar to him than different.

Even at its worst, the immortal Creation was inventive. What might happen was inevitable, and every event and circumstance and loving face would find ways to repeat itself. That great odd thought meant that if nothing ever ended, and Diamond realized that if the world could live on and on, with him or without him, then every good soul would come around again.

Woven through his misery: beauty.

Sitting inside the little cabin, he asked the walls and Good, “Where did that thought come from?”

No voice had spoken to him from outside. Plainly, this notion grew out of some secret piece of his mind.

But the beauty proved unreliable. Bountiful was about to crash, and Diamond was begging with the Creators for everyone’s survival, and that’s when the papio man ran into the machine shop. He was the man with the knives. The padded box was under his arm. Suddenly the world was nothing but stark and sick and horrible. Old pains returned. Scalding embarrassment stole his breath. What had been cut away from him was aching again, and the boy instantly dropped his gaze, closing his eyes and making new wishes. Then the box was thrown overboard, and the man who cut him had vanished. Diamond presumed that he fell or jumped when Bountiful began to shake. That made it seem as if one wish had been answered, which gave those next moments a rich sense of magic . . . and what was magic if not the finest beauty . . . ?

As the airship crashed, Diamond focused hard on a single thought: everybody who died now would ultimately emerge again from the trees and sunlight, from the rain that washed every dawn and the ashes of the dead mixed into that rain.

That seemed a pretty, perfect thought.

And after the crash, it was possible to believe that everybody survived because of Diamond’s thinking. He must have cast some spell, yes. Clambering barefoot out onto the dusty coral, the boy felt miraculous. All of his people were alive. They emerged from the wreckage hurt but whole, and Good was equally blessed. Diamond didn’t think about the human crew or papio soldiers that he hadn’t saved. He was a gruesomely tired boy who didn’t have time or the urge to imagine the suffering of unseen faces. The bare soles of his feet were bleeding against the rough coral, growing hot while healing. Then Elata and Seldom began talking about the papio man, about the half-invisible shape that had yanked him upwards. Quest had to be responsible—they said it and Diamond believed it—and all at once he was running, sprinting on toes already healing as thick leathery callus.

Nothing was as important as this dash through smoke and across the wasteland; Diamond had to find his sister in the fiery ruins.

With its belly sheared free, Bountiful’s gas bags and bridge had jumped higher into the air, avoiding a long stretch of the rising ridge. The crash site wasn’t as close as it appeared. Diamond’s first surge took him into a wall of smoke that suddenly lifted, revealing coral boulders stacked haphazardly, lifting toward a faraway tangle of corona parts and fire. An irregular pop-pop-pop warned that ammunition was detonating. The smoke left behind the good odor of burnt wood and the sick flavor of cooked flesh. Diamond hesitated, eyes hunting for the quickest route. Then came more pop-pops from behind and overhead, and he stopped to turn and look, discovering whiffbirds descending, and beyond them, a pair of swift fletches flying the bloodwood banners of the District of Districts.

He managed one deep breath.

Then some little motion drew his gaze. He saw his father. Father was coming, struggling along the sharp uneven blade of this awful ridge, looking miserable, and Diamond had never felt more love. Father’s eyes were looking down. Every stride had to be measured before it was taken. The sore knee had to endure one step and then brace for the next step, and the next. The man barely glanced up, and he never looked at Diamond, and then one bad step caused him to wobble, wobble and then catch himself before he tumbled, instantly lost to view.

Diamond ran back down the slope, calling to his father.

Overhead, one of the fletches fired a big cannon, and the most distant whiffbird exploded, haphazard pieces falling past the reef’s last lip.

The boy paused on a knoll of sparkling blue coral, and one last time, he screamed, “Father.”

Then he didn’t as much run as he leapt, one knoll to the next, bouncing down the ridge and down the far bank, reaching a place where he finally saw the man alive and well enough to sit upright. And that was the last moment for a very long time when Diamond could find anything inside him that felt remotely like happiness.

The allegiance of outsiders let Divers win over the Seven, and that great success left her free to entertain the seductive, nearly respectable notion that dominion didn’t have borders, that control didn’t have to end with her skin.

No soul would be as close to her as the Seven. Yet there were different ways to belong and endless avenues when it came to possession. Divers had allies among the papio, and she was shrewd enough or lucky enough to choose the right champions. For several hundred days, she asked for favors that were just large enough or wrong enough to test their resolve. None mentioned her little crimes to the higher powers. Researchers and the military didn’t seem to watch her anymore carefully than before. Then one day—a decidedly ordinary day—she casually asked a few trusted soldiers and former caretakers if there might be an easy way, a clean way, to get rid of the Diamond boy.

More than she had hoped, her suggestion was embraced. Plans were drawn up and thrown into fire pits when they proved unworkable. Then new plans were invented and measured, and discarded, but this time with insights and a fresh sense of what was a little bit possible and what might be achieved with the Fates’ help.

One morning, a highly placed papio—a stranger until that moment—approached Divers with a battle plan in hand. That was the moment when she realized that for some papio and quite a few tree-walkers, Diamond was the greatest enemy imaginable. And that was probably the last moment when a phrase from her and one hard stare could have ended the plot.