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the gestures, and again by Caesar’s uncharacteristic devotion. I found myself watching his face, as much fascinated by the changes there as I was trying to avoid looking at Eve again.
    When Caesar turned back, I expected him to have a thousand questions for me. Instead his good eye fixed on Kris and widened in surprise. “You’re not dead,” he exclaimed, leaning forward.
    Kris declined to choose a seat. He also didn’t answer, glancing at me.
    â€œWhy would you think he was dead?” I asked finally, breaking the silence.
    â€œHe used to be our man on the inside,” said Caesar, eye narrowing. “But one day he just never reported back. We assumed he’d been found out and Adjusted.”
    â€œI left to try to find help,” Kris spoke up, his voice tight. “I thought the Renewables in the Iron Wood might be on our side, given what the Institute tried to do to them. The enemy of our enemy ought to be our friend.”
    â€œShould’ve filled us in,” grunted Caesar. He was still as gruff as ever—more so, in fact. I knew I was staring, but couldn’t help it. He was so familiar and so strange all at the same time. He leaned against the wall, reaching down with one arm to massage the muscle in his bad leg, grimacing.
    â€œI saw my chance to steal a crystal and took it,” replied Kris, reaching inside his coat to pull out a thick, chunky pendant on a long chain. It was dull and quiet now, its power all used up, but I recognized it as magic storage, to keep him human outside the Wall. “No time to report back.”
    â€œWell?” Caesar didn’t seem all that relieved to see Kris, but his interest was clearly piqued. “What’d they say?”
    â€œThey were gone,” Kris said. His eyes flickered to the side, and I knew he was fighting the urge to look at me.
    â€œJust as well,” said Caesar, forehead furrowing in a scowl. “Renewables caused the wars that started all this. Don’t need them complicating things.”
    If Eve took offense at Caesar’s dismissal of her people, she didn’t show it. Her face remained calm, relaxed, lips curved in the slightest of smiles.
    â€œIt doesn’t matter anyway,” Kris continued. “Because I found something better.”
    Both of Caesar’s eyebrows went up, eye patch creasing his skin. “Better than an army of Renewables?”
    Don’t do it, I thought, willing him to keep quiet. Kris ignored me—but Eve anticipated him, her gaze shifting to my face. I could feel her watching me, the sensation as clear as warm water flowing over my skin. For an insane moment, I wondered if she could read my mind.
    â€œI found Lark,” Kris said, making my heart plummet.
    Caesar turned to look at me, and I stared at the worn carpet on the floor, bracing myself for a cruel bark of laughter. It didn’t come.
    â€œThe architects seem to think you’re some sort of weapon,” Caesar said slowly. His one good eye was fixed on my face, betraying nothing but an intense, clinical interest.
    I shifted uncomfortably under his stare. “Not a weapon,” I said firmly. “But I’ll help in whatever way I can. Kris seemed to think—well, he seemed to think you needed some kind of unifying figure. Someone to stand behind for the fight against the architects.”
    Caesar made a noncommittal sound in his throat, still gazing at me, distracted. For all the changes he’d undergone, this much, at least, was the same. From the way he was looking at me, I knew wasn’t his little sister to him—I was a tool, and my worth was only as much as it could benefit him. I still had no clue how he’d come to be on the side of the resistance—but this was still the same man who’d betrayed me to get ahead.
    But before either of us could say anything more, Oren spoke up. He’d retreated to lean against the wall behind my chair, but now he