“And which am I?” asked August, pulling away. “Your weakness, or your strength?”

Emily’s warm brown eyes went wide and flat as the word spilled out. “Both.”

It was unfair to ask, but the truth still stung.

“Where is this coming from?” asked Henry, rubbing his eyes. “You don’t really want to fight.”

He was right, August didn’t want to fight—not on the streets in the dead of night, and not here with his family—but there was this horrible vibration in his bones, something struggling to get out, a melody getting louder and louder in his head. “No,” he said. “But I want to help.”

“You already do,” insisted Henry. “The task force can only treat the symptoms. You and Ilsa and Leo, you treat the disease. That’s how it works.”

But it’s not working! August wanted to shout. The V-City truce had held for only six years—Harker on one side, and Flynn on the other—and it was already fraying. Everyone knew it wouldn’t hold. Every night, more death crept across the Seam. There were too many monsters, and not enough good men.

“Please,” he said. “I can do more if you let me.”

“August . . . ,” started Henry.

He held up his hand. “Just promise me you’ll think about it.” And with that he backed out of the kitchen before his parents were forced to tell him the truth.

August’s room was an exercise in entropy and order, a kind of contained chaos. It was small and windowless, close in a way that would have been claustrophobic if it weren’t so familiar. Books had long outgrown their shelves and were now stacked in precarious piles on and around his bed, several more open and splayed, pages down, across the sheets. Some people favored a genre or subject; August had little preference, so long as it wasn’t fiction—he wanted to learn everything about the world as it was, had been, could be. As someone who had come quite suddenly into being, like the end of a magic trick, he feared the tenuous nature of his existence, feared that at any moment he might simply cease to be again.

The books were stacked by subject: astronomy, religion, history, philosophy.

He was homeschooled, which really meant he was self-schooled—sometimes Ilsa tried to help, when her mind worked in columns instead of knots, but his brother, Leo, had no patience for books, and Henry and Emily were too busy, so most of the time August was on his own. And most of the time it was okay. Or rather, it used to be okay. He wasn’t sure when exactly the insulation had started to feel like isolation, just that it had.

The only other thing in his room besides furniture and books was a violin. It sat in an open case balanced across two stacks of books, and August drifted instinctively toward it, but resisted the urge to take it up and play. Instead he nudged a copy of Plato off his pillow and slumped down onto the tangled sheets.

The room was stuffy, and he pushed up the sleeves of his shirt, revealing the hundreds of black tallies that started at his left wrist and worked their way up, over elbow and shoulder, around collarbone and rib.

Tonight there were four hundred and twelve.

August pushed the dark hair out of his eyes and listened to Henry and Emily Flynn, still in the kitchen, as they talked on in their soft-spoken way, about him, and the city, and the truce.

What would happen if it actually broke? When. Leo always said when.

August hadn’t been alive to see the territory wars that broke out in the wake of the Phenomenon, had only heard tales of the bloodshed. But he could see the fear in Flynn’s eyes whenever the topic came up—which was more and more often. Leo didn’t seem worried—he claimed that Henry had won the territory war, that whatever happened to cause the truce was their doing, that they could do it again.

“When it comes,” Leo would say, “we will be ready.”

“No,” Flynn would answer, his expression bleak, “no one is ready for that.”

Eventually, the voices in the other room faded, and August was left alone with his thoughts. He closed his eyes, seeking peace, but as soon as the silence settled it was broken, the distant stutter of gunfire echoing against his skull as it always did—the sound invading every quiet moment.

It began with a bang.

He rolled over and dug the music player out from under his pillow, pressing the buds into his ears and hitting play. Classical music flared, loud and bright and wonderful, and he sank back into the melody as numbers wandered through his head.

Twelve. Six. Four.

Twelve years since the Phenomenon, when violence started taking shape, and V-City fell apart.

Six years since the truce that put it back together, not as one city, but two.

And four since the day he woke up in a middle-school cafeteria as it was being cordoned off with crime-scene tape.

“Oh God,” someone had said, taking him by the elbow. “Where did you come from?” And then, shouting to someone else, “I’ve found a boy!” She’d knelt down so she was looking into his face, and he could tell that she was trying to block his view of something. Something terrible. “What’s your name, hon?”

August had looked up at her blankly.

“Must be in shock,” said a man.

“Get him out of here,” said another.

The woman took his hands. “Honey, I want you to close your eyes.” That was when he saw past her. To the black sheets, lined up like tallies on the floor.

The first symphony ended in August’s ears, and a moment later, the second started up. He could pick out every chord, every note; yet if he focused hard enough, he could still hear his father’s murmur, his mother’s pacing. Which is why he had no trouble hearing the triple beep of Henry’s cell. No trouble hearing him answer it or catching the words when his voice dipped lower, threading with concern.

“When? You’re sure? When was she enrolled? No, no, I’m glad you told me. Okay. Yes, I know. I’ll handle it.”

The call ended, and Henry went silent before speaking again, this time with Leo. August had heard everything but his brother’s return. They were talking about him.

He sat up, yanking the buds from his ears.

“Give him what he wants,” Leo was saying in his low, even way. “You treat him more like a pet than a son, when he’s neither. We are soldiers, Flynn. We are holy fire. . . .” August rolled his eyes. He appreciated his brother’s vote of confidence, but could do without the righteousness. “And you’re smothering him.”