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“While giving me a transfusion . . .”

Now it was her turn to hesitate. “The problem with a transfusion is that the new blood would mix with your blood and dilute its effectiveness.”

Only an idiot wouldn't understand what they were saying, and part of Thomas resented them for not just spitting it out. Heat spread over his skull. He turned from them and faced a large window that looked into a room equipped with a hospital bed and an IV stand. This was his deathbed he was staring at.

“How do I survive this?” he asked.

“If we slowed the process and took only part of your blood, we have a chance of—”

“You said time was a factor,” he said. “That would cost thousands, tens of thousands of lives.”

“Yes. But we might be able to save your life.”

“Thomas.”

He looked at the president.

“I want you to know that I in no way expect you to give all of your blood. They say they can save over five billion people and still have a decent chance of saving you if they slow down the process and take nine pints. They may be able to reproduce your red blood cells at an accelerated rate. The number saved could go up to six billion.”

“So we delay several hours, a day, to save my life, and we only lose a billion. Best case. Is that about it?”

They looked at him. That was precisely it.

“I want you to know that this is entirely your choice,” the president said. “We can ensure the survival of North America and—”

“No,” Thomas said. “He gave me life for this.” It all made sense now. Thomas looked at Kara. Her eyes were misty. “History pivots on this sacrifice. You see? I was given life in the lake so that I could pass that life on to you. The fact that it'll take my life is really inconsequential.”

He was following in Justin's footsteps. Of course. That was it. He didn't know how everything would work out in these two realities of his, but he did know that his life had been pointed at this moment. This choice.

“Let's do it,” he said. “Take it all.” He started toward the room with the hospital bed but turned back when they didn't follow. “I will sleep, right? I need to dream. That's all I ask. Let me dream. And Kara. Kara dreams.”

Her eyes were round. “Thomas . . .” Words failed her.

He forced his mind back to his last dream. Mixed in with this business of his blood, it felt distant.

“That's my one condition,” he said.

They stared, silent.

Thomas took Kara aside and lowered his voice. “You have to dream, Kara. I'm—”

“Thomas, I—”

“No, listen to me.” He spoke quickly. “I'm back in the library with Chelise. Woref is trying to force me to deny my love for her. He's threatened to kill her if I don't.” Thomas ran a hand through his hair, remembering everything now. “I need you to wake as Mikil and find Qurong. You have to dream before I do—you'll need enough time to get into the Horde city, find her father, and convince him to rescue his daughter from Woref at the library. It'll be dangerous, I won't lie. And if Mikil's killed there, you may die here. But it's the only thing . . .”

How could he ask her to do this?

“Please,” he said.

Kara set her jaw, then stepped forward. “Of course I'll do it,” she said. She kissed him on the forehead. “It's the least I can do for my brother. For the commander of the Forest Guard.”

He was suddenly sure that he was going to cry. She saw it in his eyes and whispered gently, “I love you, Thomas. It's not the end. Justin has more. I know he does.”

Thomas tried to answer, but he was choked up.

He cleared his throat. “Then let's do this.”

“Thomas . . .” A tear slipped down Monique's cheek. She loved him, he knew. Maybe not as a woman loves a man, but she'd shared enough of Rachelle's love for him to care deeply.

“It's okay, Monique. You'll see. It'll be okay.”

“You don't have to do this,” Robert Blair said. “You really don't.”

“Don't be unreasonable. You wouldn't have called me here if you thought differently. How can you even suggest I think differently?”

They seemed frozen.

Thomas turned and strode toward the waiting room.

Three white-suited surgeons prepped Thomas. Kara had insisted that she dream in the same room as he. They'd sedated her and taped a patch with some of his blood to the same small, scabbed incision that Dr. Bancroft had made on her arm. She turned her head and stared at Thomas, who rested on his back, wondering if he could feel the heparin they'd just injected intravenously. The thrombolytic agent would keep his blood from congealing when it entered the bypass machine.

“I'll see you on the other side, Thomas,” Kara said.

He faced her. Monique stood by her bed, arms crossed, fighting emotions that Thomas could only guess at. The president was outside the room on his cell phone. Evidently Phil Grant was missing. Figured.

“Elyon's strength,” his sister said.

Thomas offered a weak smile. He could feel the first effects of the drugs.

“It's a passing, Kara. Just a passing.” He nodded at the window. “They may not understand what's happening, but you do. You know as Mikil. It's the way of Justin.”

“It doesn't feel like that here,” she said.

“That's because the Circle doesn't always feel real here. But does that make it any less real? We have
The Histories Recorded by His Beloved,
Kara. The connection is obvious. It's the same here as there; can't you see that?”

She faced the ceiling. “Yes. I can. But even in the Circle there's a sadness at the passing, for those left.”

She was right. “If I don't make it, tell them, Kara. Tell them what we both saw.”

“I will.”

“Did I tell you about the red pool they have hidden behind the lake?” he asked.

She turned to him. “No. Really?”

“Really. Chelise says they drained the lake but they couldn't get rid of all the water, so they covered it up on the north side.”

“The red pools,” Kara said. “Like blood.” Her eyes closed briefly, then opened. The drugs were working.

“I love you, Thomas.”

Then her eyes rested shut.

“I love you too, Kara.”

He looked up at the bright light above him. Time seemed to slow.

“You'll begin to feel drowsy,” one of the doctors said. “We've administered the anesthesia into your IV.”

They'd explained that they were using a simple bypass procedure that would pump his blood into the blue machine at his right. He wanted to dream, so they would put him under quickly. He would feel no pain, not even a prick. Once they started, the entire procedure would take less than ten minutes.

The doctors stepped aside, and Robert Blair stepped to the side of his bed. He put his hand on Thomas's shoulder. “I want you to know that not a soul living will have any doubt about who saved their lives,” he said. “You're changing history.”

“Is that what you think?” Thomas was having a hard time focusing. “Maybe I am. I'm saving some lives. When Justin died, he did much more. If you thank anyone, thank him.”

“Justin,” the president said. “And who is Justin?”

“Elyon. God.”

Blair lifted his eyes and stared out the window. “Believe me, I will never think of God in the same terms again.”

“Thomas.” A hand touched his other shoulder. He faced Monique. She was trying not to cry but failing.

“None of this was your fault,” Thomas said. “It wasn't your vaccine that caused any of this. It was what a man did with your vaccine. Remember that.”

“I'll remember,” she said softly. He could hardly hear her now. His world was slipping.

“The real virus is evil,” he heard himself say. “The disease of . . . of the Horde.”

Then he was sleeping.

Dreaming.

Monique could not bear to watch the entire procedure. All nice and neat with white gowns and silver instruments and sophisticated machines, but in the end they were simply draining Thomas of his blood until he died.

This was how they slaughtered cows.

Then again, it had been his choice. This man who'd come to her res-cue repeatedly and saved her life twice already was now giving the ultimate sacrifice. She knew of no braver man.

The only consolation was his dreaming. If he could dream and eat the rhambutan fruit every night for as long as he lived, he might live out a full life in the other reality before he died here, in the next few minutes. It was possible.

On the other hand, he might die in both realities. This was now in Justin's hands.

Monique told them to call her when it was over and retreated to her office. She locked the door, sat behind her desk, and buried her face in her hands.

Then she wept uncontrollably.

The call came twenty minutes later.

She picked up the phone. “Yes?”

“We're done.”

She let a moment pass. “He's dead?”

“Yes. I'm sorry.”

“How long did he dream?”

“Maybe twenty minutes.”

She took a deep breath. “You know what to do.” Thomas's sacrifice would mean nothing without a cup of his blood being delivered to each of the gateway cities within the allowable time frames.

“It's already on the helicopter, headed for the airport where the planes are standing by.”

Monique hung up. She glanced at the cooler. A sample of his blood was still in there, enough for her to dream one last time. But he was dead now. She had no right to try something so speculative without understanding its implications.

Or did she?

42

M
ikil jerked up from her bedroll, eyes wide in the bright morning sun.

Kara!

For a long moment her mind wrestled with the information that Thomas had given her. He was in the library under threat of Chelise's death. He'd just knocked himself out. But how much time was there?

She scrambled to her feet and ran for the horses, yelling at Johan, who had lifted himself on one elbow. They'd traveled all night and collapsed in this cave, just outside the city, at first light.

“Do not move! Wait here. I'll be back.”

“Where are you going?” Suzan demanded.

“To the city.”

Suzan jumped to her feet. “Then we go with you!” she said.

“No!” Mikil grabbed the reins and swung into her saddle. She pulled her horse around. “I have to do this alone. We can't risk losing anyone else.”

“Mikil, please!” Jamous ran for her. “You can't go alone. Let me come.”

She leaned over and kissed him on the head, then on his face. “I'll return. I promise, my love. Wait here, I beg you. Wait for me.”

She kicked her mount and sped into the trees.

“Mikil!”

“Wait for me!” she cried.

Thomas opened his eyes. He was on the floor of the library. His head throbbed. A hand was on his shoulder. Chelise sat on the floor beside him, crying quietly. How long had he been out? There was no way to tell.