I wondered how long this tunnel had been here. Had Napoleon left it just as he'd found it, from Alexander's time? Was the dirt we were walking on first packed down by Order members two thousand years ago? I touched the cool, damp wall and rubbed the soil between my fingers..
Jack had walked ahead, running his light over the walls and ceiling of the tunnel. Stellan followed his lead. Elodie and I brought up the back, watching for anything they might have missed.
Elodie coughed again, and I couldn't help but swing my flashlight onto her. "There's two thousand years of mold down here," she said, squinting against my light. I lowered it. "Stop looking at me like that."
I fell into step beside her. "You're not feeling any different, though? I know we thought-"
"If I have some strain of the virus that takes nearly a day to manifest, there's nothing to be done other than finding the cure. So as I said outside, less worrying, more questing."
"I'm just trying- Never mind." I was trying to not feel like we were running out of time, in one way or another. Breathe, I reminded myself.
Elodie glanced down at me and sighed. "Listen. Everyone's tense."
"I know. You all have as much reason to panic as I do, and you're not and I need to get it together."
Elodie held up a finger. "No. I'm saying we've had years to learn to deal with all this. You're new at it, and you're doing fine."
"I-" It had almost sounded like respect in her voice. "Still."
Elodie sighed again, like the conversation pained her. "I heard what you said up there. None of this is your fault. Not the virus. Not what happened to your mother. I thought you should hear someone say it out loud, just in case that's what the panic attacks are about."
I winced and tried to hide it. "Besides that it's my blood, I'm the one who had the chance to kill Lydia and Cole, and I was stupid and let them go. And then I spent the next few days not concentrating hard enough on protecting my mom. She wanted to leave. If we'd left, she'd still be alive. But I didn't see what was coming. Probably because half my brain was too busy thinking about-" I glanced up at Stellan's back, and past him, barely visible in the dark, Jack's. I shivered with disgust at myself and lowered my voice more, even though they were far enough ahead they wouldn't be able to make out what we were saying. "So yeah. It's nice of you to say, but everything that happened is pretty directly my fault."
Elodie touched tree roots snaking across the wall next to us. "You want to know why your mom died? Because Cole Saxon killed her."
Our lights danced ahead of us. My hand felt sweaty around my phone. "Yeah, because I-"
"No." Her voice was firm. "Because you nothing. It was because. He. Killed. Her. It was not your fault. You let the Saxons go because despite it all, you wanted to see the good in them. You spent some time brooding over which of those two you'd rather kiss because you're human and your brain was exhausted thinking about dying all the time when up until now the only thing you've had to worry about is school exams. I mean-" She gestured ahead at Stellan. He bent to inspect something then stood again, his lanky form in a white shirt and his blond hair bright spots in the dark. "Whose brain wouldn't prefer that to sorting out who your psycho family is planning to kill next?"
"Shh," I hissed.
She rolled her eyes. "Don't forget, I've been with both of them, too. I get it."
I sniffed. "You guys have the weirdest relationship."
"Us guys? Do you prefer the term judgy or hypocrite?"
Fair. "Why didn't it work out between you and either of them?" I said quietly.
"Because sometimes something is fun for a while and not true love forever. And sometimes things change. People change." I had just a moment to wonder which boy went with which comment when she went on, "Stop distracting me. I'm trying to be kind or sympathetic or whatever this unfamiliar sentiment is. You're making it even harder than it already is." Her snarky tone vanished. "I used to do this same thing, you know. I would go over and over the night my family died. If I'd stayed up late reading, maybe I would have noticed the fire in time to save them. If my dad hadn't tried to get into business, maybe . . . But no matter how many scenarios might have made things different, none of them mean it's the fault of anyone besides the people who did it. Full stop. You can pout over other things, but you can't pout over that, because it's not true."