Free Half Lost by Sally Green Page B

thoughts.
    â€œI don’t suppose you’ve got any of that other potion, the one that helped me sleep.”
    Van hesitates but asks, “Bad dreams?”
    I shrug. “They’re just dreams.” I wonder if I should tell her about my vision. Maybe another time.
    â€œI’ve got this.” She reaches into her jacket and takes out a few small pieces of paper. Or, rather, pieces of paper folded over several times to make them small. She selects three. “It’s strong. Only one a night or you’ll never wake up.” Sheholds them over my outstretched palm. “You wouldn’t be tempted to take all of them at once, would you, Nathan?”
    I look into the blue of her eyes. I tell her, “Most days I’m tempted.”
    I don’t tell her that the thought that stops me is of Annalise being out there somewhere, alive and free, and if she was alive and I was dead then the injustice of it would consume me in flames. Only when she’s dead will I give up.
    * * *
    I’ve pretty much decided to go to see Ledger, but Greatorex wants me, Nesbitt, and Gabriel to help secure the camp first. Greatorex is establishing a new routine of daily checks in the immediate vicinity and weekly checks in a wider area. Each Alliance camp is connected to the others by a cut, with one escape cut leading somewhere far away. Greatorex says, “The network of cuts that link them allows us to keep the camps small and less visible, but the cuts themselves may be a problem. There’s at least one Hunter who can sense where they are.”
    I nod. “My father thought it might be best to fill the world with cuts. Overload the Hunters with information.”
    â€œNice idea, but at the moment we’ll keep hiding and moving frequently.”
    A few of the trainees are sent out close to the camp for the daily check, and I go further out with Nesbitt and Gabriel, looking for any signs of Hunter activity.
    It’s good to get out of the camp for a few days. Me, Nesbitt, and Gabriel agree on an area to cover each day,splitting up in the morning and meeting again in the evening. We take three days to make a wide circuit of Camp Three and find nothing alarming; on the contrary, it looks like a good place.
    And every day I practice my Gifts. Invisibility, flames, and lightning are all getting stronger and more controllable and I even think at one point that I’m on the verge of stopping time. Only I’m not stopping time. That isn’t what my father did. He stopped the world, or slowed it down so much that it seemed to stop. And I do what I saw my father do, rub my palms together in a circle, and as I do that I think of the world turning and then I put the palms of my hands on my head, and as I do that I think of the world stopping but me carrying on moving. And I look up and see all is still around me. I turn to Gabriel and he’s still, watching me. And then it starts again. Gabriel blinks.
    â€œDid you notice anything?” I ask him.
    â€œSomething funny happened with your head,” he replies. “One second you were looking away, then you were looking right at me.”
    I grin at him. “I think I’ve done my first ever stopping of time.”
    â€œDo it again?”
    And I try and it doesn’t work, but I know that I just need to keep practicing.
    The final night before we head back to camp we’re lying by the fire. Nesbitt’s snoring is quiet, but I can’t sleep with it so I sit up and poke at the embers.
    Gabriel hasn’t said much all evening; he lights a cigarette, which he must have got from Van, drags on it, and passes it to me. He says, “Your control over your Gifts has improved. Still not as strong as your father, but definitely better.”
    I puff a smoke ring and then blow a narrow flame through the middle of it.
    Gabriel says, “Nice trick.”
    I breathe out another smoke ring and try an even more delicate stream of