Matched

He speaks formal y, as if reciting data, but I notice a sheen of sweat across his face; and the way he’s stretching his legs out in front of him looks familiar. Ky’s been running, too, and he must be fast. Do they have trackers in the Outer Provinces? If not, what did he run to out there? Were there also things he had to run from?

Before I can stop myself, I ask Ky something that I should not ask: “What happened to your mother?”

His eyes flash to me, surprised. He knows I don’t mean Aida, and I know that no one else has ever asked him that question. I don’t know what made me do it now; perhaps Grandfather’s death and what I’ve read in the woods have left me on edge and vulnerable. Perhaps I don’t want to dwel on who might have seen me back in the trees.

I should apologize. But I don’t and it’s not because I feel like being mean. It’s because I think he might want to tel me.

But I am mistaken. “You shouldn’t ask me that question,” he says. He doesn’t look at me, so al I can see is one side of him. His profile, his dark hair wet with the mist and the water that fel from the trees as he passed through them. He smel s like forest, and I lift my hands to my face to smel them—to see if I do, too. It might be my imagination, but it seems to me that my fingers smel like ink and paper.

Ky’s right. I know better than to ask a question like that. But then he asks me something that he shouldn’t ask. “Who did you lose?”

“What do you mean?”

“I can tel ,” he says simply. He’s looking at me now. His eyes are stil blue.

The sun feels hot on the back of my neck and the top of my hair. I close my eyes the way Ky did earlier and tip my head back so that I can feel the heat on my eyelids and across the bridge of my nose.

Neither of us says anything. I don’t keep my eyes closed for long, but when I open them the sunlight stil blinds me for a moment. In that moment, I know I want to tel Ky. “My grandfather died last week.”

“Was it unexpected?”

“No,” I say, but real y, in some ways, it was. I did not expect Grandfather to say the things he said. But I did expect his death. “No,” I say again. “It was his eightieth birthday.”

“That’s right,” Ky says thoughtful y, almost to himself. “People here die on their eightieth birthday.”

“Yes. Isn’t it like that where you came from?” I’m surprised that the words escaped my mouth—not two seconds ago he reminded me not to ask about his past. This time, though, he answers me.

“Eighty is . . . harder to achieve,” he says.

I hope that the surprise doesn’t show on my face. Are there different death ages in different places?

People cal and feet crunch from the edge of the forest. The Officer steps out of the bushes again and asks people their names as they break into the clearing.

I shift my position to stand up and I swear I hear the compact in my pocket chink against my tablet container. Ky turns to look at me and I hold my breath. I wonder if he can tel that there are words in my head, words I am struggling to remember and memorize. Because I know that I can never open the paper again. I have to get rid of it. Sitting here next to Ky, drinking in the sun with my skin, my mind is clear— and I let myself realize what that sound in the woods meant earlier. That sharp, stick-snapping sound.

Someone saw me.

Ky takes a breath, leans in closer. “I saw you,” he says, his voice soft and deep like water fal ing in the distance. He is careful with his words, speaking them so they can’t be overheard. “In the woods.”

Then. For the first time I can remember, he touches me. His hand on my arm, fast and hot and gone before I know it. “You have to be careful.

Something like that—”

“I know.” I want to touch him back, to put my hand on his arm too, but I don’t. “I’m going to destroy it.”

His face stays calm but I hear the urgency in his tone. “Can you do it without getting caught?”

“I think so.”

“I could help you.” He glances over at the Officer as he says this, casual y, and I realize something that I haven’t noticed until now because he’s so good at hiding it. Ky always acts as though someone watches him. And, apparently, he watches back.

“How did you beat me to the top?” I ask suddenly. “If you saw me in the woods?”

Ky looks surprised by the question. “I ran.”

“I ran too,” I say.

“I must be faster,” he says, and for a moment I see a hint of teasing, almost a smile. Then it’s gone, and he’s serious again, urgent. “Do you want me to help you?”

“No. No, I can do it.” Then, because I don’t want him to think I’m an idiot, a risk-taker for the sake of risk-taking, I say more than I should. “My grandfather gave it to me. I shouldn’t have kept it as long as I did. But . . . the words are so beautiful.”

“Can you remember them without it?”

“For now.” I have the mind of a sorter, after al . “But I know I won’t be able to keep them forever.”

“And you want to?”

He thinks I’m stupid. “They are so beautiful,” I repeat lamely.