Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2)(33)

Faraday took a deep breath. He looked at the karambit in his hand and slipped it into an inner pocket of his ivory robe. “I thought by convincing the world that I had self-gleaned, it would save you and Citra. I thought you would be freed from the apprenticeship and get sent back to your old lives!”

“It didn’t work,” Rowan reminded him. “And you’re still hiding.”

“I am biding my time. ?There’s a difference. ?There are things I can accomplish best if the scythedom does not know I’m alive.”

“And,” said Rowan, “there are things I can accomplish best as Scythe Lucifer.”

Scythe Faraday stood and took a long, hard look at him. “What have you become, Rowan . . . that you could end the existences of scythes in cold blood?”

“As they die, I think of their victims. The men, women, and children that they have gleaned—because the scythes that I end don’t glean with remorse, or the sense of responsibility that a scythe is supposed to have. Instead, I’m the one who feels compassion for their victims. And that frees me from feeling any remorse for the twisted scythes that I end.”

Faraday seemed unmoved. “Scythe Renoir—what was his crime?”

“He was doing a secret ethnic cleansing of the north.”

That gave Faraday pause for thought. “And how did you learn of this?”

“Don’t forget that you taught me how to research the backbrain, too,” Rowan told him. “You taught me the importance of thoroughly researching the people I was to glean. Or did you forget that you put all these tools in my hands?”

Scythe Faraday looked out of the window, but Rowan knew it was only to keep from having to look Rowan in the eye. “His crime could have been reported to the selection committee. . . .”

“And what would they have done? Reprimanded him and put him on probation? Even if they stopped him from gleaning, it wouldn’t suit the crime!”

Scythe Faraday finally turned to look at him. He suddenly seemed tired, and old. Much older than a person is supposed to feel or look. “We are not a society that believes in punishment,” he said. “Only correction.”

“So do I,” Rowan told him. “In mortal days, when they couldn’t cure a cancer-illness, they cut that cancer-illness out. That’s exactly what I do.”

“It’s cruel.”

“It’s not. The scythes that I end feel no pain. They are dead before I reduce them to ash. Unlike the late Scythe Chomsky, I do not burn them alive.”

“A small grace,” said Faraday, “but not a saving one.”

“I’m not asking to be saved,” Rowan told him. “But I do want to save the scythedom. And I believe this is the only way to do it.”

Faraday looked him over again, and shook his head sadly. He was no longer furious. He seemed resigned.

“If you want me to stop, you’ll have to end me yourself,” Rowan told him.

“Do not put me to the test, Rowan. Because the grief I might feel from ending you would not stay my hand if I felt it was necessary.”

“But you won’t. Because deep down you know that what I’m doing is necessary.”

Scythe Faraday didn’t speak for a while. He returned his gaze out the window. It had started to snow. Flurries. It would make the ground slick. People would fall, hit their heads. The revival centers would be busy tonight.

“So many scythes have fallen from the old, true ways,” Faraday said with a weight of sadness that went deeper than Rowan could read. “Would you end half the scythedom—because from what I can see, Scythe Goddard is being seen as a martyr in the so-called new order. More and more scythes are coming to enjoy the act of killing. Conscience is becoming a casualty.”

“I’ll do what I have to do until I can’t do it anymore,” was Rowan’s only response.

“You can end scythe after scythe, it won’t change the tide,” Faraday said. It was the first thing he offered Rowan that made him question himself. Because he knew Faraday was right. No matter how many bad scythes he removed from the equation, there would be more on the rise. New-order scythes would take on apprentices who lusted for death, like mortal-age murderers—the kind who were put in incarceration places and spent the rest of their limited lives behind bars. Now those would be the types of monsters allowed to freely end life without consequence. This was not what the founders wanted—but all the founding scythes had long since self-gleaned. And even if any of them were still alive, what power would they have to change things now?

“So what will change the tide?” Rowan asked.

Scythe Faraday raised an eyebrow. “Scythe Anastasia.”

Rowan had not expected that. “Citra?”

Faraday nodded. “She is a fresh voice of reason and responsibility. She can make the old ways new again. Which is why they fear her.”

Then Rowan read something deeper in Faraday’s face. He knew what he was really saying. “Citra’s in danger?”

“It would appear.”

Suddenly Rowan’s whole world seamed to heave on its axis. He was amazed at how quickly his priorities could change.

“What can I do?”

“I’m not sure—but I can tell you what you will do. You will write an elegy for each of the scythes you kill.”