Harris clapped his hands to draw the crowd’s attention back to the stage. “The screening is about to begin.”

August straightened and brought the violin to rest beneath his chin. He stared out at the audience, a sea of faces all marked by emotions so intense they made him realize how his own attempts had paled. He’d spent four years trying to learn—to mimic—these human expressions, as if that would make him human.

That was all he’d wanted, and he’d wanted it so much he would have given anything, would have sold his very soul. He’d done everything he could, even starved himself to the edge—and gone over.

But August could never be human.

He knew that now.

It wasn’t about what he was, but why, his purpose, his part. They all had parts to play.

And this was his.

August set his bow against the strings and drew the first note.

It hung on the air for a long moment, a single, solitary thread, beautiful and harmless, and only when it began to weaken, waver, did August close his eyes and plunge into the song.

Out it poured, taking shape in the air and twining through the bodies in the room, drawing their souls to surface.

If August’s eyes had been open, he would have seen their shoulders slump and their heads bow. Would have seen the fight bleed out of the man on the ground and every other body in the room, the fear and anger and uncertainty washed away as they listened. Would have seen his soldiers go slack and empty eyed, lost in the rapture of the song.

But August kept his eyes closed, relishing the way his own muscles loosened with every note, the pressure in his head and chest easing even as his longing deepened into need, hollow and aching.

He imagined himself in a field beyond the Waste, tall grass moving in rhythm with the music, imagined himself in a soundproof studio at Colton, the notes rippling and refracting against the crisp white walls, imagined himself alone. Not lonely. Just . . . free.

And then the song was done, and for a final moment, while the chords trailed off through the room, he kept his eyes closed, unready to return.

In the end, it was the whisper that drew him back.

It could only mean one thing.

His skin tightened, and his heart sank, and the need rose in him, simple and visceral, the hollow center at his core, that unfillable place, yawning wide.

When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was light. Not the harsh UVRs that lined the lobby, but the simple auras of human souls. Forty-two of them were white.

And one was red.

A soul stained by an act of violence, one that had given rise to something monstrous.

It belonged to the woman in green.

The mother, with the little girl still beside her, one small arm still wrapped around the woman’s leg. Red light beaded on her skin, streaking down her cheeks like tears.

August forced himself down the stairs.

“He broke my heart,” confessed the woman, fingers curled into fists. “So I sped up. I saw him in the street and I sped up. I felt his body break beneath my tires. I dragged it off the road. No one knew, no one knew, but I still I hear that sound every night. I’m so tired of hearing that sound. . . .”

August reached for the woman’s hands and stopped, his fingers hovering an inch above her skin. It should be simple. She was a sinner, and the FTF harbored no sinners.

It didn’t feel simple.

He could let her go.

He could . . .

The light in the hall was beginning to dim, the pale glow of forty-two souls sinking back beneath the surfaces of their skin. The red on hers shone brighter. She met his eyes, looking past him, perhaps through him, but still at him.

“I’m so tired . . . ,” she whispered. “But I’d do it again.”

Those last words broke the spell; somewhere in the city, a monster lived, hunted, killed, because of what this woman had done. She had made a choice.

And August made his.

He wrapped his hands around hers, snuffing out the light.

August retreated to the lobby as soon as it was done, as far as he could get from the collective sounds of shock, the palpable relief of the spared, the child’s piercing scream.

He stood over the siren mosaic, rubbing his hands, the sinner’s last words echoing in his head. Her life still sang beneath his skin. It had given him a moment of strength, steadiness, less like hunger sated—he hadn’t been hungry in months—than the sensation of being made solid, real. A calm that evaporated the moment the little girl began to scream.

He’d moved the mother’s corpse, carried it out of the hall, out of the child’s sight, for the collection team. Her skin had felt strange beneath his touch, cold and heavy and hollow in a way that made him want to recoil.

He’d spent a lot of time watching the soldiers of the FTF—he no longer tried to mimic their faces, postures, tones, but studying them had become a habit. He had watched the way their hands shook after bad missions, the way they drank and smoked and joked to cover it.

August didn’t feel sick, or jittery.

Just empty.

How much does a soul weigh? he wondered.

Less than a body.

The symphony doors swung open.

“This way,” said Harris, leading the group through. Ani had the little girl in her arms.

August felt Jackson put a hand on his shoulder. “You did your job.”

He swallowed, looked away. “I know.”