yanamcclair: переводы

→“Let her finish,” Johanna says quietly, tucking her hands into her sleeves.

→Marcus laughs. I’m not sure if it’s a mocking laugh or a disbelieving one. He’s equally capable of either sentiment, an arrogant and deeply suspicious man.

→But I don’t think that I’m still afraid. “Yes,” Evelyn says. “I have some terms for us both to agree to. I think you will find them fair. If you agree to them, I will step down and surrender whatever weapons I have that my people are not using for personal protection. I will leave the city and not return.”

→The past few weeks have taken something from him. I can see it in the turned-down corners of his mouth, in the purple skin under his eyes. I see my own eyes set into his skull, and I think of my reflection in the fear landscape, how terrified I was, watching his skin spread over mine like a rash. I am still nervous that I will become him, even now, standing at odds with him with my mother at my side, like I always dreamed I would when I was a child.

→“We’re not here to chat,” Marcus says, looking at Evelyn. “You said you wanted to talk about a treaty.”

→“Sometimes you have to take difficult measures to ensure peace,” Johanna says. “I believe you agree with that, as a principle.”

→I nod to the bulge in her coat pocket, the unmistakable contours of a weapon.

→carrying a gun.”

→“Tobias!” Johanna says. She wears a coat in Amity red, dusted with snowflakes. “What are you doing here?” “Trying to keep you all from killing each other,” I say. “I’m surprised you’re

→Evelyn gave me at him, just to be safe. I notice the planes of his skull, showing through his shaved hair, and the jagged path his crooked nose carves down his face.

→They are already there. Johanna isn’t holding a gun, but Marcus is, and he has it trained on Evelyn. I point the gun

→At the bottom of the steps is a pavilion with two glass blocks, each one at least three times as tall as I am, at either end. This is where we told Marcus and Johanna we would meet them—both parties armed, to be realistic but even.

→We walk to Millennium Park, where the mammoth bean sculpture reflects the moonlight, and then down a set of stairs. As we descend, Evelyn wraps her hand around my elbow to keep her balance, and we exchange a look. I wonder if she is as nervous as I am to face my father again. I wonder if she is nervous every time.

→Evelyn and I walk side by side, with Peter trotting behind us. The snow has stopped falling now, but enough has collected on the ground that it squeaks under my shoes.

→I thought that when I looked at him after he drank the serum, I would still see the initiate who shoved a butter knife into Edward’s eye, and the boy who tried to kill my girlfriend, and all the other things he has done, stretching backward for as long as I’ve known him. But it’s easier than I thought to see that he has no idea who he is anymore. His eyes still have that wide, innocent look, but this time, I believe it.

→I sigh. “Yes, that’s you! For the eleventh time! Come on, let’s go.”

→Peter stands by the doorway to Erudite headquarters, looking clueless. At the sound of his name—which I have told him at least ten times since he drank the serum—he raises his eyebrows, pointing to his chest. Matthew told us people would be disoriented for a while after drinking the memory serum, but I didn’t think “disoriented” meant “stupid” until now.

→“Hey! Peter!” I shout, my breaths turning to vapor.

→The air outside tastes like ice.

→And I watch Peter disappear.