The Toll (Arc of a Scythe, #3)

by Neal Shusterman

We have wished Scythes Anastasia and Curie luck on their trip to Endura and the inquest against Goddard. I can only hope that the Grandslayers, in their wisdom, will disqualify him, thereby ending his bid for High Blade. As for Munira and me, we must travel halfway around the world to find the answers we seek. My faith in this perfect world now hangs by the final thread of a fraying tether. That which was perfect will not remain so for long. Not while our own flaws fill the cracks and crevices, eroding all that we have labored to create. Only the Thunderhead is beyond reproach, but I do not know its mind. I share none of its thoughts, for I am a scythe, and the Thunderhead’s realm is beyond my reach, just as my solemn work is outside of its global jurisdiction. The founding scythes feared our own hubris—feared that we couldn’t maintain the virtue, selflessness, and honor that our job as scythes requires. They worried that we might grow so full of ourselves—so bloated by our own enlightenment—that we would, like Icarus, fly too close to the sun. For more than two hundred years we have proved ourselves worthy. We have lived up to their grand expectations. But things have changed in the blink of an eye. There is, I know, a fail-safe left by the founding scythes. A contingency should the scythedom fail. But if I find it, will I have the courage to take action? —From the “postmortem” journal of Scythe Michael Faraday, March 31st, Year of the Raptor