The Toll (Arc of a Scythe, #3)

by Neal Shusterman

I continue to keep this journal, even though there is no need. A daily endeavor is difficult to break once it becomes engrained in who we are. Munira assures me that, come what may, she will find a way to slip this journal into the archive at the Library of Alexandria. That would be a first! A scythe who continues their dutiful journaling even after death. We have been here at the Kwajalein Atoll for six weeks now, with no communication from the outside world. While I itch to hear news of Marie, and how she fared at the inquest on Endura, I cannot dwell on it. Either all went well, and she is presiding over MidMerica as High Blade… or it did not go her way, and our task becomes an even greater challenge. All the more reason to unlock the secret of the atoll and access the wisdom of the founding scythes. Their contingency plan for the scythedom’s failure, whatever it is, could be the only thing that can save it. Munira and I have taken up residence in the bunker we found. We’ve also constructed a rudimentary canoe that is small enough to evade the island’s security system. It can’t go any distance, of course, but we’ve been using it to paddle out to the nearer islands of the atoll. We’ve been finding much the same there as we found here, evidence of earlier habitation. Concrete slabs, fragments of foundations. Nothing extraordinary. We have, however, learned the original purpose of the place—or at least how it was used toward the end of the mortal age. The entire Kwajalein...