The Arrivals by Melissa Marr

arrival in the Wasteland. The unexpected benefit of this was that it gave her an excuse to avoid Edgar. He’d stopped outside her tent when he’d finished his shift, but he wouldn’t come inside without invitation, especially when she was tending a new Arrival.
    Kitty had done this so often for so many people that it was almost routine. Unfortunately, being used to a thing didn’t make it any less wearying. She sat at the same bedside where Mary had once thrashed in the throes of her arrival fever; she dipped her cloth into the same white basin and watched over another woman who would wake in an unfamiliar world.
    The first few days were hard on the body. By midday the next day, Chloe’s worst bout with the fever had passed, but she was still resting. She’d woken only briefly, which was fairly normal. The transition between the world the Arrivals had known and the Wasteland left every one of them exhausted. Now that the worst was past, Melody could watch Chloe for a couple hours. Francis would take over when he finished his shift. Usually Kitty would take the opportunity to catch up on the sleep she’d missed the first day—and the sleep she would miss again tomorrow. By the end of the third day, Kitty would be stuck in her tent waiting for Chloe to wake. It wasn’t a rule per se, but she preferred that the new Arrivals awoke to the sight of either her or Jack. Everyone else went along with her plan, even if they didn’t always understand. The others had never woken up alone, utterly lost and unsure of absolutely everything; they didn’t understand the shock of it all. Jack did.
    When he and Kitty had arrived in the Wasteland, they knew nothing about the world around them, nothing about the people or creatures in it, and even less about how they ended up in this place. After twenty-six years, they knew plenty about the world, the people, and the creatures. They shared the knowledge with new Arrivals and helped their transition. It was the right thing to do.
    Today, though, Kitty wanted to be somewhere else—not resting, not dealing with Mary’s death or Chloe’s arrival. The group had been living at this campsite for more than a week since the situation with the brethren. What Kitty needed was a break: time away from everyone’s watchful gaze, space away from the horrible anticipation that followed every death.
    She changed into something less suited for work, and then after verifying that Edgar was nowhere in sight, she made her way to the gate, where she found Francis twisted into one of his contorted positions that seemed like they should be impossible. He was trying another of his plant-based creams, so his entire visage was tinted blue. Unlike most of them, Francis burned a bright red even with the sun protection the rest of them used. He’d developed it, and it worked well enough for everyone else. He just burned more easily. Kitty couldn’t help but smile at his blue face.
    “I need to head into Gallows,” she said.
    “Alone?” His gaze flickered over to her only briefly before returning to dutifully watching the expanse of desert.
    Kitty sorted through a few of the weapons that were kept at the gate, buying herself time, trying to decide how much she had to admit. There was no way to pretend she wasn’t going to a tavern dressed as she now was. Her skirt was of a lightweight fabric and tied up in the front with a series of ribbons, giving her freedom of movement and exposing a lot of leg from the front. The back of it had no ties, so it brushed almost to the ground, and the degree of detail made abundantly clear that, despite the fabric, this wasn’t a dress for walking in the desert. Sand would collect at the hem, and unless she was careful, plants would snag it until it looked like a rag.
    She dropped a few throwing knives into her bag and settled on, “Jack’s already out there, so we’ll catch up before I head into town.”
    She wasn’t completely lying. She suspected that her brother