Crossed

“I mark my course by people: Xander, a point on the map; my parents, another point; Ky, the final destination. When Xander moves, the geography of everything changes.”

This quote summarizes Cassia’s conflict over the Xander-Ky love triangle. Cassia relies on Xander as a constant, steady presence in her life, but she’s not willing to return the favor. Although she still plans to escape the Society and reconnect with Ky, she can’t fathom losing Xander. Until Cassia comes to terms with her feelings, the points on her map will always be in flux.

“The Officer smiles. The Society isn’t human but the people who work for it sometimes are.”

Vick wins a small victory for the decoys when he gets their Officer to promise more clean water and extra supplies. This quote details Ky’s overall approach to trust: He won’t give himself to an institution, but he will give himself to the right person.

“The Pilot is a man who pushed a stone and washed away in the water. It is a woman who crossed the river and looked to the sky.”

This quote is from the story of the Pilot given to Cassia by the Archivist. The story of the first Pilot, his demise, and the next Pilot is summarized in these two sentences. In other words, it is an example of art’s power to spread radical ideas, as well as its power to make these ideas beautiful and easier to understand.

“I wonder what the Enemy thinks of us, these people that the Society rarely bothers to defend.”

The Enemy and their war with the Society is something of a mystery at this point in the trilogy. Ky is a thoughtful person, and these kinds of questions are in character, but his history with the Enemy also explains his preoccupation. The Enemy is presumably the same entity that destroyed his village and killed his family. This thought is part of Ky’s pattern of reevaluating the past.

“‘No one knows anything,’ Vick says. ‘Except Ky. He thinks he’s found the truth in a girl.’”

Ky, Vick, and Eli stand at the edge of the Carving, taking cover from enemy fire. Vick’s realism is on full display here. On a first read, this quote seems snarky. However, Vick later divulges that he is also someone who found meaning and purpose in romantic love (Laney), so this quote may be somewhat sincere.

“The girl stays straight and strong when others sink to their knees because she knew this all along. She can’t quit, can’t throw her hands in the air or cry tears into the dirt because she has someone to find.”

Cassia catches herself reflexively sorting the girls at the village into survivors and non-survivors. She imagines herself from an outside perspective, and interprets her determination and drive as signs that she will make it out alive.

“‘But if they don’t care about us, why would they care about our data?’ Eli asks. ‘Death,’ I say. ‘It’s the one thing they haven’t fully conquered. They want to know more about it.’”

Ky discovers the data mining disks in the trio’s coats because Eli mentions how nice it is that the Society gives them warm clothes. His cynical approach to institutions proves useful here. This comment about the Society and death lays the thematic groundwork for conversations about the tissue samples in the Cavern.

“Every day the sun rolls by / Across the sky and through night’s door // Every night the stars light high / Above the earth and shine once more // Any day her boat might fly / Across the waves and to the shore.”

This is the song Indie’s mother used to sing to her every night about the Pilot. The simple word choice and rhyming structure make it sound like a children’s story or a lullaby. The use of female pronouns lines up with Indie’s story about her mother building an illegal boat, as well as the true story about Indie building the boat herself.

“‘This is how Anomalies die,’ Indie says, her voice cold. ‘The two of us alone can’t change it. We have to find someone else.’”

Like Ky, Indie tends to take horrifying experiences into stride. Unbeknownst to Cassia, the “someone else” she’s referring to here is Ky, whom she thinks is the Pilot.

“Then, quick, he flips the fish out onto the bank. It flops and gasps for air, its body slick.

We all watch the fish die.”

Vick teaches Ky and Eli how to catch spawning fish with their hands. Still, the three have seen so much death and spent several chapters burying bodies; a flopping fish gasping for air is a solemn image.

“‘Of course they’re not poisoned,’ I say. How ridiculous. Xander would never give me anything poisoned.”

This is the moment when Indie tells Cassia the truth about the blue tablets. There’s plenty of evidence that Indie’s telling the truth: People always react strangely when Cassia talks about having them, no one else ever asks for one, and Cassia starts getting sick the moment she takes one. Despite all of this, she trusts the tablets because Xander gave them to her.

“This is good, even though it’s heavy, I think. This is good, because it will hold me to the earth.”

An ill Cassia sees both false signs (like cracked mud) and real signs (her name carved into a tree) from Ky. She needs Indie to help her tell the signs apart. Here, Cassia finds the stone Ky carved to look like a compass and uses it to keep her rooted in reality

“She’s thinking something through, her eyes thoughtful. Sorting information. She’s looking for facts to explain what happened, but the only one she needs I already know: She is strong in ways even the Society can’t predict.”

Ky has confirmed what Indie said about the blue tablets, and Cassia struggles to reconcile this information with the knowledge that Xander gave her the tablets. He marvels at her strength, as such a revelation is undoubtedly painful.

“I reach for Ky’s hand and hold on as tight as I can. So that the cold wind around us won’t try to steal him from me with its greedy fingers, its hands that take things from times that should be spring.”

Cassia stands in the settlement graveyard with Ky, looking around at the graves of young people. She would have lost Ky forever if she’d stayed in the Society, but now that she’s escaped, she’s realizing how many other things could tear them apart.

“It is the opposite of a graveyard. It is the reverse of saying good-bye.”

The Society’s rows of tissue sample tubes in the Cavern heavily contrast with their settlement surroundings. This is one of the biggest challenges Cassia has faced since leaving the Society. Soon, she will have to make the difficult choice to reject the Society’s idea of immortality.

“I’ve seen how they leave you when they don’t need you anymore. I’m afraid of the Rising. Even more than that, I’m afraid of who I’d be in the Rising.”

Ky gets to the heart of his distrust of the Rising. Beneath his anger and resentment is pain from their betrayal (as they didn’t help his home village), and fear that he will suffer his father’s fate if he joins.

“When Cassia told me Indie’s story, I realized what had happened. Indie had told the version about her mother and the boat and the water so many times that she began to believe it too.”

Ky unravels Indie’s story about her mother building a boat as a story about Indie herself. Ironically, Ky has yet to confront his own suppressed memory of his parents’ deaths—and him running from them.

“Why would you want to lie to me? Why would you want to take a choice from me?”

Cassia catches Ky burning the map to the Rising and discovers his many lies. Having been denied choice in the Society, Cassia is hurt that Ky tried to do the same—especially since she more or less chose him over Xander, her official Match.

“‘But the Carving doesn’t care,’ I tell him. ‘The canyons don’t care.’

‘No,’ Hunter agrees. ‘But we’re still connected.’”

The Society claims to care for its members, and uses this claim to justify atrocities. Being a farmer living beyond the rules of Society, Hunter articulates how the Carving is the opposite: It simply exists without promising anything.

“I cannot let my parents go unmarked any longer.”

Here, Ky decides to paint his parents on a cave mural—perhaps in penance for having left their dead bodies during the destruction of his village. He marks his parents literally, with paint on a wall. He marks them figuratively by painting them at the center of his mural, with his whole life extending from them. This is Ky’s version of Hunter’s web of blue lines.

“Words just for me—the poetry of I love you—to keep me warm in the cold.”

Ky and Cassia continue their tradition of reciting poetry to each other at important moments, quoting Dylan Thomas and Tennyson in this goodbye. The former articulates how love can turn any words, even a simple three-word phrase, into poetry.

“I think of my second lost compass sinking to the bottom of the river, like the stone it was before Ky changed it.”

Ky’s first compass gave Cassia the tools she needed to get to the Carving, and his second compass gave her the strength to get to him. She loses the second compass on her way to the Rising. Though she still plans to see Ky again, he’s not her sole destination anymore; by going to the Rising, she is also choosing herself.

“I’ve taken so many risks. I have changed. I feel it. I know it.”

Having made it to the Rising, Cassia waits in a room for her assignment. In this moment of quiet, she realizes how much she has changed since the beginning of the novel. Coming to terms with her growth is part of her growth.