by Lauren Mansy
“That wasn’t me though. Just a skill I stole.”
“That’s not the kind of strength I mean. I know how you’ve protected Ryder and your mother all these years. You’ve given up everything for them, even your freedom.”
I wrap my cloak tighter around me as the wind picks up, blowing leaves around my feet. If he only knew how my mother fell into her coma in the first place, I’m guessing his opinion of me would quickly change. “You don’t know anything about me, Reid.”
“Oh, but I do. Parts of you . . . or how you used to be, anyway.”
“How I used to be?” I say flatly.
Reid grins. “Just a bit more charming than your current delightful self. I’ve heard a lot of stories about you, and not just from Ryder.”
“I’m sure Bray had a lot of nice things to say.”
“Actually, he told me you were a lot like his brother. Hard to train but a quick thinker. The things that irritated him were the reasons you were a good Shadow.”
“Sheer defiance?”
He meets my smirk. “Fearlessness. Every time you annoyed Bray, you made up for it in talent.”
“Every time we annoyed Bray,” I repeat, “we made up for it by doing scout duty in the dead of winter and cleaning out the washhouses. I’ve gone to bed without supper more times than I can count.”
Joss and Penn were always asking Bray for tips and following through on orders, but Cade and I knew the backlash of pushing boundaries wouldn’t ruin our lives. Except one day, the fight that was so much a part of Cade got him killed.
“Because the boy fought back, my Minder slit his throat,” Madame told me after Greer was captured, “And the girl, Joss? Well, she got an arrow through her heart. Those stupid children didn’t know when to surrender.”
Reid picks up a twig and strips the bark off. “Bray was tough because he believed in you, just like you believe in Ryder.”
“Ry’s pretty easy to believe in. If she’s not helping me sew Minder uniforms, she’s off finding another orphan a safe place to sleep or picking berries in the woods to give to the Ungifted beggars,” I say. “Did you know she visits my mother every day? She tells her funny stories about the Hollows, acts them out so loudly the nurses kick her out more often than not.”
It’s the first time I’ve heard Reid laugh. It’s faint, but deep and true. There’s a flutter in my stomach, so brief I almost miss it.
“Ry does have one weakness though,” I add.
His eyes shift back and forth, as if he’s pulling up memories of Ryder. “Blind trust?”
“Blackberry jam. She’ll polish off an entire jar in one sitting.” I find myself grinning when he laughs again. “Her nana taught her how to make it, and Ry taught some of the orphans so they have something other than their minds to sell on the streets. She wants to be a teacher like my mother when she grows up.”
Reid tips his head towards me. “Nah, she wants to be a teacher like you. You taught her everything. You gave her a family and kept her safe.”
My smile fades as I realize things with Ryder can never go back to the way they were. Life in Craewick was difficult and uncertain, but we’d fallen into a rhythm of looking out for one another. She and my mother gave me a reason to get up every day.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have encouraged how much she hates Madame,” I say. “I never expected Ry to join the Shadows. Now she’ll be on the run, acting as Bray’s puppet.”
“But freedom isn’t always a lack of strings, right? People can look like they have all the freedom in the world, but they never feel any kind of peace. Ryder’s fighting for what she believes in. Isn’t that why you pledged to Greer?”
“It was different.” I shudder at the thought of Madame staring down Ryder at the auction. “I didn’t have Madame’s eyes on me back then.”
“You also didn’t have the chance to knock Madame off her throne. Ryder deserves to play a role in this,” he says. “You’ll meet up again one day. Family always finds one another.”
I touch the pendant on the necklace, tracing the crest of the Woodland Realm with my finger. “You honestly believe that?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because you’re a Shadow.”
“It’s too much of a risk to ever return to your home, even to visit loved ones,” Greer told all new recruits. “If the Minders suspect your family knows your location, they’ll torture anyone you care about until they find the answers they’re searching for. Your loved ones don’t deserve that. Joining the Shadows calls for sacrifice.”
Reid shrugs. “Today I’m a Shadow, but if things go according to plan, I’ll find my family again one day.”
It’s a nice thought, and I wish I could say the same. Not spend the rest of my life working off my debt to Bray. “Where is your—”
He holds his hand up. “How about you answer a question of mine, and I’ll answer a question of yours? You’re doing all this to save your mother. Where’s your father?”
I fiddle with the hem of my tunic. Opening up about Ryder is one thing, but I’m not sure this is a game I want to play. Though I can’t deny being curious about Reid’s past, even his present. What drove this Sifter to give up his freedom? If I answer his question, I can ask one of my own.
“My father left before I was born,” I finally say.
It used to be hard to tell people that, but tonight I’m thankful for how it implies I don’t know anything about him. As a child, I hated him for leaving us, but my emotions changed as I got older. They say the opposite of love is hate but it’s not. It’s apathy. When I joined the Shadows, that’s how I felt about my father—a whole pile of nothing.
Everything changed once I learned the truth about him.
“What’s your family like?” I ask.
He takes a long drink of water, then kneels by the stream to refill his bottle. “My father died when I was a kid. My mother is Ungifted like yours, and I have a brother and a sister. Both younger.”
“Figures. You’ve got that protective older brother thing about you.”
A muscle in his jaw jerks. “Can’t protect them from everything.”
It doesn’t seem like he’s speaking to me anymore, not with this sadness in his voice. I’m about to ask what he means when he catches me staring and says, “You should get some sleep.”
“I’m not tired,” I say with a shrug.
“Okay, then how about making yourself useful?” Reid takes a vial of black liquid out of his pack and quickly whittles a twig to a sharp point. “I can’t wipe everyone’s mind who sees us in Aravid. If Porter sends Minders after us, I’d rather they start their search for me in the barracks of Kripen.” He holds out his wrist. “Ryder says you’re an incredible artist. Care to make a proper Sifter out of me?”
As I brush my finger across Reid’s wrist, a shiver courses down my spine. The plainness of his skin is a death wish on a Shadow job, a giveaway that he hasn’t pledged to the Minders. Though it’s easy enough to draw a couple of fake tattoos to disguise Reid as a soldier, Porter will still have our faces in his memory. And I’m not sure any amount of tricks can keep me hidden from someone like him. I bat the thought away, refusing to dwell on anything beyond stealing the map of the Maze.
“So, Commander, where would you like to have never grown up?” I ask Reid.
He grins. “I’ve heard good things about the coast. Lots of sweet, even-tempered girls.”
“Your flattery is going straight to my heart.” I bat my eyes like I’ve seen barmaids in Craewick do, and his smile grows. “The Coastal Realm it is, then.”
Though I memorized it long ago, I dip the twig into the ink and close my eyes, recalling the crest of my home. An anchor surrounded by the colorful coral of the Blarien Sea.
The same crest is on my journal, the last gift my mother gave me before I joined the Shadows. She’d tucked scraps of unwanted paper from her classroom under her cloak for months before having enough for pages and even bought a tiny lock to seal it up, the ke
y to which I wore on a piece of string around my neck until I moved to Craewick. I kept the key hidden after that. I was always afraid Madame would notice and steal something else that belonged to me.
Nowadays, I only pull out my journal in the dead of night, after Ry goes to bed. I haven’t made many Craewick memories that I feel are worth writing down, so the entries are few and far between.
But every day when I was a child, my mother would write in her own journal and encourage me to write in mine. I filled it from cover to cover with things I’d learned, or people I’d met. How a soft breeze felt on warm cheeks, or a how my mother’s hand fit perfectly around mine.
“Write everything down, Julietta. Your memories are a gift, one of the most precious items you own. Each one is completely and utterly unique. Never let yourself forget anything. Always stay my darling little girl.”
The journal is in my cottage, locked up and hidden among my mother’s dresses. The leather cover is soft and worn now, barely able to bind the scraps of paper, and I always planned to give it to my mother when she wakes. Then she’ll know how much I remember.
As Reid’s tattoo comes to life, so do the memories of Madame’s soldiers. “There was something off about one of those Minders. His mannerisms, the way he spoke, how he said my name . . . it was almost like I was looking straight at Madame,” I tell him. When his mouth presses into a line, I quickly add, “It sounds crazy, I know.”
“Not crazy. I felt something too. It took me a few seconds to knock them out, like there was some kind of barrier around their minds.”
“Unreadability?” I ask, tracing over the thinner lines to darken them.
He shakes his head. “They weren’t like you. I heard a bunch of thoughts instead of none . . . almost like I was reading two minds at once. I guess it could be a Gift variation, but the chances that three of Madame’s scouts have the same one seem impossible.”
“Unlikely, but maybe not impossible,” I say slowly, leaning back to study the design on Reid’s wrist. “My old Shadow partner had a variation. He had the ability to duplicate memories without losing the original. He could make as many copies as he wanted.”
Reid raises his eyebrows. “Sounds like a valuable variation.”
I nod. Below the crest of the Coastal Realm, I draw an eye to signify Reid’s fake position within the Minders. “Once we stole a skill, we could pass it around to whoever needed it,” I say, part of me wanting to talk about Penn forever while the other half just wants to forget the pain of watching him die. “I’m not sure he could duplicate variations, though. Those seem like they’re connected to our Gifts, not memory.”
“Well, worst case scenario, Madame has figured out how to duplicate variations, or we’re dealing with something else entirely. But whatever it is, we’ll be ready for them.” When I’m done with his tattoos, Reid blows on his wrist to dry the ink. “Looks good.”
“They aren’t perfect, but they’ll pass at a glance,” I say.
“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re quite an artist,” he says between breaths. “Thanks for doing this.”
“No, thank you,” I say. “For everything.”
Reid’s smile lights his eyes. “You’re welcome for everything.” He leans against the tree across from me, his gaze out in the woods to keep watch. “Try to rest. Long day ahead of us tomorrow.”
The steady sound of the stream, the water dripping between the rocks, helps soothe me. Closing my eyes, I match my breaths to Reid’s deep ones, struggling with these emotions that make me want to laugh and cry all at the same time. What he’s doing to me, I don’t know. I remember how it felt to trust my Shadow team, to know that they’d always have my back no matter what. That’s not how I feel about Reid. But maybe erasing me from the minds of those Minders and his care for Ryder have given me the tiniest flame of hope that we can be allies.
CHAPTER
8
When I fall asleep, I drift back to my tiny room in the Mines, my bed pushed against Joss’s. She never talked a lot, probably because Cade and I rarely stopped. But in the drowsiness of night or the wee hours of morning, Joss would open up.
In the midst of our storytelling, we swapped images—just enough to fill one another’s minds with any emotions too hard to explain. I bared my very soul with Joss, and through memories, she showed me hers.
Most nights, Cade and Penn would tiptoe into our room, and we’d form a circle on the dusty floor. As we held hands, our fingertips would buzz with our Gifted energy. While Ungifted children played with toys, we played with memories.
We put on shows for one another night after night, spending hours slipping the skills we’d stolen between us. Our veins would light on fire for a few seconds as our bodies adjusted to someone else’s years of practice. Then we knew exactly what to do. Talents were only a pile of memories—instruction and experience. Once we remembered how it felt, our muscles were quick to respond. It was all about mimicry, and our Gifts allowed us to do it flawlessly.
One minute Joss would be screeching out notes, and the next she’d sing beautifully. Cade would act out a dramatic monologue, his words executed with just the perfect amount of flare. I’d make Penn waltz with me, our arms and legs graceful and fluid when neither of us owned a drop of natural rhythm.
Life with the Shadows was always thrilling, giving into the rush that our Gifted bodies craved.
“Etta?”
I crack one eye open.
“Sleep well?” Reid asks.
“Never better.” I yawn and massage my aching neck, surprised I actually fell asleep. “Must be the frigid temperature and the pleasant company. That comforting threat of Minders, Hunters, Ghosts . . .”
“It must be. I tried waking you earlier, but you didn’t even stir. So I checked to make sure you were still breathing and you definitely were . . . drooling too.”
I meet his eyes. “I don’t drool.”
“Bet you think you don’t snore either.”
“Because I don’t!”
He shrugs. “You keep my secrets, and I’ll keep yours.”
Hiding my smile, I glance up at the trees. They’re bursting with leaves, gold and shiny like the coins often discarded for riches of the mind. As the sun spreads its long fingers above us, it’s a glorious flood of pink and orange as bright as Blarien coral.
I close my eyes, reminded of something Penn told me long ago.
“They say memories are the same as living it,” he says, swinging his arm around me. “But you have to admit, Jules. Real life is so much better.”
The woodland birds chirp and tweet, and I smell the clean scent of pine. The stream glitters in the sunlight, the tiny waterfall flowing down a cluster of rocks. It’s quiet and peaceful, two things impossible to find in Craewick. There, I longed for the busyness to keep my mind moving. Today I don’t mind waking to this world.
Reid kneels beside me. “I want you to take my memories of where the Mines are located.” He offers his hand. “If something happens to me, you need to be able to find your way back alone from anywhere in the Realms.”
I wave him off. “Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
He takes my hand anyway. “Look, if Porter is as grand a manipulator as everyone claims then we can’t take any risks. I’m a Sifter, but I’m not arrogant enough to think I don’t have threats.”
I feel a stab of fear at his words. I’m terrified that Porter will find a way to outsmart me, but it’s the first time I’ve questioned what will happen to Reid if we fail. I tell myself that I can’t worry about him too, that he’s willingly thrown himself into this mess and can take care of himself. But I have to admit there’s some part of me that feels his fate shouldn’t be connected to mine.
Closing my eyes, I let his memory sink into me. The Mines are nearer to Craewick than I guessed. Less than half a day’s journey to that city in the east and a day to Kripen in the south. Two days from Aravid in the north and Blare in the west.
We keep a quick pace as t
he sun rises high above us, shedding much needed light as the trail twists and bends. I shift my gaze to the side of his face, to the dirt beneath our boots, to the birds darting just above our heads.
“Do I really snore?” I ask.
Reid smirks but doesn’t look at me. “No.”
“Thank goodness. ‘Cause you do.”
He stops walking. “Do not.”
“Don’t worry.” I smile. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“What a comfort.”
We make it a few more hours before purplish-gray clouds roll in, stealing the day’s warmth. I dig through my pack and layer on another shirt. Thunder rolls in the distance, the scent of rain heavy in the air.
“I’d give it an hour before we’re soaked,” I mutter.
“Generous. I’d give it half that.”
Reid’s right. My cloak wards off some of the rain, but with each gust of wind, I’m soaked through. We hike up the winding trail, climbing so quickly my legs burn. I scream as thunder claps just above us.
“Always so tense,” Reid says with a laugh.
“Nah. I’m on my way to steal a memory from a madman,” I say. “What do I possibly have to worry about?”
I expect him to laugh again, but instead, his lips form a grim line.
Turning my back toward him, I climb up the trail, bombarded by questions to which there are no answers. How will Reid ever stay safe from Porter after this job? And how will rummaging through Porter’s mind affect me?
When I was younger, I didn’t realize how memories stick with you. Change you. Mess with your emotions. Looking back, there’s a lot I wish I’d never seen, heard, or felt. That’s why I’ve hardly used my Gift in four years. But once I steal Porter’s memory, once I’m exposed to his thoughts and feelings, will I ever be able to separate him from me?
The memory I once stole of Porter flashes before me. My chest tightens, and I can’t breathe as my vision darkens around the edges, trapping me within the memory . . .
I scream as the Minders drag me before Porter, sitting on a throne chiseled from stone. His eyes are as black as night, the gold flecks catching the firelight as the Minders throw me down to bow before him. Pleas for mercy pour from my lips as I wait for sudden darkness to take me.
