“Why?” he asks, but he already knows. And he knows I’m telling the truth. I can see it in the way his shoulders relax. In the increased space between my neck and the edge of his blade.
“Because the next time we have an encounter with the tanniyn, I want the Commander to be utterly defenseless.”
“If you want to kill him, why not just run him through with your sword?”
I meet his gaze. “Because some crimes deserve more than that.”
I’m speaking the language of pain atonement, and it works. He steps back, though he doesn’t completely lower his sword.
“You’re telling me the truth,” he says.
“Yes.”
“That’s a dilemma.” He motions with his sword for me to stand.
I get to my feet and assess the distance between him and Jodi, still crouched near the edge of the building. “Where’s the dilemma?”
“Pick up your sword.”
“Why?”
“Pick up. Your. Sword.”
Slowly, I lean down and pick up my weapon, though I don’t raise it toward him. I want him off guard for as long as possible. He opens his stance, but I remain still.
“The dilemma is this: You’re telling the truth about who you are and about wanting the Commander dead. But you were caught stealing from Rowansmark. I can’t let that go.”
“That’s unfortunate.” I remain still, but slowly shift my weight to my right leg.
“If you return the stolen property to me, I’ll deliver your punishment, but I will spare the girl.” He glances behind him at Jodi, who huddles on the ground as if too terrified to move.
I speak quickly to get his focus back on me. “You’ll kill me over a few stolen transmitters?”
“Not kill.” He looks at me. “Punish. You’re tough. You’ll survive it.”
I swipe blood off my cheek. Jodi meets my eyes and then glances meaningfully at the back of Sharpe’s legs. I nod as if I’m agreeing with Sharpe, and turn as if to reach into my cloak for the other transmitters.
“You can have them,” I say.
His stance relaxes slightly, and his sword lowers a fraction.
Jodi lunges toward the back of Sharpe’s knees, and I snap my leg up. My boot finds his chin just as Jodi slams into him. His knees crumple, and my kick sends him flying over Jodi’s back. Sharpe hits the stone, skids backward for a few inches, and then goes sailing over the side of the building.
Jodi and I run to the edge of the roof in time to hear a thick, wet splat as Sharpe hits the bricks three stories below us. He lies sprawled in the moonlight, his legs at an unnatural angle, his eyes staring at nothing.
Seconds later, we hear the high-pitched whine of his internal trigger, and then he explodes in a cloud of blood and bone.
“Disgusting,” Jodi says as the bloody mist that used to be Sharpe floats through the air, darkening the pool of golden light beneath the closest gas lamp.
I whip my cloak off, find the tiny transmitter stuck on the neckline, and rip it off. Crushing it beneath my heel in case any other trackers in the city are also homing in on the signal, I follow Jodi onto the next rooftop and concentrate on getting the rest of the beacons disabled before dawn.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF–NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
RACHEL
Darkness hides the shoreline as we sail down the river. The smells of damp bark and night-blooming jasmine drift through the air, and the occasional owl swoops across the starlit sky. Samuel has long since disappeared inside one of the doors on the lower deck. Occasionally, one of the trackers on the upper deck paces in his small compartment or leans out over the railing to look at me, but I haven’t seen another person on the lower deck in hours.
I’ve sat against the side of the boat listening to the paddle wheel churn through the water and thinking about Quinn hiding somewhere on the boat, determined not to let me face Rowansmark alone. About Logan heading straight for Rowansmark to ransom me with the stolen tech with no idea that the trap he’s facing—the tech that can call an entire army of the tanniyn—is worse than anything he’d even think to plan for.
And about how Samuel and Heidi were helping Ian all along. Carrying his supplies. Covering his tracks. Sanctioning his violence against the people I love.
I want to hurt them. To send the message that they can’t treat innocent lives like collateral damage. I want to, but if I do anything to jeopardize my ability to get inside Rowansmark, Logan will die. I can’t start trouble on this boat.
But if trouble finds me anyway, I can certainly be ready to finish it.
There are supplies on this boat. Food. Clean drinking water. Medicine. Weapons. Maybe Rowansmark tech. I might not intuitively understand tech like Logan does, but I bet if I press enough buttons, I can figure it out.
Quinn and I will find food and water after we escape the trackers. In the meantime, I need a weapon to replace the knife I lost in the river. Something big enough to do some damage, but small enough to conceal on my body. I need medicine, too. My arm, swollen and hot, still itches in a painful, throbbing way that makes it hard to think straight. I can’t stand to scratch it. I can’t stand not to. Blood runs down my hand in a slow, faltering stream. My throat is starting to ache fiercely like it did the time I got the flu so badly that Dad put off one of his trips to Schoensville because he didn’t want to leave my side.
I swallow hard, grateful that the ginger Samuel gave me seems to have finally settled my stomach, and force myself to think about something other than my arm.
At this speed, we should reach Rowansmark sometime tomorrow. I have to be ready to escape my keepers and disappear into the city. To do that, I need to raid the boat for supplies, both for Quinn and for myself.
I listen for another moment, but only the creak of the boat’s lower deck and the distant slap of the water against the shoreline meet my ears. Slowly, taking care not to bump my right arm against anything, I get to my feet. Then I move down the lower deck until I reach the first door.
This is the door Samuel used when he left me. I don’t want to run into him, but I’m pretty sure this is the medical bay, and I need to bandage this arm. Some medicine for the pain would be helpful, too. The knob turns soundlessly, and I ease the door open.
The room is about the size of my old bedroom and contains two beds and an entire wall of labeled supplies stocked on metal shelves bolted to the wall. Heidi lies sleeping on one of the beds, her leg bandaged and propped up on a pillow. There’s no one else in the room.
A lantern glows softly on a small table wedged between the two beds. A closer looks reveals that the lantern is also bolted down. I step quietly past Heidi and examine the shelves.
Bandages. Burn Cream. Pain medicine. Antiseptic paste. Herbs for curing stomach ailments and headaches. For curing blood clots. For flushing the body of poison.
I linger for a moment on the bottle of herbal blood clot medicine. Ian injected Sylph with ground castor seeds, causing the blood to clot inside her organs while thinning the blood at her extremities. There was no cure, no nice wall of neatly labeled shelves that I could turn to for help. Instead, I lay by her side and listened to her breath leave her body, and there was nothing I could do. She was my best friend, and there was nothing I could do.
My hands shake as I pick up the blood clot medicine. Something hot splashes onto my collarbone, and I realize I’m crying. Tears of grief for the Sylph-shaped hole inside of me that nothing can ever fill. Tears of anger because she didn’t have to die. If Heidi or Samuel had stopped Ian, if one of them had said No, this is wrong, she’d still be alive now.
The stopper is out of the bottle before I realize I’m going to remove it. I lift the dropper and stare at Heidi. At her bandaged leg, where a bloody wound would take this medicine straight into her veins.
It isn’t poison. She wouldn’t suffer the w
ay Sylph did, but she’d die just the same. A blood clot can kill you when it reaches your heart. Or your lungs. Or your brain. Chloe Jarbonneau’s father died of one. I remember how shocked we were because Chloe was only eight, and we had no idea our fathers could die when we were so young.
I stand over Heidi, my hands shaking. My tears falling. Blood on my hands smears across the jar’s label, and I set the jar on the table before I drop it.
Can I do this? Can I poison a woman while she sleeps, even if she deserves it? Is it justified, or would it bring me one step closer to becoming the kind of monster I’m determined to stop?
I don’t know. I wish Logan was here so I could ask him. So I could look in his eyes and see if he’d still love me once he knew what I’d done.
I reach for Heidi’s leg and pull the top of her bandage aside. The edge of her wound glares at me, crimson and angry. The dropper in my hand, filled with clear liquid, quivers as I hold it above the injury.
She deserves this. She does. Melkin’s dark eyes burn against the back of my mind, and I flinch. Maybe I’ll see Heidi’s face in my nightmares after this. But maybe it’s worth it if I’m doing it for Sylph.
For Sylph, who loved everyone with equal measure but spared extra for me. Who took the pain of her family’s death and turned it into care for others instead of letting it sour into bitterness.
Sylph, who wouldn’t do this. Wouldn’t stand over a defenseless person, even a guilty one, and poison her in her sleep.
My arm falls to my side, and a single drop of liquid leaves the dropper and splashes harmlessly onto the floor.
I can’t kill Heidi in her sleep the way Ian killed Sylph, even though I believe she deserves to die for her crimes. There’s something dishonorable about it, and the few pieces of myself that I’ve managed to salvage from my inner silence would be lost if I crossed this line.
The anger that burns within me beats against my thoughts with relentless fists. I raise my hands to cradle my head as if by pressing my palms against my scalp I can somehow find peace.
Heat radiates from my forehead. I slide my fingers over the rest of my face and find that even my cheeks feel crisp with fever.
My vision blurs for a moment as I tug on the blood-soaked sleeve of my tunic until I can see my entire forearm. The jagged seam of blackened skin is stretched tight over an angry red and yellow swelling that leaks blood and white fluid where I’ve scratched at it. My fingers are so swollen, I can barely move them, and red streaks run beneath my skin, heading from the wound toward my shoulder.
No wonder this itched so badly. No wonder I have a fever. It’s infected. It must have happened when I went into the filthy water of the river. Turning back to the shelves of supplies, I search for something that will help me.
Moments later, I’ve smeared antiseptic and burn cream across the infection, wrapped a loose, sloppy bandage over it, and swallowed what I hope is enough painkiller to take the edge off.
My head now aches as badly as my throat, and I long to lie down, but I can’t. Not yet. I have to find a weapon and some supplies.
Leaving the medical room behind, I creep along the deck until I come to the room where I tried unsuccessfully to swallow some breakfast. This room is much bigger than the medical bay. Eight round tables with four chairs each are sprinkled around a rug of brilliant red. Lanterns are bolted to each table, though only two of them are lit. Across the room, a door on the opposite wall leads out to the other side of the deck. The north side of the room is a simple kitchen with long counters, two stoves, and a metal shelving unit half-full of food supplies.
I head for the food. My eyes ache as I read the labels on jars, crates, and canvas bags. Flour. Rice. Honey. Dried tomatoes. Salted pork. A crate of sugared orange peels. Fruit, both fresh and canned. And several barrels of water.
Dumping a nearly empty canvas bag of flour into a half-used bag of rice, I fill the empty bag with pork, orange peels, apples, and two jars of cherry preserves. I also upend all of the jars of dried tomatoes into my bag and then fill the jars with drinking water. It’s difficult to hold the jars steady with my swollen right hand while I replace the lids, but I manage. Then, holding my bag of food and my water, I creep out of the dining area, listening carefully for any activity on the lower deck. Everything is quiet, but still I move with care. If I’m caught now, they’ll tie me to a bed for sure.
I need a place to hide this, but I’ve been too sick to really explore the boat. My only options are to start opening doors on the lower deck and hope I don’t surprise a tracker or to find a place for my supplies among the lifeboats tied to the back of the deck.
The lifeboats, a collection of wooden vessels the approximate size of a wagon that are stored upside down and tied to pillars at the back of the boat, are my best bet. I start toward them, but have to stop and lean against the wall when my vision tunnels toward black. The familiar noises—the slap of the water against the boat, the splash of the paddle wheel, and the hum of the insects in the Wasteland—suddenly seem unbearably loud. The starlight too sharp. I close my eyes and hug the wall while I suck in deep breaths of the dank river air.
I can’t lose consciousness here. I can’t succumb to the fever. Not until the bag of supplies is hidden beneath the lifeboats. And not until I’ve found a weapon.
I open my eyes, but the wooden planking beneath me swirls and the walls look like they’re melting. Quickly, I close my eyes again and struggle to get my bearings.
Maybe this isn’t because of my fever. Maybe I took too much pain medicine. Or maybe that wasn’t pain medicine after all. I’m no longer sure of anything except the fact that I have to put one foot in front of the other until I reach the lifeboats.
Leaning heavily against the wall, I slide my boots forward, convinced that if I lift a foot off the floor, I’ll fall. I slowly work my way past two doors, and my hand brushes against the outline of a third. Before I can move past it, the door opens, and I tumble forward into the open space.
Arms steady me, and then the door behind me closes. I open my eyes, but the darkness inside this room is so thick, I can’t see who holds me. I can barely make out the fact that I’m standing at the top of a set of stairs that lead down to a room whose stacks of supply crates and piles of rope are barely illuminated by faint moonlight filtering in past a single grimy window.
My vision blurs again, and my knees sag. The arms holding me tighten.
“I’ve got you,” says a familiar voice.
“Quinn.” I breathe his name, and have to swallow hard against the tears that thicken the back of my throat. “You keep making me cry.”
He’s silent for a moment, and then he says in a voice that sounds like he’s suddenly realized he’s standing on an explosive and any move could be his last, “I’m . . . sorry?”
“First you start making me face my grief, and then you tell me you killed your dad to save mine, and then you sacrifice yourself just to give me a knife—I lost the knife. I lost it.” The tears are pouring down my face now, and I sob against his shoulder, while he pats my back in quick, awkward movements.
“We’ll get you another one,” he says.
“And now I can’t stop crying over everything. Over Logan. And being alone. And even Ian.” I push away from him and nearly fall before he grabs me again. “I cried because I felt sorry for Ian, and this is all your fault.”
He gently pulls me down to sit on the top step, and then settles beside me. “Is crying a bad thing?”
Trust Quinn to sound calm and curious no matter what. I shove the bag of food into his lap and wipe my face with my left hand.
“Yes, it’s a bad thing. Maybe. I don’t know. I’m not a crier. I’ve never been a crier until you made me start feeling things again, and now I can’t stop.”
“So . . . it’s like when you cut off the circulation to your leg for a while and then it feels tingly and raw, every sensation overwhelming and unbearable for a while as it wakes up?” he asks.
“Exactly.�
�� The stairs feel like they’re wobbling beneath me, and I clutch the edge of the step to keep my balance.
“Then I guess you either choose to keep waking up inside and trust that eventually the feelings won’t be so overwhelming, or you cut the circulation again and choose to go back to the way things were.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
His voice is quiet. “Healing is the hardest thing you’ll ever do.”
My arm throbs in vicious spikes, and I scratch at it. “You used a weapon on that tracker when you were trying to rescue me.”
“I did.” He pauses as if thinking through his words, and then says, “I couldn’t think of any other way to get to you. I wasn’t trying to kill her, though.”
“I’m sorry you had to break your principles for me.” My voice sounds hoarse.
“They’re my principles to break.” His voice sounds warm. “Besides, the point of not carrying a weapon is to remind myself to think through my actions and make careful choices instead of the choices I’ve been trained to make. I’m not going to sacrifice someone I care about simply to be able to say I never picked up another weapon.”
He rummages in the bag of food, pulls something out, and takes a bite. The crisp, sweet scent of an apple floats across the space between us and makes me feel like puking.
“I don’t think I’m doing okay,” I say as sweat beads along my upper lip and my pulse roars in my ears.
“Of course you’re not doing okay, Rachel. You’ve endured trauma after trauma with very little time to deal with any of it. You can’t go back to the person you were before all of this started. Too many scars inside. But that doesn’t mean you won’t be okay. That doesn’t mean you won’t be happy.”
I consider opening my mouth to tell him I wasn’t talking about my emotions, but my teeth are chattering now, and it’s all I can do to clamp my jaw shut tight and ride it out.
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