by Ann Denton
Lowe frowned. “A … flour mill, sir?”
Tier nodded, crossing his arms. “There’s a backdoor half a mile from the building itself that the workers use to get in and out. Tell Stelle where it is and how to find it.”
“Sir, a flour mill?” Lowe asked again. A flour mill would be manned almost exclusively by civilians, with three, maybe four soldiers set to guard against bears and wolves. Every other attack they’d staged with Stelle, there had been guards, soldiers, Kreis—people that knew what they were doing in a fight. Even the lumber shipment was protected by soldiers. People that knew the risks, who knew this might be their last sunrise.
Fell’s words about Tier losing his edge came to mind. More concerned with the mission than the people it was made to protect.
“There will be civilians there.”
Tier scowled at him. “Yes. There will.” He sighed, and Lowe noticed for the first time how tired he looked. Bags under his eyes, thin grey lines in the skin of his cheeks. “But we don’t have time to wait. Stelle needs in now.”
Lowe’s brow furrowed. “Has something happened?”
Tier nodded. “We’ve got more chatter, new rumors surfacing. I’m surprised you haven’t heard.”
“Rumors, sir?”
Tier shrugged. “If the town criers are telling the truth, Troe’s on the hunt for a new queen.”
Lowe’s heart stilled. Mucking hell.
“Once the competition starts, there will be chaos. Crowds of Erlenders. Tons of security. We need Troe out before that happens.”
“But he has an heir.”
“Since when has that fool ever used logic? Stelle’s window is closing,” Tier continued. “She needs to make this Chiara thing work now. She has to prove her worth.”
Tier moved back behind his main desk, a hunk of metal with a hundred rivets and a crater on the side that Tier had made the day he’d killed Klaren, throwing the desk across the room. Tier had broken the mechanisms in the door, trapping himself in here for … two days? Three? Lowe couldn’t remember the gossip.
Lowe thought of Mala, and Tier’s continued insistence that she was somehow related to the deranged Kreis, and his throat constricted. Be careful, Fell had told him, he’s leaning on you too. Lowe nodded curtly. “Anything else, sir?”
Tier rifled through a stack of old papers and snorted. “Yeah, tell your mentor to spend less time pissing me off and more time doing her mucking job,” he said. “Damned woman’s got it in for me, I can smell the hunger on her. Wants my job and this muck-forsaken mic …” Tier flicked a silver microphone on his desk, the one that connected him to the capital building in Das Wort.
Lowe bit his tongue. Lost his edge. If Fell were High Ancient, somebody campaigning for the next election would be the least of her worries, if she worried about it at all. Especially with Stelle so close to infiltrating Troe’s inner circle.
Which brought him back to the civilian casualties he was certain would result from any operation Troe could launch against the flour mill. If he told Stelle, that’s exactly what would happen.
But there was nothing left to say. Tier waved him absently away as he sat down, sifting through reports and not reading any of them. “You can go,” he muttered, squinting at a page with small print and lots of black notes in the margins. Verrukter’s report, Blut’s last transmission. Shouldn’t he have read that by now?
Lowe pushed his lips together, saluted the Ancient, and left the room.
The hallway outside Tier’s room was long and round, lit from above and beneath by glowing stripes. His footsteps echoed loudly.
It was late in the day, past lunch, but the halls were abandoned. Only the Ancients lived and worked down here. Anyone walking these halls had been summoned, and usually not for something good. Which is why Lowe worried when he rounded a corner and saw Dez.
“Dez!” he called. She stopped walking and turned. She crossed her arms as he walked up to her, her stump pressed against her chest. A lump rose in Lowe’s throat at the sight of it.
“What are you doing down here?”
Dez shrugged, a soft smile on her face. “Just getting a little pick-me-up so I don’t have a meltdown and burn the Center to the ground.”
“What?”
Dez laughed. “I was talking to Fell. About … you know, this.” She waved her stump. “She’s been really helpful with … coping.” She swallowed and cleared her throat. “What about you? Who’d you piss off this time?”
Lowe gestured to the elevator and they started to walk. “Nobody—yet.”
“So why are you down here?”
“Debriefing Tier,” The lie made his tongue feel heavy.
“Mala?” asked Dez.
Lowe nodded.
“How’s that going?”
Lowe sighed. “Not bad,” he lied.
Dez nodded as they stepped into the elevator. Lowe looked sidelong at Dez’s bad arm. She saw him and scoffed. “Don’t you dare,” she grabbed the rope with her one hand. “I can still kick your ass.”
Lowe smiled. “I’m sure you can.” He grabbed the other rope and they began to haul themselves upwards.
For several minutes the only sound was the platform scraping against the walls. There were a thousand white scratches in the metal, dents along the edges where the elevator had gotten stuck and been pried loose by massive arms wielding crowbars.
Lowe watched Dez out of the corner of his eye, sweat beading down her brow, pulling on the rope with all her body weight. Her stump flinched up now and then, wondering why it wasn’t being used and then falling back, suddenly recalling its deficit.
Lowe felt the guilt rising again and turned his attention to the rope. He tried to lose himself in the burning in his muscles and the long screeching notes of metal scraping against metal.
But the guilt didn’t go away. It hung on his ribs like tar, sat in his stomach like a lead weight. It had been weeks since he and Dez had spoken. Since dinner.
He hadn’t known what to say. There was nothing that could make this better. She didn’t seek me out either, his mind argued.
She’d been in the radio room for months. Hiding. Taking double shifts.
Fell is helping her. If anyone knew how to coach Dez through an amputation, Fell did. Everyone knew she’d taken care of a sister who’d lost a leg, before she’d joined the Kreis.
Fell wouldn’t like this. Tier’s plan. Lowe couldn’t help but wish for a moment, that he was working with her, instead of the grizzled Ancient.
They should’ve picked someone else, he fought a rising tide of negativity, thinking back to the day in the parking lot with the president and Tier. They’d told him why they picked him.
Because I follow rules. Because I get the job done. Because Stelle wanted someone she could trust.
Lowe scowled. There were too many conflicting rules to follow now. Two missions. Each with a different set of rules.
He couldn’t help but wonder if putting civilians at risk was his fault. It wasn’t rational, he knew. But if he’d been able to stay out in the field, maybe Stelle would already be at Troe’s compound. Maybe he’d have fed her enough intel to move up faster. Maybe this wouldn’t be happening. Muck and shit, why did I bring in Mala? I should have left her in the woods, told her to wait. Sent someone else.
He knew, objectively, that that’s what he should have done. But he couldn’t bring himself to wish he had done it. She might have died without me.
Stelle is counting on me. Counting on him to give her the intel that would save her life and get her close enough to Troe to slit his throat and save the world.
A voice in the back of his head whispered, Mala is counting on you too.
“Dez,” he said slowly. “Have you … ever broken a promise? Not because you meant to, but because … someone else got involved?”
Dez’s grip faltered on the rope, only for a moment. She gave him a strange look. “What did you promise her?”
“What?” It took his brain a minute t
o catch on. She thinks I’m talking about Mala.
“What did you promise her?” Dez repeated, more tersely this time. She shook her head, the corners of her mouth pulling down. “You’re only as good as your promises, Lowe. Broken or kept. You …” she grunted and gave her rope a tremendous tug, “either need to keep your promise or tell her that you can’t and walk away. And you need to do it now.”
Lowe grimaced. “What if I can’t just walk away?” From either of them?
Dez’s fist clenched around the rope, and the elevator came to a screeching halt. Lowe let go of his own rope in surprise.
“Then you do whatever the muck it takes,” she said. Her expression was grave.
Lowe blinked. “What if I can’t get out clean? … What if other people get hurt?”
Dez rolled her eyes. “Look around, Lowe. Other people always get hurt. Deadwater be damned. I don’t talk to you for two seconds, because I’ve got my own shit and look at you. All poetic and tortured. Get off it. When did you become such a mucking whiner? You have what, thirty-some kills, plus four boatloads of people? Since when do you care about people getting hurt? Get over yourself, soldier boy. Keep your promises. And do your job.”
Dez turned back to her rope and pulled them up the last few feet to the top floor. She walked out without another word.
Lowe stayed in the elevator, stunned into silence.
Chapter Thirty
Lowe drove a submarine to the surface, ignoring the fish swimming past. When it breached the water, he clambered out and walked to his hut.
He shook his head to clear it. You are the job. Do the job. Focus. Existential questions could wait. They weren’t what he was good at. He was good at execution. Achievement. Or he had been. Time to get back to that. He didn’t have a solution for Mala. But he could move the mission with Stelle forward. He could keep that promise.
Lowe took the small radio out from under his mattress. He turned it on, and it crackled at him. “The Deadwater is alive,” Lowe gave the first part of the code. There was no response.
He sighed and tossed it onto his bed. Mucking shit. Stelle, where are you?
What if something happened? He had a sudden vision of her alone in the woods, wounded or dying, clawing her way through the mud, running from Erlender priests who wanted to burn her for false prophecies. She talked about a mistake. A big one. She lost someone. An informant?
The radio sputtered. “Then the Gottermund is dead.”
Relief washed over Lowe like an icy tide. He snatched up the radio. “Are you alright?”
“You worried about me, little shadow?” It was a line she’d used all too often.
Suddenly, Lowe wasn’t in his hut anymore. He was fourteen, standing at the edge of a forest, staring at a warehouse with a century of graffiti stenciled onto its ribs. Stelle had stolen a bottle of swill and dragged him there, to that crouched old monster of a building, to drink it.
Lowe hauled open a creaking door, just enough so they could squeeze inside. The roof and walls had fallen to pieces, so the warehouse was well lit. Metal shelves littered the dirty concrete floor, crammed against each other from wall to wall, empty but for a smattering of bird’s nests and empty cans from a bygone era.
Lowe heard a pop and turned to see Stelle with the cork in her hand.
“Bottom’s up,” she said, and took a long drink. Lowe wrinkled his nose. It smelled like the chemicals she used to strip paint off old canvases.
Stelle’s lips released the bottle with a satisfied pah. She grinned and offered it to him.
Lowe had no intention of being outdone. He took the bottle and swallowed. He tore the bottle away an instant later, fighting the urge to spit.
“That’s …” he gasped.
Stelle chuckled. “Awful, isn’t it?” She took the moonshine from him and drank again. She cast her eyes over the metal shelves. They were a meter wide; they were high towering things that reached for the ceiling. The shelves were strong; they’d once held pallets full of things like dishwasher tabs and sinks and water filters. A deep, dangerous grin sprouted on her face.
“Come on.” She climbed an empty row of shelves to sit cross-legged on top, fifteen meters up. Lowe groaned, but followed an instant later. They passed the bottle until it was half empty. Until Lowe’s throat no longer felt the burn.
Stelle lay back on the shelf next to him and stared at the ceiling a moment. She turned her head and he could smell the moonshine on her breath. “I dare you to … climb to the top beam.”
Lowe looked up into the rafters. The highest beam towered above him by two, maybe three stories. A sharp gust of wind made the whole structure creak, and Lowe swore he saw it move. “That’s a lame dare,” he protested.
Stelle smirked at him. “Are you chicken?”
“No!”
Stelle flapped imaginary wings and made chicken noises.
“I’m not!” Lowe tried to conceal the sheepishness in his voice with volume. “It’s just a lame dare.”
Stelle stopped her noises. “Hmm. Alright. Fine.” She sat up and leaned into him, so close their noses were almost touching. “Then I dare you to kiss me.”
Lowe faltered. “I … um … what?”
Stelle sat back and crossed her arms. “You heard me,” she taunted, but her voice cracked, and there was a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, the flush of embarrassment in her cheeks. The cinnamon glint in her hair, way it moved when she laughed, when she breathed …
Lowe lurched forward, lips puckered. He slammed into her nose.
They both reeled back, holding their faces and cursing. Stelle laughed, the sound muffled by her hands.
“Can I have a redo?” Lowe asked, suddenly very interested in kissing her.
Stelle laughed again, leapt to her feet, and bounded away over the shelves.
“Hey!” Lowe called, clumsily giving chase. “Wait!”
Stelle vaulted off the shelves. She darted outside, squeezing through the opening in the door. Lowe followed, making it outside just in time to see her pull herself up the fire escape of a small building across the street.
Lowe sprinted across the street and hauled himself up the rickety ladder leading to the roof. It creaked as he climbed and left a thin dusty film on his palms. He brushed them on his shirt when he reached the roof.
Stelle sat on the edge, legs dangling over the side. Lowe joined her. An ancient metal sign swung back and forth on a pole beneath them, the letters long since worn away. It groaned in the wind like an old ship. For a while, it was the only sound.
Then Stelle sighed. “Do you believe in fate?”
“I believe in redos,” said Lowe. He touched her hand, and as she turned to face him, he leaned in.
The sign beneath them gave a spectacular groan and the metal splintered, dragging down the pole and half the roof with it. Lowe grabbed Stelle’s hand and wrenched her backward just as the ancient stone fell out from under her.
Lowe held her there against him for a moment, both of them staring at the gaping hole in the roof. She pushed herself gently away, blushing furiously. She laughed. “I don’t think fate wants us to be together.”
Lowe pulled her closer, close enough that he could feel her heart still thrumming in her chest. He took her face in both his hands, brushing back her long auburn hair.
“Screw fate,” he said. And he kissed her.
“Lowe? You there?”
Lowe blinked himself back into the present. “Yeah,” he stammered, the warmth of the memory giving way to the cold of winter and the chill of reality. He took a moment to collect himself, swallowing down a rock that had formed in the back of his throat. “Yeah, I’m here,” he said. “I’ve got something.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Stelle met him at Sonne Pointe. Lowe told her everything. He didn’t hold back the details about the civilians, or his opinion about that part of the operation—not that it mattered.
She took it all in, staring silently at him. When he was done exp
loding, she gestured for him to sit down.
Lowe sank into the radio control chair at Sonne Pointe, staring at the desk, tracking the marks etched into it.
Stelle didn’t speak for a minute, clearly letting him wind down.
The idea of hurting Senebel civilians still didn’t sit well with him. But I delivered Tier’s message. I did my job.
“I think …” Stelle’s tone was careful and measured. “That it’s time you and I had a talk.”
Mucking hell.
Stelle stayed behind him, giving him space.
So she’s not rushing over saying, yeah killing civilians is bad, Lowe. Let’s forget that part. What did you expect?
“You and I don’t see everything in the world eye to eye. Kind of like you and Tier don’t. But we can still work well together.”
Lowe took a deep breath. “I know.” But where he used to feel a swell of pride in doing his job, there was only emptiness. Am I getting burnt out? Jaded? Or is this the wrong thing to do? Mala and her sweet smile appeared in his thoughts. Is she making me soft? “I told you what I had to. But I don’t have to like it.”
Stelle gave a curt nod. “No. You don’t have to like it. You also don’t have to like the fact that I can see the future. Or parts of it, anyway. But you can supplement it—”
“Wait. What?” Lowe spun around and stood.
Stelle kept her gaze steady. Calm. She lifted a hand. Like she was approaching a skittish horse.
“What the muck did you just say?”
“I can see the future.”
“No.”
“I can.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“You know it’s true.”
Lowe put his hands in his hair. It had to be a joke. Deadwater be damned, she’s playing a joke on me. He started to laugh.
“Don’t.”
He bent over, full-on guffaws shaking his stomach.
“I told you when your parents wouldn’t come back. Do you remember?”
Lowe froze. He looked at Stelle’s eyes. They were dark and deadly serious.
She had told him. Pulled him into her arms one morning and kissed him so hard his lips had chapped. Not that it had bothered him. He’d been a boy. Her little shadow. It was his dream come true. Until his cheeks got wet from her tears. She’d cried.
