She appears surprised to see me running—or perhaps surprised to see me at all—but the look easily melts into a smile. She laughs as I skitter to a halt in front of her.
“That excited to see me, huh?” she asks.
I know she’s merely teasing, yet I feel my face warm. “I just felt like running a bit.”
“Sure, sure.”
“Where are we going, anyway?”
She skirts past my awkward attempt to change the topic and starts striding down the sidewalk. I follow beside her. “It’s secret,” she says with a tilt of her head.
“Still?”
“Still.”
The sector is silent. Too-dim streetlights cast an eerie glow over the road. From somewhere in the distance, the rowdy singing of a bar drifts toward us.
“I’m glad you came,” Cathwell says. She faces straight ahead, but her eyes dart to me and then away once more. “I was worried you wouldn’t.”
“I almost didn’t.”
“What changed your mind?”
I’m not certain how to answer, so I don’t. She doesn’t press.
As we continue on, the red-bricked buildings give way to white marble apartments with elegant balconies and low, sweeping doorways. They’re not as haphazardly designed as in the previous districts—although they still have a minimum of eight floors—but rather, ornately decorated and carefully constructed. The streetlights are twisted wrought iron, one stationed along every corner. The shop windows gleam back with our reflections.
These are the homes and shops that belong to the affluent—the most gifted scientists and engineers, the District Committee members who run the sector’s fundamental operations, and the traders and merchants who’ve worked their way up over time. And, much farther west, Father’s home.
Everything is neat and orderly. The occasional tree or small garden appears every so often, but for the most part, this district is as bare of greenery as the previous one.
We’ve been walking in silence for an extended amount of time before I finally work up the courage to ask, “Why did you really invite me out tonight?”
Cathwell keeps staring straight ahead and I can’t tell whether or not she heard me. I don’t repeat the question.
She leads us down a side street. The land slopes downward slightly, and the streetlights that were so bright and plentiful in the last district slowly decrease in number. Through the looming buildings, a small sliver of the sector’s only lake is visible in the distance, shimmering in the moonlight like beaten silver.
We finally come to a halt in front of a large warehouse that looks much like all the others around it. The stone is worn and the structure appears abandoned. High windows rise overhead, the majority of which are boarded up. Flyers, most of which are torn or ripped, indiscriminately cover the lower floor of the red-bricked building. A simple pair of double doors offers up entrance.
Cathwell finally turns to face me. “I invited you out tonight because there’s something important I want to share with you.”
“Something important?” I ask. She’s suddenly very close. “Out here?”
She nods. “Have you ever heard of the Amaryllis Order?”
“No?”
“Good.” She smiles and takes a step back. With a twirl of her hand, she presents the run-down building before us. “Welcome to Regail Hall, home of the largest peace coalition of the gifted and ungifted. Also known as home of the Amaryllis Order.”
19
JAY
I MERELY STARE at Cathwell. What is she talking about? A peace coalition? Housed in this decrepit warehouse?
I recall the various times she’s reached out to thin air as if something was there.
“I’m being serious here,” Cathwell says with not just a touch of irritation. She turns to the building with a certain look of fondness I’m not able to imagine ever possessing for such a run-down place. “It might look like this, but that’s so it doesn’t attract attention. It wouldn’t be much of a secret hideout otherwise.”
“But it doesn’t even appear to be in use.” My eyes linger on the traces of faded graffiti and dirt. “If the District Committee saw a building like this, wouldn’t they do something about it? Renovate it, tear it down?”
“They can’t. One of our members owns the building, so they can’t complain about how it’s used. On the records, it’s written off as a storage building—and it is. Just not for what they think.”
Cathwell closes her eyes, and when she opens them once more, the fondness is still there. “Regail Hall is home to many of our members who’ve been displaced in the struggle between Nytes and Etioles. Here, everyone is family.”
She’s not lying, but it’s hard to accept her words as fact. I can’t imagine anyone living in this warehouse, let alone an entire organization. “You said this is a secret hideout. Why the secrecy?”
“Not everyone is enthusiastic about the idea of Nytes and Etioles getting along,” Cathwell says. “We don’t want our members to be targeted. And since the rebels intend to go to war against the sector, it’d be safest if they don’t have any idea where we are. Or that we even exist. Not until we’re ready to defend ourselves, at least.”
Once more, I merely stare at her. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Let’s get inside before someone sees us. We’ll talk more there.” She doesn’t await my response before approaching the doors. I don’t have much choice but to follow.
Cathwell thrusts a heavy-looking copper key into the door’s lock and slips inside without turning on the lights.
Musty air promptly slams into my face as I step through the doorway after her. I can feel the large expanse of space around us. It’s only thanks to the filtered moonlight falling through the few windows not boarded up that I don’t run into any of the towers of crates stacked around the room. There appears to be nothing else here. Is this truly the home base of a secret peace organization?
We come to a halt before a stack of crates only two tall; Cathwell easily pushes them aside to reveal a trapdoor.
Well. That wasn’t what I was expecting.
With a silver key perhaps half the size of the first one, she unlocks the door and drops through the opening. The echo of her boots hitting stone reaches me seconds later.
I waver at the edge. I can see a dim light, but not the bottom.
Cathwell’s voice ricochets up. “There’s a ladder if you don’t want to jump.”
My lips press together. I jump.
The fall isn’t as far as I anticipated; my feet meet solid ground once more fairly quickly. A warm, golden glow cast from lines of lanterns on either side of us illuminates a winding hallway of carved-out gray stone. Another surprise.
Cathwell tugs a cord, and the thud of the trapdoor hitting concrete and automatically locking back in place resounds through the tunnel.
For a heartbeat, I worry about her fear of small spaces, but though her presence has violet tremors around its edges, ultimately, she’s calm.
She proceeds down the tunnel. “The Amaryllis Order was founded around five years ago with the aim of bringing about peace between the gifted and ungifted. When the rebels came into existence two years ago, our focus shifted somewhat to take the threat they pose into account, but our ultimate goal remains the same.”
Every noise is amplified down here. The sound of my breathing alone reverberates around me. I lower my voice so as to avoid the echoes when I ask, “What do you mean your focus has shifted somewhat? Shifted in what way?”
“If the rebels do go to war against Sector Eight, we’re going to protect as many people as we can,” Cathwell says. “You’d be surprised how good our information networks and collection of technology are.” She appears immensely pleased by this. “We’re not ready just yet, but when we are, I think we’ll be able to do more than hold our own.”
Gradually, the tunnel turns into a hallway, becoming more rectangular in shape, splitting off in several directions. We remain on the main path. We encou
nter no one else.
Cathwell’s fingers have started tapping against one another behind her back. I wonder where she got her fidgeting habit from, and what purpose it serves. Her presence isn’t anxious in any way on my grid. What brings it on?
The farther we go, the more the path slopes downward. When I check my grid for our position relative to ground level, we’re nearly four stories down.
Merely by glancing at the multitude of diverging paths, and seeing all the passageways and doors off those, I can get a fair idea of how extensive this place is. More than likely, these tunnels already existed long before the Order moved in, much like the military’s underground tunnel network. But how did the Order find out about them? And how is a tunnel system this huge not logged into the military or Council’s records?
For the first time, it strikes me how serious all this is. What the organization that inhabits this place could be, what it could do. The fact that Cathwell is a part of it.
“Just what is the Amaryllis Order?” I ask.
“You’ll find out soon,” Cathwell says. “Very soon.”
The hallway lets out into a cavernous room. It isn’t gradual; we go from a hallway only a few feet above our heads to a space that towers at least three stories high. If I’d thought sound ricocheted in the hallway, it’s absolutely thunderous in here. The walls and floor are of the same gray stone as the halls. There are no fanciful decorations. A stage is positioned far off to our right, but that’s the only thing in the room.
There are rail-less balconies on two different levels, the first perhaps twenty feet up, the second, forty; from those balconies, wide openings lead back into what I assume are more passageways. A stone ramp circles the entire room. It begins from the floor and leads all the way to the highest level. Bright lanterns hang along it at intervals—enough to illuminate the whole room. People gather along the edges of the balconies, wearing all different colors and styles of clothing.
The crowd on the ground floor is much the same. The brilliant golds, purples, and reds of Sector Ten blend with the muted grays and browns of Sector Two. Men and boys wear traditional wraparounds that hang off one shoulder, or elaborate robes displaying embroidery from either Sector Twelve or Thirteen. Women and girls lift pleated skirts that reach past their ankles as they walk, jumpsuits in varying pastels, plain pants and shirts.
There must be at least one person from every sector here. It appears the rebels aren’t the only ones who’ve been gathering forces from outside Sector Eight.
“How many people are in the Order, exactly?” I ask.
“Mm. Maybe about a thousand?”
A thousand people assembled in one place. Not only the number but the diversity of it astounds me. No, even more than that, the fact that everyone here appears happy. No one seems to be alone, and there is no clear split of Nytes on one side of the room and Etioles on the other. People pass to and from groups, hugging, kissing on the cheek, exchanging bows, handshakes, and all sorts of greetings like it’s one big family reunion. And nearly all of them are smiling or laughing.
I suddenly feel dizzy. Is this truly happening? How in the gods’ names can this place, all these people, actually exist? How does no one else know of this? It seems impossible that such a momentous thing could remain secret for so long.
“How is this possible?” I ask.
“Desperation,” answers a voice from behind.
I turn to see a group of five people approaching us. The person who spoke is one of a set of gangly, freckled twins. Cathwell raises a hand in greeting. Her presence on my grid glows happily when she says, “Paul. Everyone. This is the guest I told you about earlier, Jay Kitahara.”
I can’t sense any of the newcomers with my gift. Alarm bells start ringing in my head, but before I can say anything, Lai whispers, “Don’t worry if you can’t sense them. I’ll explain later, but they’re safe.”
Her words are hardly reassuring. However, if she trusts them, I’ll hold off on my suspicion until she can explain things to me properly.
The twin who spoke before, Paul, smiles as familiarly to me as Cathwell did him. “Welcome to Regail Hall. I’m Paul Wood, and this is my brother, Peter.”
His brother jerks his chin up by way of greeting. “Yo.”
“It is good to meet you, friend of Lai,” says another of the group. “I am Tristao Clemente. But please, call me Trist. All friends do.” He’s a tall, dark-skinned man perhaps in his early twenties. His face is full and broad and he has limbs that appear thick enough to break a person in two. But most of his face is taken up by his huge smile, and the bass of his voice is full of warmth.
“Fiona Seung,” the only girl of the group says. She has short, wavy black hair, golden-brown skin, and a lifted chin. The look she gives me is cold. I wonder if I’ve already done something to upset her. She nods to the last of their group, a boy who looks barely older than twelve; small and pale, with short, messy blond hair and slightly hunched shoulders. “This is Syon.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet all of you,” I say. I hope I can remember all their names. But my attention is still halfway caught on not being able to use my gift on them and halfway on what Paul Wood said previously. “What did you mean before?” I ask him. “About this being possible because of desperation?”
He offers a timid smile. “Most people here have hit rock bottom at one point or another. They want something to hope for. And when we’re at our lowest point, we’re more receptive to things we might’ve previously rejected—especially concerning others who have felt our pain. Nytes aren’t the only ones hurting from discrimination.”
He nods to a woman passing by, at least ten years too old to be a Nyte. Long gashes wrap around her arm. I initially mistake them for a tattoo. Then I see that it’s a burn mark, only, too neat to be an accident. Someone intentionally scarred her like that.
She disappears into the crowd.
I’m about to ask how people find this place when a boy and a woman approaching us wave to the twins’ group. “Hey, it’s been a while!” the boy says. “How’ve you been?”
“Oh, you know, same as usual,” Peter Wood says with a grin. “Just saying hi to a guest.”
The pair comes to a halt before us. The boy is squared-faced, bronzed, and muscular, perhaps fifteen. The woman’s skin is a beautiful sepia, almost completely covered by colorful, elaborately embroidered clothing; a scarf of brilliant scarlet wraps around her head. I’m unable to estimate her age, merely that she isn’t young enough to be a Nyte. These two, I can sense; their presences glow a welcoming orange. They scan me, though not as if they were analyzing a threat, which is the look I’m accustomed to.
“Welcome to the Order,” the woman says with a small smile. “I do hope nothing too awful has brought you here.”
“Oh, uh, no,” I say. I look to Cathwell for support, but she merely nods to me encouragingly. “Nothing like that. Just, um, looking.” Do people only come here when something bad has happened to them? That’s a depressing thought.
“What a whimsical reason,” the boy says. “I hope you don’t make all your life decisions like that.”
“Is coming here a life decision?” I ask. “It’s just a group advocating equality, isn’t it?”
That was the wrong thing to say. Both their eyes harden, but it’s the woman who says, “This is everything to many people here—the place they live, work, and find peace. Please do not treat it so lightly.”
The fierceness with which she says the words takes me aback. And scrapes my lungs with guilt. I’d thought this place appeared as if out of a fairy tale, but for everyone here, this is their reality, their last sanctuary. This is no simple organization—it’s an entire society.
“Sorry, Captain Amal, we haven’t explained things to him yet, so he doesn’t know much about this place and everyone here,” Paul Wood says quickly.
Amal looks me up and down once more before she shakes her head. “No, I spoke too defensively. My apologies. I wish you well an
d hope you decide to join our cause.” She dips her head, and then she and the boy move on to another group of people.
“Sorry about that,” Cathwell says. “I should’ve warned you, but don’t talk about the Order as some kind of club when you’re around its members. There’s a lot at stake for the people here.”
No kidding.
“No, I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to insult them or this place.”
“There was no insult meant,” Clemente says. He claps a hand on my shoulder and my knees nearly give out. “Your intentions were not bad, so please do not be sorry.”
His sincerity is clear, but it does nothing to move the uneasiness in my stomach.
“By the way, Lai,” Peter Wood says as he turns to Cathwell. “Did you find out any more about that, uh”—he glances at me—“conversation from last time? About the experiments?”
Cathwell’s presence immediately darkens. “No, nothing yet. I’ll keep looking into it.”
I don’t know what they’re talking about, but it obviously isn’t anything good.
Seung glances at her watch. “Lai, we need to get going. The meeting will start soon.”
“You say that like they’d start without us,” Cathwell says. She pokes Seung’s cheek as she passes her, to which the other girl responds with a scowl. Cathwell stops next to Peter Wood. “Oh, and I need to talk with you later, Peter.”
“Me?” Peter Wood asks. “Why’s that?”
“It’s about the person I told you about before—the one I needed your help with. Things didn’t quite work out with your power crystal, and I wanted to see if you might know the reason why.”
“That’s weird. But yeah, sure.”
“Thanks,” Cathwell says. She turns to me. “Paul and Peter and Syon are going to stay with you during the meeting. If you have any questions, you can ask them.”
“What about you?” I fight to repress a sudden wave of panic. Left alone in a hall packed with strangers in a place I know nothing about? No matter how friendly everyone here might appear, I can’t think of a worse situation.
A Soldier and a Liar Page 17
