Green Jack

by Alyxandra Harvey

  Chapter 39

  Saffron

  “Time to go,” Jane insisted.

  When Jane wandered away, looking suddenly drunk, Saffron had followed. She may or may not have paused to smirk at Livia. “What—whoa.” Jane’s pupils were white as salt and old bones.

  “Numen,” Caradoc said softly.

  “Time to go,” Jane repeated. Saffron shuddered, waving her hand back and forth in front of Jane’s face. “Stop that, Saf.”

  “But the raid was scheduled for tomorrow night,” Roarke said.

  “Now.”

  Caradoc just looked at Roarke when he opened his mouth to keep arguing. “Can you handle it?”

  He snapped his jaw closed and nodded curtly.

  “I’m going too,” Saffron said.

  Caradoc handed Roarke a stolen Protectorate rifle. “Green Jill’s don’t generally go on raids.”

  “This one does.”

  Roarke checked the chamber of the gun. “Good luck, Caradoc.”

  “You need me,” Saffron insisted, reaching for throwing daggers before they could stop her. It was rude to claim someone’s else’s weapons but she didn’t care.

  “And yet we’ve managed fine without you for years.”

  “’Fine’ is the not the same as ‘well’,” she pointed out archly. She held up her hands as placatingly as she knew how to—which wasn’t entirely successful. She was pretty sure her conciliatory smile looked more like a scowl. Caradoc only raised an eyebrow but at least he wasn’t smirking like his nephew. “I can help,” she pressed. “Misdirection. Lots of green stuff. And I can lead guards away. They won’t be able to resist the idea of bringing in another Green Jill.”

  “She has a point actually,” Roarke said.

  “And if you get shot? Caradoc asked mildly. “If you die? What then?”

  “Then you have the leaf mask,” Saffron replied. “And someone more willing to wear it.”

  “Is this some kind of suicide mission?” he asked sharply.

  She waved that away and reached for another knife. “If I go down, I go down fighting. But no, that’s not what this is about.”

  Caradoc watched her for a long moment before glancing at Roarke. “Your raid, your call.”

  Roarke smirked more. Saffron considered it the highest form of self-restraint that she didn’t throat-punch him. He finally nodded. “Okay.”

  She grinned, adrenaline already blooming under her skin.

  “You take orders,” Caradoc cut in.

  “Of course.”

  He grabbed her wrist. “You take orders.” He repeated, unsmiling.

  “No problem.” She ignored Roarke’s snort of disbelief in favour of stuffing more knives in every available pocket. She’d have liked a rifle or a gun too but she had no idea how to use one. “Don’t let her fall on her face,” Saffron tossed over her shoulder, leaving Jane staring blindly.

  Roarke took Augusta, with her tattoos and tech knowledge, and the cook, Kristoff. Saffron wasn’t sure what he could do besides cook stew, but he was grizzled and scarred and managed to look deadly in an apron, never mind a Protectorate uniform to match Augusta and Roarke. “Same plan,” Roarke said “Stay low and stay quiet. This is a raid, not a battle. We free the Jack and we get the hell out.”

  “Fall behind, stay behind,” Kristoff agreed. “Standard raid rules.”

  “Except for you,” Roarke murmured behind Saffron. “We’d come back for you.”

  As they left the camp, Saffron studied a map of the farm Roarke had pulled from his pocket. The main dome was in the centre, surrounded by smaller domes, outbuildings, guards, barbed wire, and fences. “They’ll be keeping him in the main dome, in a central pit,” he explained. “You stay on this side. They’d expect us to attack to from the back so we’ll go in through the front.”

  It took over an hour to walk to the edge of the Spirit Forest and another hour after that to get to the farm. By the time they reached the stubble of corn fields the clouds had gathered like a herd of grey horses stampeding the starry sky. “Huh,” Kristoff grunted. “Little girl was right.”

  “Sweet.” Augusta nodded. “The rain will cover us and explain the grid going down when I cut the power.”

  “Are you giggling?” Roarke gaped at Saffron. “I didn’t even know you knew how.”

  She didn’t mention she’d never giggled before in her life. She flipped a knife between her fingers just to show off.

  “Just come on, Saffron the Stupendous.”

  “How did you know that was my sideshow name?”

  “How could it be anything else?”

  The glass domes glittered with a thousand raindrops. Roarke nodded to the guards, two by a side entrance, three more around the back. Augusta and Kristoff marched up to the front, rifles trained on them from above. Barbed wire and electricity made Saffron think of the Wall back home, and the bodies littered around it. She wasn’t sure what to expect, but it wasn’t the front gates swinging open to admit them. She sat back on her heels, stunned.

  Roarked grinned. “That’s Gareth. He’s one of us.”

  “And one of them?”

  “But mostly one of us. He’s saved our asses more than once.” He met her eyes. “Stay covered.”

  “I will.”

  “I mean it.”

  She huffed a breath. “Don’t be an old lady. Go on.”

  Roarke loped away, joining Augusta and Kristoff as they entered the farm compound. Saffron couldn’t make out any details through the fence and the silver rain beyond general movement. She scampered up a tree, the branches moving to help her, and cradling her when she stopped. Roarke and Kristoff were making their way to the main dome, postures confident and alert. If she hadn’t known better she’d have taken them for proper soldiers. Augusta veered left.

  The wait was long, boring and tense. Saffron had nothing to keep away the memory of the soldier she’d killed, of the mask controlling her as effectively as the Directorate, of worry over Oona and Killian. She was almost glad when there was an ominous popping sound, followed by a crackle of blue light along the fence. The lights in the compound went out.

  It wasn’t long before a shadow burst out, running towards the shelter of the woods. Saffron couldn’t tell who it was. She slid down the trunk and eased out of the undergrowth. It was a woman she didn’t recognize. She was all muscle and teeth. And Green Jill mask. “They got you out!” Saffron exclaimed, amazed at the speed of the raid. “Where are-.”

  The Green Jill didn’t answer, didn’t even pause. She did, however, punch Saffron so hard in the stomach that she flew back several feet and knocked into a tree. The branches tried to catch her, but they couldn’t do anything for the burst of pain. She choked on a breath, Even Dahlia didn’t hit that hard. “Bitch.” Saffron wheezed. The Green Jill was already gone, vanished into the green darkness.

  She’d left behind two guards though.

  Saffron pressed back into the branches, willing them to grow leaves to cover her. The grass shone in the rain, unfurling blades like tiny knives. The tree sighed, leaves thickening.

  It wasn’t enough.

  Or, conversely, it was too much.

  The grass grew as well, pushing at the soldiers’ ankles, then their knees. They only had to follow the profusion of green to where Saffron dangled like a ripe apple.