Green Jack

by Alyxandra Harvey

  Chapter 61

  Saffron

  “Just a little dead.” Jane smiled faintly. “I told you the moon had plans for us.”

  Saffron grinned. “So you did. And apparently the leaf mask threw a tantrum and abandoned me,” she added wryly. “Ungrateful hunk of dirt.” She raised her eyebrows at Jane’s crown. “I guess that makes you a Jill as well now.”

  She touched the rose petals wonderingly. “I guess so.”

  “Let me give you a tip,” Saffron said pushing to her feet. “These things are a pain in the ass.” She hugged Jane briefly. “Thank you.” The oak tree ruffled its leaves over them.” Saffron glanced up. “Oh, shut it.”

  “My numen is different than the others,” Jane added hesitantly. Kiri snorted at the understatement. “I’m not exactly sure what it means but I think we’re linked now. The leaf mask split into two.”

  “It’s what the Directorate have been trying to do all along,” Caradoc said quietly. “What my sister has been obsessed with.”

  “And Jane did it in seconds without hurting anyone,” Saffron gloated.

  Jane glanced at Kiri. “Almost anyone.”

  Kiri tried to smile around her split lip. “You’re going to tell me what’s going on eventually, right?”

  “Promise.”

  “And you basically stuck it to that bitch Cartimandua?”

  “Yes.”

  Kiri touched the bloody gash on her face. “Good enough for now.”

  “I like her,” Saffron said.

  “Careful, that’s two Enclave girls you like,” Jane teased.

  She recoiled in mock horror, before glancing at Killian. “Let’s go home. Just for a minute before we go back to running for our lives. I want to see Oona.”

  Saffron hurried through the deserted streets. Caradoc’s brow furrowed as he looked around. “Is that his celebration face?” Safffron asked Roarke. “It needs work.”

  “No, that’s his we’re-all-going-to-die face.”

  “But I’ve already done that today.” Her giddy good humour faded when Caradoc paused. He was staring down the empty street. She turned to follow his gaze. It was definitely strange but everyone was in the amphitheatre. She decided he was overreacting.

  Until she noticed the red dust on the windowsills.

  “Oona.”

  They were already so close to home, too close. Dust spilled out of the doorways, glittering on broken glass. She kicked an empty canister as she broke into a run. “Saffron, wait!” Roarke swore. Killian was already at her side, thundering into the apartment building. The stairwell was thick with dust. She burst into their apartment, dread and fear prickling inside her rib cage. Killian hovered in the doorway, out of the sight of the security camera. If they found out he was alive, his family would suffer for it.

  The living room window was broken and light fell in, shining on Papu, covered in rust and blood. Saffron wasn’t sure if she was breathing or sobbing or both as she fell into Oona’s room. Too late, too late.

  Oona was in her rocking chair, blood streaking her dusty cheeks like tears. She was so still, gone. She thought someone might be holding her hand but she couldn’t tell. She couldn’t feel anything but the pressure in her chest. She staggered into the hall. Killian moved, as if he was going to step into the apartment towards her but she held up her hand.

  “This is what Cartimandua was really doing,” Caradoc said after a horrified pause. “The amphitheatre trials were mandatory, just like Festival days.”

  “Except for the ill,” Saffron continued dully as Jane stepped forward to close Oona’s eyes. “And the old.” Everything inside her went sharp. She was surprised her leaf mask didn’t turn to knives.

  “They’re Dusting the City,” Jane explained when Livia and Kiri looked confused. “It will kill anyone who’s not in the amphitheatre.”

  “She’s culling,” Caradoc added. “Before the grid goes down entirely.”

  “Less people to feed,” Jane agreed, so quietly Saffron could barely hear her over the thudding of her heart. Oona’s garden had taken over the fire escape, blooming thick and green with the Green Jack’s soil. Saffron had really thought she was saving her.

  Caradoc was at the window, peering through the peas curling up the sill. “They’re sending drones,” he said quietly. She could see the tinge of red to the air. “They haven’t finished.”

  Saffron remembered Oona talking about the Green Jack, how no one deserved to die alone. She turned back to the others. “How do we stop them? How do we stop them?” she yelled when no one answered her.

  “We have virtually no weapons,” Caradoc said. “And there must be hundreds of the drones out there right now.”

  “And is she wrong?” One of the Green Jacks asked. He held up his hands when Saffron snarled at him. “I hate the bitch as much as you do, but when the last of the tech goes, it will be chaos. As bad as the Cataclysms.”

  “No,” Saffron said very clearly. “That is not a plan. That is giving up. We were too late for my Oona and Papu, like hell we’ll be too late for everyone in the Core. Like hell that bitch is going to win. She doesn’t get to kill our people to save hers.”

  “We might not have weapons like the Directorate,” Jane added. She already smelled like mint and roses. “But we have Green Jacks. And that means we have the trees.”

  “An army of trees,” Roarke said. “It’s something.”

  “And Elysium City is a forest of sorts, just like the Spirit Forest. It must have a Mother tree,” Saffron said. “If we can link to it, the all of the trees will be ours.”

  “They’re moving east from the fourth district,” Caradoc said, still at the window. The bonebirds were already circling. “Cartimandua will keep everyone in the amphitheatre for a few more hours at least. Long enough for the dust to settle. Literally.”

  “We’ll help,” two of the Green Jacks said, including the one who’d just wondered if Cartimandua was doing the right thing. The third had already passed out on the floor. His bones poked out of his linen shirt.

  “I’ll go with you then,” Caradoc continued. He nodded at Kiri. “You stay here with the other one.”

  “You could stay too,” Saffron suggested to Killian. “I can’t lose everyone, Killian.”

  He met her eyes. “No. My father died to stop the Dust. I’m not staying here. I’m going to do what he couldn’t do. And I’d never leave you, Foxfire.”

  She knew he wouldn’t stay. Caradoc was still working out a plan, but she was already running out the door. The Core was the colour of fox fur.

  When they reached the fifth district, they were too late. They had to double back and circle to the sixth, crouched on either side of the street. Saffron pressed her hands against a towering maple tree. It rustled, growing bright buds, green as butterfly cocoons. Saffron pushed harder, willing the branches to reach out like hands, like swords and spears. The drones whirred and clicked like giant poisonous insects as they approached. Silver canisters were tossed into window, one after the other. She heard a scream cut off abruptly.

  “Talk to the Mother Tree,” she leaned into the tree so desperately the bark scratched at her arms, leaving welts. “Tell her we need her. We need you all.”

  Jane was wrapped around an ash tree, muttering some kind of Woodwife prayer. Her ash tree dipped over the sidewalk, into the street. It was slow painful work. Saffron blinked sweat out of her eyes. She could feel all of the bones in her body, too sharp, too hollow. Green Jack skeletons flashed in her head. She pushed the images away.

  The drones were too close.

  There was a beep as one hovered, turning a metal eye in their direction.

  “Get down!” Roarke crashed into her just as the bullets hit the tree, shattering the trunk. Shrapnel bit into her back and her legs like a thousand wasps. She scrambled back to her feet. She had to reach the next tree. More bullets came and Roarke was there again, knocking her down. “Are you nuts?”

  Killian crouched behind a
car, using Roarke’s rifle to pick off the drones as they closed in. A dryad tossed what looked like human bones at the drones that drifted too close to her tree.

  “We almost have it,” Saffron insisted, stretching towards the tree until her shoulder screamed. Her fingers brushed a root. A little further. Something tore in her rotator cuff but she was able to wrap her hand around the root. Burrs prickled into her hair and the back of her neck. She didn’t know where the Mother tree was, only that it was connected through the roots that traveled underground, just like the rebel tunnels. She pushed every ounce of energy into her plea. Jane was curled limply around her tree, dropping black berries from her mask. They rolled across the sidewalk.

  Slowly, slowly, the trees reached out, tangling branches. A barricade of leaves and flowers began to form, creaking and rustling. The other trees responded, like lightbulbs switching on. Oak and ash and maples curved over the street and stretched in front of buildings.

  The drones crashed into each other, caught in the trees, and shattered on the concrete. Canisters rolled into the gutter.

  “Run!”

  Saffron was too weak, too empty. There was only green sap, only roots digging down, only fire moving through her and burning her hollow. Someone was carrying her.

  The trees continued to grow over them, shedding petals and catkins. They trapped the drones until they plummeted, falling like metal rain.

  The Core was safe.

  For now, at least.