by Ann Denton
“Well you better go get him before someone comes in here and sees me,” Mala bit back.
“You haven’t answered me.” The rage in Lowe’s face cut through Mala. Yes, he was angry. He was infuriated. But she thought she saw a glimmer of hurt underneath all that. It was the hurt that did her in.
“Here,” Mala reached into her pocket and pulled out the scrap of paper. “They had a drawing of you. You were compromised. I found it in the Chiara’s rooms. I should have told you.” She hung her head. “I couldn’t think of a way to talk to you. Or Ein. I’m supposed to be suspicious of you guys since you’re from another township. But I thought Keptiker—I mean I—could get away with torturing Neid. With scaring her, I mean. And it was the best we could come up with to make you look different.”
Lowe shook his head at her. “You don’t get to pull shit like this, Mala. You don’t get to change the rules. They had a drawing of me. So what?”
“So, they had a drawing of Neid and they shot her on sight!” Mala retorted.
Lowe took a deep, calming breath. “I understand you think what you did was for the best. But you have to run things like that by me. I’m point on this mission. You can’t just send me off … even if you think you’re protecting me.”
Tears came into Mala’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I just didn’t want … I couldn’t stand to see you get hurt.”
Lowe cupped her cheek. He bit his lip. “It’s really distracting when you look like my commanding Ancient.”
“Yeah, well, sorry. You’re the one who’s mad at her, apparently,” Mala retorted.
“For agreeing—sending us here,” Lowe caressed her cheek. “When we are clearly not prepared enough.”
“I’m sorry, Lowe,” Mala repeated. She leaned her face into his hand.
“I know,” he said. Then he gave a crooked grin. “Just don’t do it again.” He tossed her his small water bottle, so she could at least wait in her own skin.
“Aye aye,” she retorted. For the first time since she’d set foot in Troe’s compound, the tension in Mala’s chest eased.
“Now I need to go find a man to kiss you,” Lowe quipped.
“Wish it could be you,” Mala pouted.
Lowe’s sweet six-year-old grin widened as he slipped out the door. “Believe me, so do I.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Mala held her breath. She heard the scuffle of Lowe’s feet as he raced down the hallway toward her, in six-year-old form. Behind him, the clunky footsteps of Troe’s bodyguard drummed on the dusty floor tiles.
“Give it here’ ya damned snake!” the guard bellowed.
Lowe laughed, and neatly jumped the tripwire he and Mala had set. He emptied the magazine of the bodyguard’s gun. It clattered across the floor. Lowe tossed the weapon behind him, just as the guard approached the tripwire. The distraction was perfect: the man fell with a thud.
Mala grabbed a heavy binder off the shelf. She stepped out of an office and cracked the guard over the head. His eyes closed.
Lowe gestured to her. She tossed him a set of computer cords. “Close to rope as I saw in there.”
He nodded. Mala knotted the cords over the man’s legs and hands. Then Lowe reached into his shirt and brought out a small vial, just as he had the night he’d brought Mala to the Center. He smeared the contents across the guard’s lips.
“That’ll keep him sleeping for a good while,” he said. He stood. “Mala, meet your new body double: This is Kopf. Not the brightest star in the sky. But good enough. He’s on duty tonight during Troe’s meetings.” He looked up. “You ready?”
Mala nodded. “Sure. Let me go get Ein.”
Lowe had chosen well: the floor was abandoned. No one was around. No one was on the floor below, either, perhaps because they were forty-five stories high in the eighty-story building. Troe’s force only occupied the first thirty stories and the underground parking structure. And if the dusty cubicles were any indication, no one from Troe’s guard would be inspecting this floor for a long time.
Lowe had decided they needed to move quickly. With Neid gone, they’d lost reconnaissance opportunities in the prison, where guards tended to drink and get loose-lipped. They needed to listen in on Troe’s strategy sessions. Find out his plans. They only had a few days before their cover was blown—if Keptiker survived. Lowe was a kid and therefore mobile, but he couldn’t get into secure locations. Ein might have come up with something before … but he was listless. He hadn’t said a word since Neid died.
Ein hadn’t responded when Mala had hugged him. He hadn’t responded when Lowe had yelled at him. He hadn’t slept when they’d hunkered down in Keptiker’s room a few hours ago. In a way, Mala understood. The unthinkable had happened: his sister had come on this mission to protect him. And she was gone.
So it all falls on my untrained behind, Mala’s thoughts muttered as she dodged into a cubicle to grab Ein.
He sat on a desk, staring out at the landscape—a collection of houses and trees and trimmed grass so perfect and serene that you would never guess something was amiss. But just outside the mountain of rubble, there was a low rock wall. It marked the boundary before The Ice, as Erlenders called the tainted lands beyond the border. Everyone knew not to cross the wall. But the picture-perfect homes made for a tempting sight. They didn’t look infected. But there was no movement, no life. Not a rabbit or deer, not a human in sight. The world outside the borders stayed frozen, untouched, because it still wasn’t safe.
Rumors of poison gas and terrible fates still swirled through Senebal ears nearly a century after the explosion that changed everything. Troe’s compound was just inside the bounds of safety, just beyond the fallout’s fingers. But the windows had a clear view of how empty and desolate and beautiful the outside world really was.
Mala grabbed Ein’s elbow. He didn’t budge. He was too big to move, so rather than struggle against him, she sat next to him on a desk. “Hey handsome,” she nudged his shoulder. “I came to see if you wanted to make out.”
Ein’s lip curled slightly, but he didn’t respond.
“I know it sucks,” Mala continued. “I know right now there’s a hole in your chest. But I want you to know … I’ll make sure it wasn’t for nothing. I’ll get everything I can on these stupid bluenoses. And then …” Mala choked up. She couldn’t speak. Her mother’s face flashed through her mind and sadness gripped her. “I know what it’s like,” she finished lamely. She reached for Ein’s hand. She squeezed. To her surprise, he squeezed back.
“I know you know.” His voice was raw. It tugged at Mala to hear him so vulnerable. He’d never been vulnerable before. He’d always acted so superior. But the shield was down. A solitary tear made its way down his cheek. She had to resist the urge to wipe it away.
She waited a moment. And another. It was almost calming, to sit in grief together. But eventually she had to ask. “I know it’s a lot. It’s too soon, but I need to ….”
Ein sighed. “I know. You need to melt. I just … I don’t think I can … you know.”
Mala nodded. She took a deep breath. She knew what she had to do. I have to seduce Ein. Oh geez. Ein. I’m sorry in advance. I’m gonna be terrible. Here goes. She leaned up to whisper innocently in his ear, “So, you don’t think you could pull my hair and pin me down on the desk?”
Ein gasped. He looked over at her, shock etched across his face.
Mala raised an eyebrow and met his gaze head-on. “I know you like it rough.” She leaned in further, so that her lips were just short of his. “I’ve actually started to like it rough, too.”
And then his lips were on hers.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Mala edged toward King Troe, attempting to be inconspicuous as she and the bodyguard on duty traded out. She took up her stance and tried not to fidget with the sleeves of her olive flight suit. Troe’s guard were stuffed ceremonially into pre-war flight suits, with no regard for fit. Mala’s was more than snug. But she stood ramrod
-straight anyway.
Troe hardly glanced at her as he shuffled through the paperwork at his desk. That’s a good sign, at least, she tried to encourage herself. She avoided eye contact with the two other bodyguards posted in the room. Just in case.
Dull light trickled in from the filthy twentieth-story windows on the back wall. It caressed stacks of canvases Troe had shoved into the corners. The light couldn’t quite reach the pictures he’d tacked up on the walls: Das Wort, the floating Senebal capital, shown from any number of angles; the canals; the president’s sanctuary; the cheap houseboats of the poor that clustered around the buildings like fleas. The pictures looked just like Ges had described: surveillance. She couldn’t see any indication of what Troe had planned.
Just as Mala was beginning to wonder if she’d have to stare at paintings all day, an older woman slipped into the room.
“Yer sons to see you, yer majesty,”
Troe gave a brisk nod and shuffled some papers. “A’right.”
The woman led three preteen boys into the room. It was all Mala could do not to flinch. Each of their faces was heavily scarred and tattooed. Scrawny and pubescent as they were, the boys gave off an air of danger. They stood at attention side by side.
“Well?” Troe asked.
“Haven’t found ‘er yet,” the middle one replied. “But we will.”
“When you do … be careful.”
“Don’ worry ‘bout us. We can handle some girl.”
Troe raised his eyebrows. “I meant, be careful with ‘er, you fool.” He looked like he was about to continue his lecture, but another knock sounded at the door.
Again, the servant woman slipped in to announce the visitor. “The Chiara to see you, yer Majesty.”
Troe waved to admit the chiara. “No, stay,” he told the boys. “Lissen to what she gotta say.”
A short woman dressed in grey entered. She wore a black veil over her hair. A paintbrush dangled from a string on her neck.
Mala felt a tingle, a sense of déjà vu. But she only got half a glance at the woman’s pale profile, before the Chiara turned her back to Mala and faced Troe.
“She’s here, yer Majesty,” the Chiara intoned. She handed over a sketch.
Where have I seen her? Mala wondered.
“You sure?”
“I’m sure,” the Chiara responded.
One of Troe’s sons spoke up. “Well there’s a lotta places here could be. Couldja’ be more specific? I know it don’ bother you none, but since you don’ have to go lookin’ and all …”
The Chiara cuffed the prince.
He retaliated by swiping her veil. And a lush mane of red hair fell across her shoulders as she reached for him.
Mala gasped. Red hair. Short, curvy figure. A woman Mala herself had melted into time and again. The woman who made Mala feel vulnerable, unsure of herself. The woman Lowe had loved. The Chiara is Stelle.
Chapter Forty
Mala was drowning. She couldn’t breathe. She remained at her post, unmoving, unhearing. If Troe and the Chiara mentioned any other grand plans to take over Das Wort and destroy the Senebals, she didn’t hear it.
She’s alive. The thought repeated in a long trailing echo. She’s alive. His first love. Of course she’s alive; I can’t melt into the dead. I’m an idiot. Of course.
Once the initial shock and pain had died down, Mala’s thoughts were able to follow a line of possibilities. But she kept circling back to one particular question. Does Lowe know? She’d transformed into Stelle so many times over the past few months, each time she and Lowe had gotten carried away. Part of her argued, I turned into a younger version of her. But another part was skeptical. Melts were about the first, most intense surge of emotion. Not present emotion. So he could know.
Lowe had always talked of Stelle in the past tense. He said the Erlenders had stolen her. Typically that meant slavery. Which was a short stop away from death. Most slaves were lucky to last two years. Did she leave willingly? Was he covering for her? Is he working with her?
Each new question felt like a cut. And unlike her mother’s death, which had ripped her heart out, this felt like a thousand little cuts in her mind. On her judgement. On her choices. Did I trust the wrong person? Doubt bled her dry.
Mala was so involved in her internal dialogue that it took her a moment to realize Troe was standing before her.
“Glad I wuzzn’t getting’ attacked jus’ now, or you and I’d both be dead,” Troe commented sardonically.
“Sir, I’m sorry, night watch—” Mala fumbled for a reply.
“Don’ wan’ no excuses. Yer off the list for my office from here on out. But I’m hopin’ yer still awake enough to carry something to the guard barracks downstairs?”
Mala nodded stiffly.
“Good. Give ‘em this picture. Tell ‘em to all be on the lookout. Lil girl here’s gonna be my new queen.”
Troe handed Mala the charcoal drawing the Chiara had handed him. Mala glanced down at it. She froze. It was a drawing of her face. No.
Troe tapped the drawing with a finger. “You sure you can handle this soldier? You lookin’ kinda green …”
Mala glanced back up at him, willing an impassive look onto her face. Behind him, his sons were watching her closely. She couldn’t see the Chiara’s face. “Yessir.”
“Good. Get outta here.”
With that dismissal, Mala stumbled out of the room.
Chapter Forty-One
Mala leaned against the wall near the stairs. She stared at nothing, her mind as blank as the wall. She counted for a second. But footsteps and a hushed argument reached her ears. She doubled over, clutching her stomach, intending to play up the part of the ill soldier.
Mala was startled to find out one of the voices belonged to the prince.
“—In an hour in the shrine. You’d better have more answers than that,” the boy’s voice threatened.
“I’ve told you—” the Chiara cut off as she spotted Mala.
The prince’s cold voice rang out. “My father sent you to the barracks.” He eyed Mala suspiciously.
Mala put a look of agony on her face. It wasn’t hard. “I’m feelin’ dizzy yer highness. I think I might be—” She dry heaved for good measure. That sent the prince and the Chiara scurrying downstairs.
Mala stared after them. They’re meeting in an hour. The only shrine she could think of was the one with the clocks, where she’d met Troe as Keptiker. Worth a try.
Mala hurtled up the stairs. When she arrived at the top, panting, she headed toward the cubicles.
Lowe stepped out of one. “Well?” he asked.
Mala’s heart nearly stopped. Muck and shit. She stared at him and swallowed. I thought I knew you.
“The Chiara showed up,” Mala mentioned, gauging Lowe’s reaction. His face didn’t register anything. It was smooth, even. But he’s had years of practice hiding his emotions, Mala reminded herself.
Mala held his gaze as she lied. “Nothing important happened.”
Lowe raised an eyebrow. “Really? Nothing?”
“How many times have you gotten intel the first day into a mission?”
Lowe didn’t respond.
Either he knows what the Chiara brought and he’s working with her, or he can tell I’m lying. Which is it?
“Look, I need to check on Ein. I know he’s having a hard time,” Mala used her Erlender soldier’s body to push past Lowe.
“Of course. Ein.” Lowe couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his tone.
“His sister just died,” Mala retorted. And guess what? I don’t know if I can trust you and I can’t stand lying any longer. So shut it.
Lowe sighed, but didn’t come after her.
She found Ein at the desk, still staring. Mala perched beside him. She waited for an eternity, until she heard Lowe walk away.
When Mala felt confident Lowe was gone, she held out a hand. Ein took it. Silently, she led him back to the staircase and up another two floors.
/> “Kiss me,” Mala ordered.
“Again?” Ein moaned.
“I’m starting to think kissing me is a burden, not your nightly fantasy.”
“What gave it away?”
“It’s your fault, you know.”
“Oh, trust me. I’m aware.”
“I need you to kiss me. It’s important.”
“Can you at least melt into you first? It’s already hard enough …”
Mala rolled her eyes as she got out the tiny water bottle Lowe had given her earlier. “You better be hard enough ….” She poured the water over her hands.
“Did you just make a dirty joke?”
“Surprised a mouth-breather like me is capable of one?”
“A little.”
“Yes, let’s talk about little …” Mala raised her brows, deliberately baiting him.
“You wouldn’t know!” Ein said defensively.
“You slammed me half-naked into the wall of a submarine and pressed yourself against me. You think I didn’t notice? I mean, there was hardly anything there to notice. But still …”
Ein grabbed her hair. “You’re doing this on purpose.”
“According to you, I’m not smart enough to do this on purpose.”
Ein smiled. Almost laughed. Tears filled his eyes. “You always know just what to do.”
“What?” Tears? What did I do wrong?
“You know exactly how to get under my skin.”
Mala smiled. “I thought the point was that you wanted under my skin, sludge breath.”
Then Ein did laugh. And he kissed her.
When she melted, Ein froze. “What’s going on?”
Mala grabbed his hand. “Listen carefully Ein. I need you to keep Lowe busy for the next two hours. Barracks, inventory, taxes—I don’t care. But don’t tell him. Meet me on the sixtieth floor once he’s eating. Have your best escape plan ready.”
“You didn’t answer me.”
Mala took a deep breath. “I don’t have time to explain. I’ve gotta get downstairs before … Ein I need you to trust me. There’s a possibility that Lowe isn’t on our side. And I have to find out. I’ll give you five minutes to get him out of there. Then I’m coming down.”