Nix speaks first, clapping Kilorn on the shoulder. “Crabs,” he says, wiggling his fingers. “Been a crabber all my life.”
A bit of Kilorn’s discomfort recedes, pulling back behind a crooked grin. He turns to watch Cal switch his way across the control panel, making the Blackrun ready for another flight. I feel the jet respond in kind, its energy flowing toward the wing-mounted engines. They start to whir, gaining power with every passing second.
“Looks good,” Cal says, finally punching a hole in the uncomfortable quiet. “Where to next?”
It takes a second to realize he’s asking me. “Oh.” I stumble over the words. “The closest names are in Harbor Bay. Two in the city proper, one in the slums.”
I expect more of a fuss at the prospect of breaking into a walled, Silver city, but Cal only nods. “That won’t be easy,” he warns, his bronze eyes flashing with the panel’s blinking lights.
“I’m so happy you’re here to tell us what we don’t already know,” I reply dryly. “Farley, you think we can do it?”
She nods, and there’s a crack in her usually stoic mask, revealing emotion beneath. Excitement. Her fingers drum on her thigh. I get the sickening sense that she sees part of this as a game. “I’ve got enough friends in the Bay,” she says. “The walls won’t be a problem.”
“Then to the Bay we go,” Cal says. His grim tone is not at all comforting.
Neither is the drop in my stomach as the jet lurches forward, screaming down a mile of hidden runway. This time, when we angle into the sky, I close my eyes tight. Between the comforting thrum of engines and the knowledge that I am not needed, it’s frighteningly easy to fall asleep.
I shift between sleep and waking many times, never truly succumbing to the quiet darkness my mind so desperately needs. Something about the jet keeps me suspended, my eyes never opening, but my brain never completely shutting off. I feel like Shade, pretending to be asleep, collecting whispered secrets. But the others are silent and, judging by Nix’s sputtering snores, out like snuffed candles. Only Farley stays awake. I hear her unbuckle and move to Cal’s side, her footsteps almost inaudible over the jet engines. I doze off then, catching a few needed minutes of shallow rest, before her low voice brings me back.
“We’re over the ocean,” she murmurs, sounding confused.
Cal’s neck cracks as he turns, bone on bone. He didn’t hear her coming, too focused on the jet. “Perceptive,” he says after he recovers.
“Why are we over the ocean? The Bay is south, not east—”
“Because we’ve got more than enough juice to circle off the coast, and they need to sleep.” Something like fear taints his voice. Cal hates water. This must be killing him.
Her scoff grates low in her throat. “They can sleep where we land. The next runway is hidden like the last.”
“She won’t. Not with newbloods on the line. She’ll march until she drops, and we can’t let her do that.”
A long pause. He must be staring, convincing her with eyes instead of words. I know firsthand how persuasive his eyes can be.
“And when do you sleep, Cal?”
His voice lowers, not in volume, but mood. “I don’t. Not anymore.”
I want to open my eyes. To tell him to turn around, to make as much haste as he can. We’re wasting time out on the ocean, burning precious seconds that could spell life or death for the newbloods of Norta. But my anger is tempered by exhaustion. And cold. Even next to Cal, a walking furnace, I feel the familiar creep of ice in my flesh. I don’t know where it comes from, only that it arrives in moments of quiet, when I’m still, when I think. When I remember all I’ve done, and what has been done to me. The ice sits where my heart should be, threatening to split me open. My arms curl around my chest, trying to stop the pain. It works a little, letting warmth back into me. But where the ice melts, it leaves only emptiness. An abyss. And I don’t know how to fill it back up.
But I will heal. I must.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, almost too low to hear. Still enough to keep me from drifting away. But his words aren’t meant for me.
Something jostles my arm. Farley, as she moves closer to hear him.
“For what I did to you. Before. In the Hall of the Sun.” His voice almost breaks—Cal carries ice of his own. The memory of frozen blood, of Farley’s torture in the cells of the palace. She refused to betray her own, and Cal made her scream for it. “I don’t expect you to accept any kind of apology, and you shouldn’t—”
“I accept,” she says, curt but sincere. “I made mistakes that night as well. We all did.”
Even though my eyes are closed, I know she’s looking at me. I can feel her gaze, painted with regret—and resolve.
The bump of wheels against concrete jerks me awake, bouncing me in my seat. I open my eyes, only to squeeze them shut again, turning away from the bright stab of sunlight pouring through the cockpit windows. The others are wide awake, talking quietly, and I look over my shoulder to face them. Even though we’re tearing across the runway, slowing down but still moving, Kilorn lurches to my side. I guess his river legs are good for something, because the motion of the jet doesn’t seem to affect him at all.
“Mare Barrow, if I catch you dozing one more time, I’ll report you to the outpost.” He mimics our old teacher, the one we shared until he turned seven and left to apprentice with a fisherman.
I look up at him, grinning at the memory. “Then I’ll sleep in the stocks, Miss Vandark,” I reply, sending him into a bout of chuckles.
As I wake more fully, I realize I’m covered in something. Soft, worn fabric, dark in color. Kilorn’s jacket. He pulls it away before I can protest, leaving me cold without its warmth.
“Thanks,” I mutter, watching him pull it back on.
He just shrugs. “You were shivering.”
“It’s going to be a haul into the Bay.” Cal’s voice is loud over the roaring engines, still spooling down from the flight. He never takes his eyes off the runway and guides the jet to a halt. Like Nine-Five Field, this so-called ruin is surrounded by forest and totally deserted. “Ten miles through forest and outskirts,” he adds, angling his head toward Farley. “Unless you have something else up your sleeve?”
She laughs to herself, unbuckling her belts. “Learning, are you?” With a snap, she lays the Colonel’s map across her knees. “We can cut it to six if we take the old tunnels. And avoid the outskirts altogether.”
“Another Undertrain?” The thought fills me with a combination of hope and dread. “Is that safe?”
“What’s an Undertrain?” Nix grumbles, his voice faraway. I won’t waste my time explaining the rattling metal tube we left behind in Naercey.
Farley ignores him too. “There aren’t any stationed in the Bay, not yet, but the tunnel itself runs right under the Port Road. That is, if it hasn’t been closed up?”
She glances at Cal, but he shakes his head. “Not enough time to. Four days ago, we thought the tunnels were collapsed and abandoned. They aren’t even mapped. Even with every strongarm at his disposal, Maven couldn’t possibly have blocked them all by now.” His voice falters, heavy with thought. I know what he’s remembering.
It was only four days ago. Four days since Cal and Ptolemus found Walsh in the train tunnels beneath Archeon. Four days since we watched her kill herself to protect the secrets of the Scarlet Guard.
To distract myself from the memory of Walsh’s glassy, dead eyes, I stretch out of my seat, bend and flex my muscles. “Let’s get moving,” I say, and it sounds more like a command than I would like.
I’ve memorized the next batch of names. Ada Wallace. Born 6/1/290 in Harbor Bay, Beacon, Regent State, Norta. Current residence: Same as birth. And the other, also listed in Harbor Bay—Wolliver Galt. Born 1/20/302. He shares a birthday with Kilorn, identical down to the year. But he is not Kilorn. He is a newblood, another Red-and-Silver mutation for Kilorn to envy.
Strange then that Kilorn shows no animosity toward Nix. In fact,
he seems friendlier than usual, hovering around the older man like an underfoot puppy. They talk quietly, bonding over the shared experience of growing up poor, Red, and hopeless. When Nix brings up nets and knots, a dull topic Kilorn adores, I turn my focus toward getting everything else situated. Part of me wishes I could join them, to debate the value of a good double-bone loop rather than the best infiltration strategy. It would make me feel normal. Because no matter what Shade says, we are anything but.
Farley is already on the move, pulling a dark brown jacket over her shoulders. She tucks her red scarf into it, hiding the color, and starts packing up rations from our stores. They aren’t low yet, but I make a mental note to lift anything I can during our journey, if I get the chance. Guns are another matter—we only have six total, and stealing more will be no easy feat. Three rifles, three pistols. Farley already has one of each, the long-barreled rifle across her shoulder and the pistol at her hip. She slept with them attached to her, like they were limbs. So it comes as a surprise when she unlatches them both, returning the guns to the storage locker on the wall.
“You’re going in unarmed?” Cal balks, his own rifle in hand.
In response, she pulls up a pant leg, revealing a long knife tucked into her boot. “The Bay’s a big city. We’ll need the day to find Mare’s people, and maybe the whole night to get them out. I won’t risk that carrying an unregistered firearm. An officer would execute me on the spot. I’ll take my chances with villages, where there’s less enforcement, but not the Bay,” she adds, hiding the knife again. “Surprised you don’t know your own laws, Cal.”
He flushes silver, the tips of his ears turning bone white in embarrassment. Try as he might, Cal never had a head for laws and politics. That was Maven’s domain, always Maven’s.
“And anyways,” Farley continues, her eyes slicing at us both, “I consider you and the lightning girl much better weapons than guns.”
I can almost hear Cal’s teeth grinding together, in anger and frustration. “I told you, we can’t—” he begins, and I don’t have to listen to his muttered words to know his arguments. We’re the most wanted people in the kingdom, we’re dangerous to everyone, we’ll jeopardize everything. And while my first instinct is to listen to Cal, my second, my constant, is not to trust him. Because sneaking is not his specialty—it’s mine. While he debates with Farley, I quietly prepare myself for the tunnels and Harbor Bay. I remember it from Julian’s books, and slide the map away from Farley. She doesn’t notice the smooth action, still busy badgering Cal. Shade joins, intervening on her behalf, and the jabbering three leave me to sit silently and plan.
The Colonel’s map of Harbor Bay is newer than the one Julian showed me, and more detailed. Just as Archeon was built around the massive bridge the Scarlet Guard destroyed, Harbor Bay, naturally, centers on its famous, bowl-like harbor. Most of it is artificially built, forming a too-perfect curve of ocean against land. Both greenwardens and nymphs helped build the city and the harbor, alternately burying and flooding the ruins of what once stood here. And dividing the ocean circle, jutting straight out into the water, is a straight roadway full of gates, army patrols, and choke points. It separates the civilian Aquarian Port from the aptly named War Port, and leads to Fort Patriot, perched on a flat square of walled land in the middle of the harbor. The fort is considered the most valuable in the country, the only base that services all three branches of the military. Patriot is home to the soldiers of the Beacon Legion, as well as squadrons of the Air Fleet. The water of the War Port itself is deep enough for even the largest of ships, creating an essential dock for the Nortan navy. Even on the map, the fort looks intimidating—hopefully Ada and Wolliver will be found outside its walls.
The city itself spreads around the harbor, crowding between the docks. Harbor Bay is older than Archeon, incorporating the ruins of the city that once stood here. The roads twist and split unpredictably. Next to the neat grid of the capital, the Bay looks like a tangle of knotted wire. Perfect for rogues like us. Some of the streets even dip underground, linking up with the tunnel network Farley seems to know so well. While extracting two newbloods from Harbor Bay won’t be easy, it doesn’t seem so impossible. Especially if a few power outages happen to roll through the city at just the right moment.
“You’re welcome to stay here, Cal,” I say, lifting my head from the map. “But I’m not sitting this one out.”
He stops midsentence, turning to face me. For a moment, I feel like a pile of kindling about to be set ablaze. “Then I hope you’re ready to do what you have to.”
Ready to kill everyone who recognizes me. Anyone who recognizes me.
“I am.”
I’m very good at lying.
THIRTEEN
It’s easy to convince Nix to stay behind. Even with his invulnerability, he’s still a village crabber who’s never gone farther than the salt marshes of his home. A rescue mission inside a walled city is no place for him, and he knows it. Kilorn is not so easily swayed. He agrees to stay on the jet only after I remind him that someone needs to keep an eye on Nix.
When he hugs me tightly, saying good-bye for the moment, I expect to hear a whispered warning, some advice maybe. Instead, I get encouragement, and it’s more comforting than it should be. “You’re going to save them,” he murmurs. “I know you are.”
Save them. The words echo in my head, following me down the jet ramp and into the sunlit forest. I will, I tell myself, repeating until I believe in myself as much as Kilorn does. I will, I will, I will.
The woods here are thinner, forcing us to be on constant guard. In the daylight, Cal doesn’t have to worry about flame, and keeps his fire ready, each fingertip burning like the wick of a candle. Shade is off the ground entirely, jumping himself from tree to tree. He searches the forest with a soldier’s precision, his hawk-like gaze sweeping in every direction before he’s satisfied. I keep my own senses open, feeling for any burst of electricity that might be a transport or low-flying airship. There’s a dull hum to the southeast, toward Harbor Bay, but that’s to be expected, just like the ebb and flow of traffic along the Port Road. We’re well out of earshot of the byway, but my inner compass tells me we’re getting closer with every step.
I feel them before I see them. It’s small, the slightest pressure against my open mind. The tiny battery bleeds electricity, probably powering a watch or radio.
“From the east,” I murmur, pointing toward the approaching energy source.
Farley whips toward the direction, not bothering to crouch. But I certainly do, dropping to a knee in the foliage, letting the first colors of autumn camouflage my dark red shirt and brown hair. Cal is right beside me, flames close to his skin, controlled so that they don’t set the forest on fire. His breathing is even, steady, practiced, as his eyes search through the trees.
I extend a finger, pointing toward the battery. A single spark runs down my hand and disappears, calling out to the electricity drawing near.
“Farley, get down,” Cal growls, his voice almost lost among the rustling leaves.
Instead of obeying, she backs against a tree, melting into the shadows of the trunk. Sunlight through the leaves above dapples her skin, and her stillness makes her look like part of the forest. But she is not quiet. Her lips part, and a low birdcall echoes through the branches. The same one she used outside Coraunt, to communicate to Kilorn. A signal.
The Scarlet Guard.
“Farley,” I hiss through gritted teeth. “What’s going on?”
But she isn’t paying attention to me and watches the trees instead. Waiting. Listening. A moment later, someone hoots out a trilling reply, similar but not the same. When Shade responds from the tree above us, adding his own call to the strange song, a bit of my fear lifts away. Farley could lead me into a trap, but Shade wouldn’t. I hope.
“Captain, thought you were stuck on that blasted island,” a coarse voice says, filtering out of a thick grove of elms. The accent, hard vowels and missing r’s, is thick
and distinct—Harbor Bay.
Farley smiles at the sounds, pushing off her tree trunk smoothly. “Crance,” she says, beckoning to the figure picking through the underbrush. “Where’s Melody? I was supposed to meet her. Since when are you Egan’s errand boy?”
When he steps out from the foliage, I do my best to size him up, taking in the little details I taught myself to notice long ago. He leans, compensating for something heavy left behind. A rifle perhaps, or maybe a club. Errand boy indeed. He has the look of a dockworker or a brawler, with massive arms and a barrel chest hiding beneath the bulk of worn cotton and a quilted vest. It’s heavily patched, creating a motley plaid of discarded fabric, all red in hue. Strange that his vest is so battered, but his leather boots look new, polished to a high sheen. Stolen, probably. My kind of man.
Crance shrugs at Farley, a twitch tugging at his dark face. “She’s got business on the docks. And I prefer right-hand man, if you don’t mind.” He turns the twitch into a grin, then bows in a smooth, exaggerated motion. “Of course, Boss Egan bids you welcome, Captain.”
“It’s not Captain anymore,” Farley mutters, frowning as she clasps his forearm in some version of a handshake. “I’m sure you’ve heard.”
He merely shakes his head. “You’ll find few here who’ll go along with that. The Mariners answer to Egan, not your Colonel.”
Mariners? Another division within the Scarlet Guard, I suppose.
“Are your friends going to keep hiding in the bushes?” he adds, angling a glance at me. His blue eyes are electrifying, made even sharper by his umber skin. But they aren’t enough to distract me from the more pressing issue—I still feel the pulsing watch battery, and Crance isn’t wearing a watch.
“What about your friends?” I ask him, standing up from the forest floor.
Cal moves in time with me, and I can tell he’s scrutinizing Crance, sizing him up. The other man does the same, one kind of soldier to another. Then he grins, teeth gleaming.
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