by Claire Luana
“Fresh air and a fire sounds great,” Thom said.
Some of the sailors were headed to the shore to make a bonfire and forage for supplies. Saad, Pike’s first mate and unofficial ship doctor, had thought it would be good for Thom to head to shore and dry out some of the damp.
Wren stifled a sigh. Thom needed to get better. His illness was one more weight on her already-heavy conscience.
“So that’s Nova Navis,” Callidus said. “Doesn’t look like much.”
“Good wool,” Thom said.
Wren let out a laugh. “What?”
“It’s what my ma always said. She was a laundress. Held up better than the rest. Colors kept bright. Good wool. Maybe I’ll get me a sweater.”
“I think we should all get sweaters, don’t you, Wren?” Callidus crooked one substantial eyebrow at her.
She smiled, wrapping her arm around Thom’s arm and leaning into him. “You can have all the sweaters you want when this is all over.”
“Do you think it will ever be over?” he whispered so softly, the wind almost carried the words away.
Wren and Callidus exchanged a look. Even though Thom was her age, she felt the need to protect him somehow. Shield him from the truth. Callidus apparently felt the same.
“When this is over, you’re going to buy Salted Cream from your former master. And I’m going to open up a confectionary next door. We’ll have lunch on the grass by Lake Viri every afternoon. And Callidus will come visit us after his guild council meetings and eat ice cream with us.”
A splash from the bow of the boat startled them.
Pike and his crew had dropped anchor in a horseshoe bay that was somewhat protected from shore. The anchor chain clinked as it slid off the deck into the gray water. The Black Jasmine was just sliding into view on the horizon.
“You ready to go badger hunting?” Pike strolled up, a rolled cigarette smoking in his hand.
“Ready as we’ll ever be,” Callidus replied.
The little skiff ground against the rocky beach of Nova Navis. The two men who had been manning the oars jumped out, frigid water splashing around their ankles as they heaved the rowboat the rest of the way up onto shore. One of the men helped Wren out, followed by Callidus, Pike, and Thom.
The rocky shore crunched beneath her boots as she stepped over slimy strands of kelp abandoned by the sea. A sparsely forested cove stood before them, stretching up towards the higher moors of Nova Navis.
They had packed enough for two days walking, though Wren vehemently prayed it wouldn’t take that long to find the mercenary. Every day that ticked by wore at her, filled her imagination with potential horrors being perpetrated on Maradis and the other Guilds. What were Chandler and McArt and Bruxius doing? Marina and Lennon? Was Willings having his way with the Confectioner’s Guild, pillaging its coffers and its staff? And then there were her thoughts of Lucas. He was out there somewhere. Her hand strayed to the lump beneath her shirt. Would she ever solve his riddle? Would she ever find him?
Her heart thudded in her chest as she followed Pike up a faint trail through underbrush of rushes and sedges. Everything looked cold, harsher than even the slate gray of Maradis’s winter. What type of man lived out here?
“I know you said that he’s rumored to live along the coast to the south of Port Gris,” Callidus called to Pike. “But do you have any more specific notions about where to find him? We won’t be just wandering about, will we?”
“Best I hear it,” Pike said, “you don’t find the Red Badger. The Red Badger finds you.”
“Funny you should say that,” a gravelly voice called out from the trees next to Wren. “Cuz ya found him.”
Wren stumbled into Pike, who had pulled up short before her. Out of the woods, men materialized around them, arrows and spear tips pointed their way. “Easy now, fellas,” Pike said. “We come in peace.”
“We’ll be the judge of that,” the same voice said. Wren now saw that it belonged to a huge bearded man clothed in brown leather and furs, weapons strapped to every conceivable place on his sizable frame. If this was the type of mercenary they had come to hire, Wren wasn’t sure if she should be terrified or grateful. This was a man who seemed like he could stand up to the Aprican legion without blinking. She just wished he wasn’t pointing his sword at her.
“I should clarify,” Pike said. “We come with an offer for the Red Badger. And gold.”
“Very well. We’ll take you to him.”
The mercenaries, whom Wren thought numbered at least a dozen, bound their hands with leather straps and prodded them forward. “Is this really necessary?” Pike asked, to which the mercenary leader narrowed his gaze.
“Protocol. Red Badger has made a few enemies over the years. Can never be too careful.”
Wren and Callidus had pleaded with the men to leave Thom behind, but they seemed disinclined to grant any special requests.
They emerged from the stand of trees to find a flat plane of scrubby grass with a dozen horses grazing. The leader pointed to a few of his men, who split off from the group to approach each of them. Out of the trees, Wren could see their captors more clearly. They were strong and fit, with grizzled faces and lean muscles under their leathers. The men were a mix of ages and nationalities—the man who approached Wren was an older, dark-haired man who had the complexion of a Magnish clansman, while the man who approached Thom seemed no older than they were, with the blond hair of an Aprican. There was even a female warrior, as lean and muscled as the men, with her brown hair threaded in several tight braids over her shoulder. Somehow her presence, though still hostile, made Wren feel a tiny bit safer.
Wren’s eyes opened wide as the man approached her with a cloth in his hand. “Commander likes his privacy. You’ll be blindfolded until we get there.”
A person has a lot of time to think when tied up and blindfolded on the front of a horse. Wren’s breathing came in shallow hitches as she tried to rein in her circling worries. What if this badger person wouldn’t help them? What if he robbed and murdered them? What would happen to Maradis then? To Lucas? Her hand jerked up in an unconscious motion to grasp the ring hanging above her heart, but the rope restrained her. Lucas. She half-feared, half-hoped that the incessant ache inside her at the thought of him would dim with time, but it was becoming more pronounced. Like a splinter burrowing deeper. He was so calm, so reasoned. If he were here, he would take her in his arms and banish her worries with his kisses. To her shame, she found herself crying beneath her blindfold. She tried to keep her shoulders from shaking, but the feelings were pouring out of her now, and she began to sob for the first time in weeks as the sorrow and helplessness seeped into her.
The man behind her grunted, then shushed her. She felt an awkward pat on her shoulder. “No need to be afraid. If you’re here to do business with the Commander, we won’t hurt ya.”
Wren’s tears turned to a disbelieving laugh. The man was comforting her! He thought she was crying out of fear for the situation. More laughter bubbled up, bursting from her, mingled with more tears.
“What’s that?” the gravelly voice barked from ahead.
“Think mine’s lost it,” the man from behind her called out.
Thom’s hacking cough joined the chorus of her manic giggles.
“Think mine’s dying,” another said, from the direction of Thom’s cough.
“Better be a lot of gold in it,” the leader said while Wren continued to laugh.
Wren’s body ached when the horse finally stopped beneath her. She felt the saddle’s weight shift as her captor swung down from his saddle and then he was grasping her around the waist, hauling her down too. Her knees almost buckled as he set her on the ground, but he steadied her until she got her feet under her. She took unsteady steps forwards, longing to see the world around her. The smells of a cookpot and the sound of a crackling fire oriented her slightly. They were in some kind of camp. And that was the sound of chopping wood. The mercenaries were calling out greetings to oth
er men, and other male voices, even a few female, called back.
“Sal!” a deep voice called out, with a hint of a Novan twang. “Did ya go fishing? What catch have ya brought me?”
“Folks lookin’ for the Red Badger,” the man replied. “Seems they have a need of your services.”
“A job! We’re getting a bit too fat around here anyway,” the other man called, his voice cheerful. That voice...it struck a chord in Wren’s memories. It was familiar somehow. “Take off those blindfolds. Let’s greet our guests properly.”
Wren’s captor took off her blindfold and she blinked as her eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness. He slit the cords at her wrists and she rubbed them as she looked around and saw her friends all accounted for. They were in the yard of a tidy village.
The man who must be the Red Badger strode forward, grasping hands with Pike. His hair was brilliant red and hung in curls around his ears. He was tall and broad, heavily muscled with a sword-belt buckled around his trim waist. He was handsome, Wren realized with a blush, extremely handsome, with angled cheekbones and fine brows crowning bright blue eyes. The feeling of familiarity wouldn’t leave Wren. She felt herself drawn to Pike’s side, longing to examine the Red Badger more closely.
“Welcome to the Warren, as we Badgers affectionally call it. You are?”
“Maximus Pike, Guildmaster of the Spicer’s Guild of Alesia.”
The redhaired man grinned at Pike’s title. His smile lit up his face, filled with straight white teeth. Except one. A chipped front tooth.
Wren’s knees went weak.
“I’m the Red Badger. But you can call me—”
“Ansel?” she breathed his name—half a prayer, half a curse.
Chapter 25
Suddenly, Wren was a little girl again, all knees and elbows, painfully thin, painfully naive. Even back then, Ansel had been a gatherer of souls—poor, unfortunate wretches like herself who flocked to the apparent safety in the shelter of his wings. She’d met him the same night she’d run from the orphanage, from the horror of a future she had been thankfully too naive to fully comprehend.
She hadn’t known back then, but Maradis was divided up into territories—gangs of thugs and ruffians ruled the streets, but below, in the shadows, feral children ran in packs like wolves. The Cyclones ruled the Lyceum Quarter, the Hounds of the Huntress everything from west of Nysia Avenue and north of Council Street. The Jackabees took the Central Quarter, the Harlequins the Guild Quarter. And the Red Wraiths, Ansel’s little gang, took the Port Quarter.
Ansel found her curled under the corner of a bridge, eyes red-rimmed with tears, nose streaming. The rain was pouring down in sheets that night, the street before her running like a river. Ansel wore a black rain slicker, its collar turned up against the wet.
He and two of his other followers came dashing out of the rain, laughing and cursing, pausing under the bridge for the rain to let up. When he caught sight of her, an electric charge went through her. His eyes were as blue as ice, yet she grew warm when they fell upon her. The only thing more striking than his blue eyes was his red hair. Wren thought it strange that the gods had chosen to paint this boy in such vibrant color when they left the rest of them mute brown.
“Hey,” Ansel called to her, ducking low as he approached, his hands out like he was calming a spooked beast. Which in a way, he was. “You have anywhere to stay tonight?”
Wren didn’t answer, only pulling her knees in closer to her body, tightening the grip of her shaking arms wrapped around them. She had been fooled once by such an offer. She wasn’t going to be fooled again. She finally managed an imperceptible shake of her head.
“We have a place not far from here,” Ansel continued. “Lots of kids like us stay there. Some girls too. It isn’t much, but it’s dry. You’re welcome to come with.”
One of the others, a dark shadow of a boy who looked half-Centese, groaned at him. “C’mon, Ansel. Ye can’t take in every stray. She can’t do nothin’ but sit there. Don’t need more mouths ta feed.”
The redhaired boy, this Ansel, didn’t answer, crouching low. He waited.
“’M fine,” Wren managed, her body shaking from cold. She didn’t like the look of that dark-haired boy.
“You don’t seem fine,” Ansel replied. “C’mon. Just one night.”
Wren shook her head again. People didn’t do nice things for free. She had learned that the hard way. If this boy was offering her something, he wanted something. She wasn’t a fool.
“Look,” he said. “Just an offer. We’re in a warehouse a few blocks down on Edmund and Seventh Streets. Says ‘Excelsior Soaps’ on the side in white. Can ya read?”
Wren nodded. She could read some.
“If you change your mind, you’re welcome,” he said, standing.
“You’re telling her where the Wraithhouse is now?” The dark boy groaned.
“Can it Nik,” Ansel barked. “She’s obviously not Cedar. Do I run this gang or what?”
The dark boy cast a sharp look back at her before the three disappeared into the rain like the wraiths they were.
Wren sat and shivered for a long while before unwinding herself and following them into the rain, towed by some invisible force that she only later recognized as Ansel’s gravitas.
The warehouse was just as he’d described it, sitting brooding and quiet on the corner, the white lettering on the side stained gray by the night’s rain. She crept into an alley around the side and clambered up a dumpster onto the rickety fire escape, creeping silently to the upper floors. From there, she peered in a window, squinting to see through the condensation fogging the inside of the glass. There were lanterns dotting the wide floor inside, and kids laid out on pallets and blankets. A deck of cards was spread across the cement floor between two kids, and a fire chugged in an iron stove in one corner. From Wren’s perch on the cold, sharp steel, it looked like heaven. She leaned closer, holding her breath, looking for the redhaired boy from before. Where was he?
A face appeared behind the glass, causing Wren to jump backwards with a cry, slamming into the railings of the fire escape. The redhaired boy pushed the window up with a creak. “It’s a lot warmer in here,” he said with a wry grin. He held out a hand into the rain. She looked from it to him. He had a chip in one of his front teeth. The chip had done it, in the end. It had given him an earnestness that couldn’t be faked. So she found herself putting her hand in his and letting him pull her through the window onto the balcony inside.
So began two fairly happy years, relatively speaking. Wren found her place in the Red Wraiths. The dark-haired boy, Nik, never took a shine to her, but the other orphans and street kids were nice, even friendly. They taught her the ways of the world on the street—the best places to beg, which cuisiniers and bakers saved their day’s leftovers for the gang, the Cedar Guard’s routes, and more. Wren was a hopeless fighter, uncoordinated and small, but she turned out to have a fair hand at lockpicking and quickly excelled, becoming Ansel’s preferred partner in crime. She was lousy at pickpocketing, as she didn’t have the boldness the skill took, but she played the part of the poor waif or distraction very well with her big eyes and protruding collarbones.
As the months ticked by, she found herself drawn to Ansel more and more, like a flower’s face follows the sun. And it seemed he was drawn to her too. Ansel began picking her for solo jobs, and sometimes the two of them wouldn’t go right back to the Wraithhouse but would dart around town—running through the piers, swiping a cinnamon stick from a vendor, or sitting on the grassy hillsides overlooking Spirit Bay. And from the sidelong glances of some of the other wraiths, they began to notice too.
It all fell apart one bright October day. The air was crisp and clear, the chill breeze rustling dry leaves in a kaleidoscope of orange and red. The leader of the Jackabees, a cruel blond-haired boy named Harlson, had been testing the boundaries between their territories for weeks. It seemed he was ready to test his mettle against Ansel, because that mornin
g, Nik ran in, reporting that he’d spotted Harlson and another Jackabee all the way on Longshore Drive, in the heart of wraith territory. Ansel, Nik, and two of their other toughest brawlers ran to meet the threat.
There was a dangerous glint in Nik’s eye that left an uneasy feeling in Wren’s stomach. So she followed them, keeping to the alleys and shadows. So she saw when Ansel met Harlson, confronting him about his encroachment. She saw when Nik turned on Ansel and the other wraiths—watched with horror as a horde of Jackabees appeared from the side streets to join the fray. She saw Ansel, battered and bloody, on his knees before Harlson, the other boy’s fist twisted cruelly in his beautiful red hair. Wren watched with white-knuckled fear, desperate to do something but knowing it would be useless against the might of the other gang.
Ansel finally held up his hands, admitting defeat. He smiled his chip-toothed smile, his teeth red with blood. “Whatcha want, Jackabee?”
“Half your territory. To the Raven Club.” Harlson announced gleefully.
Wren silently cursed. If Ansel agreed, the Jackabees would be only blocks from Wraithhouse!
“That it?” Ansel asked.
Harlson looked at Nik, who nodded at him, glowering at Ansel. “And your woman. That auburn-haired girl.”
Nik grinned toothily at Ansel.
Wren’s heart stuttered in her chest. Her. They were talking about her. Did Nik think she meant so much to Ansel? Was he doing this to hurt him? Emotions roared within her, fear and guilt and...hope. Did Ansel feel for her how she felt for him?
“Wren? She’s nothin.’ Ya can have her,” Ansel said. “Free of charge. What’re we really talking here? The Raven Club is too far.”
The rest of Ansel’s negotiations blurred in her mind, drowned out by the ringing in her ears. Ansel...had given her away. Thrown her out like trash, handed her over to that brute Harlson like a pair of old shoes. She flattened herself to the wall, her breath coming in gasps. She’d been a fool. Yet again. Trusted another man...cared for him...and for what?