by Kaylin Lee
“Zel, I’m so sorry.” What had I done? “I never thought this would … I don’t know why they’re doing this.”
Why would they arrest every female who fit my description? Why not follow me inside the bakery and arrest me alone? If they had enough of my trace to follow me here, surely, they knew who I was. “I’ll go out. I’ll tell them it was me and get them to leave.”
But Zel stopped me with an iron grip on my arm. “Ella, if you go out now, they’ll execute you. If you’re even suspected of this crime, you’ll be executed without trial.”
Hot tears streamed down my face and splashed on my neck. “I-I-I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry.” I wrenched my arm from her grip and continued toward the door, only to reel back in shock when blonde-headed Bri stepped into my path.
“Stay in here, Ella.” Her voice was soft but determined, still hoarse from sleep. That was the last thing Bri said before she walked outside to meet the trackers in the street.
Zel took a painful breath, and then Alba wailed and raced after her sister.
My mind screamed questions at me, and I ran forward to call them back.
Weslan caught me and held me back. “Ella, wait. Think! They’re obviously too young to have infiltrated the ball and gotten anywhere near the prince. They’ll take them in for questioning, bring them home, and keep looking for the real culprit. This way, no one will come looking inside our house. That’s all that matters. Keep the trackers out. The girls will be home as soon as anyone gets a clear look at them.”
Zel stepped in front of me and nodded, though her face was white as a sheet.
I tried to maneuver around her, but Weslan’s grip held me in place. “You can’t know that! It’s too big of a risk!”
“You’re a fine one to talk about risk.” Zel’s voice shook but she kept her body between me and the door. “Would you rather risk your execution, or risk that the twins will be held in the Quarter Guard station for the night?”
I opened my mouth to argue, but the words died in my throat. They were right. It just felt so … wrong. How I wished Bri hadn’t taken it into her head to be a heroine. I would rather risk my own execution than have the two girls in danger because of me.
“Hide in your room.” She shoved me in the direction of the kitchen. “If they decide to search the bakery for more girls who fit the description, there’s a better chance they won’t see you.”
With slow steps, I complied, feeling numb.
I wiped at the tears coursing down my face, but they kept coming. I left the luminous dial off and locked the door to my room. Pressing my forehead against the window, I strained to see what was happening in the street.
Two figures in white nightgowns, one blonde and one brunette, were huddled together, and more girls from down the street came out to join them. Then the trackers, their gold arm bands gleaming in the light from their vehicles, came over and settled the girls into the fomecoaches.
One voice stood out, and I strained to hear. “I’ll take these two.” The man’s deep, gravelly voice sounded familiar. Where had I heard that voice before? But the view through the glass was too blurry and the night too dark. I couldn’t see his face.
I focused on the wavy forms of Bri and Alba as the tracker shut them into his fomecoach and climbed into the driver’s seat. And then they were gone.
After the last tracker fomecoach left, I returned to the front room. Zel and Weslan stood at the window, watching the street.
I stopped, frozen at the sight of Zel’s face. I wanted to embrace her, but for the first time since she’d come into my life, I was afraid to touch her. I’d betrayed her, utterly and completely. I’d sworn to protect her and her daughters, but instead, I’d nearly destroyed them. I could never take that back. “I'm so sorry,” I said again, but the words sounded empty even to me.
“It’s not your fault.” She went into the kitchen and slumped down at the table as though all strength had left her. “I thought …” She sighed.
Weslan and I sat on either side of her. “I told them about their father. How he sacrificed his life for me, so I could get away, so I could leave Draicia. I thought if they knew of his love, it would be a comfort. But I—” Her voice broke, and tears welled in her eyes. “I should have known Bri would want to be like her father.”
I swallowed and looked away. I’d never known that her husband had died for her. Zel had never spoken of her late husband. I only knew that she’d loved him and lost him. And now I might have cost her the twins too.
Zel kept her eyes downcast, occasionally reaching up to wipe the tears away. It occurred to me that perhaps she was trying to avoid looking at me. My throat tightened painfully. I stood, went to my room, and changed out of the black dress, suddenly unable to stand having it on my skin for a moment longer. I put on my plain work dress and went to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. I poured three mugs and set them on the table, but then I started to pace. I couldn’t relax.
A heavy knock shook the bakery’s front door. Weslan patted Zel’s shoulder as he got up. “Don’t worry, Zel. That must be them now.”
Weslan answered the door while Zel and I stayed hidden in the kitchen. We heard a deep, gruff voice, too low to make out the words. Then Weslan spoke, sounding harsher than I’d ever heard him. “What’s the meaning of this?” There was another gruff rumble that I couldn’t make out.
Weslan slammed the door and returned to the kitchen with a small wooden box in his hands. He stood in the doorway, staring at Zel with a stricken look on his face, and held it out to her.
She stood and took it as though in a trance. She lifted the lid and uttered a tortured noise. “Oh.” She clutched the box to her chest, sobbing silently, her breath coming in desperate gasps as though she were drowning.
I sprang forward and then stopped short. “What is it? What’s wrong?” I forced the words out, though I was almost too afraid to ask. “What’s in the box?”
The sound of my voice startled her out of her grief. She straightened up and squared her shoulders. “Weslan, you’ll come with me.” She set the box on the table, wiped the tears off her cheeks, and smoothed her hair back. “We will get them home safely, whatever it takes.”
Then Zel shot me a fierce, determined stare. “Stay here and stay safe, Ella. I-I forgive you. And I love you like a daughter, no matter what. Never forget that.” She held my gaze for a moment as though willing me to believe her words. And then she marched across the kitchen, through the shop, and out the front door.
Weslan watched me from the doorway. “Stay here,” he echoed. “I will come back.” Then he followed her outside.
Didn’t he mean we? We will come back?
The door slammed shut behind them, and I finally took another step toward the box. I flipped open the lid. There, in the dusty, grimy interior, were two narrow, mismatched shoes—Bri’s worn leather sandal and Alba’s soft rose-colored slipper. The shoes they’d been wearing when they left the bakery to cover for me. I picked up Alba’s slipper, and a scrap of paper fell out. I held it up to the light with a shaking hand.
YOU LOSE, CINDERELLA
The twins hadn’t been arrested. They’d been taken.
Chapter 20
A door slammed somewhere on our street and startled me awake. I lifted my head from the kitchen table, feeling woozy and disoriented. Was it already dawn?
No, the street outside was pitch black. I’d only been asleep for a few minutes. Every luminous in the house was off. The house creaked, and a shutter upstairs slapped against its frame. If only Weslan and Zel and the twins would return.
I was alone in the bakery for the first time since Zel had come to us seeking shelter thirteen years before. And now everything I had ever feared had come to pass. Not only that, I had failed in the only thing I’d ever wanted—to protect my family. Instead, my reckless attempts to change Asylia had resulted in the worst possible outcome.
Who had taken them? Was the message from the Blight? Was it even real,
or was I hallucinating again, going mad?
I wiped the drool off my face, dialed up the luminous, and made another pot of coffee. Surely, they would be home soon. All Zel had to do was … Well, I had no clue what the kidnappers had demanded. But why would it take so long?
I poured a mug of coffee and took a sip, but the acid taste curdled in my stomach. I ran upstairs to the bathroom and retched, doubling over and sobbing. Afterward, I washed my mouth out and brushed my teeth, my hands moving through the motions numbly as if they had a will of their own. I stared at my bloodshot reflection in the smudged bathroom mirror. How could this be happening? I was awake, yet I was trapped in one of my nightmares.
Nothing made sense. I shouldn't have snuck into the ball or handed that proposal to the prince. Some might consider that treasonous, but what did that have to do with the Blight? What did it have to do with Zel and her daughters? But it couldn’t be a coincidence.
They must know about Zel. In the Blight’s hands, Zel would be a powerful, dangerous weapon. And the only thing that could possibly convince Zel to work for them was her daughters.
I pressed my hands against my forehead until my skull ached, wishing I could shove the thought away. But it all fit. The persecution by the Blight that stopped short of harming the bakery. The kidnapping. The shoes in the box to draw Zel out of the house.
I dropped my hands and smoothed my wild hair back into a bun. I straightened my wrinkled dress and ticked off the facts as though they were components to a terrible exam question.
I was alone in the bakery. Fact.
Zel, Weslan, and the twins had been taken or been lured away by someone, most likely the Blight. Fact.
It was well after midnight, and the situation hadn’t improved. Fact.
I had to do something. Fact.
~
The night was humid, the moon covered by clouds, but Asylia never slept. I let myself out the back door of the bakery and stood in the grimy alley, listening, in case the front was being watched by trackers or anyone else. Boisterous laughter echoed down the main street in front of the bakery, likely from the pub at the corner. Somewhere, a baby was crying and a couple was arguing, their voices sharp and bitter in the heavy air.
I set off down the alley, my steps hesitant. I still didn’t know my destination. Should I go to the Quarter Guard? One of the guards had kidnapped the twins. Could I trust any of them? And yet, who else could I go to, if not the Guard?
I was halfway down the alley when I felt a presence behind me. I whirled around, holding my breath. No one was there. I turned back and kept walking, but the feeling continued to poke at me. I paused again, exasperation warring with terror. Nothing behind me. And then I realized why.
The feeling wasn’t in the physical world. It was in the back of my mind. What could it be? Something about it seemed warm and familiar, as though it were … mine. Weslan. It had to be the True Name bond.
I’d tried to ignore the strange spark when we were together at the bakery. I had no need for a tiny spark when I had the real Weslan absorbing more than his fair share of my attention every day.
I faced the opposite end of the alley, where the spark originated, and picked up my pace. I could find them all on my own. Hope fluttered in my chest as I walked, following the gentle tug of our bond. I couldn’t let any of them be lost because of me. Not like Gregor. This time, I would do the right thing—somehow, I would get them out to safety. No doubt the Blight had not bothered to take me because I was the only one without magic. But they’d underestimated me.
Weslan’s spark led me toward the southern edge of the city. The River Quarter. I followed it as quickly as I could, keeping to the shadows, my head down and my face partially covered by loose strands of hair that had come out of my bun. The sky was beginning to brighten from cloudy black to a deep gray when the pull strengthened considerably.
I was in a narrow, debris-filled street, surrounded by abandoned warehouses. Most likely, these were owned by traders who had closed when the plague hit and never reopened.
Had the pull from Weslan’s spark strengthened because he was here, somewhere? I pressed my body into the doorway of an abandoned warehouse. If Weslan was here, that meant the Blight must be too. I only hoped that Zel and the girls were with him. I peered into the darkness. Would I be able to spot any sign of the Blight on the street?
“— a lucky bastard, Silas,” said a man’s voice. The glow of a small luminous lantern suddenly lit the street and I shrank back. Two dark shapes huddled in an alcove down the street across from where I was standing.
“Luck’s got nothing to do with it,” came a dark, gravelly voice in response.
That voice. I’d heard it before. Where?
“You’re only in a lather because I brought home the winning ticket. Wonder who’s getting the next Blight promotion?” Silas said.
I’d heard that gravelly voice at the bakery earlier this evening. The tracker who had put Alba and Bri in his car was standing right here in the River Quarter, not thirty paces from me. He’d kidnapped the twins rather than bringing them to the Quarter Guards’ station. A government mage, of all people, was working with the Blight?
I forced myself to inch closer, hoping to catch a glimpse of their faces, even though all I wanted to do was run the other direction and never look back. But I couldn’t leave Weslan and Zel and the girls. Not when they were only in this because of me. I crept along the edge of the warehouse until I was almost directly across the street from the men.
“—sick of all this waiting, Si,” said the other one.
“We all are,” said Silas. “Quit your complaining.”
“I joined this thing because I wanted to change things for our people, not sit around night after night standing guard, playing a stricken servant during the day.”
Silas leaned back against the building behind them. “Any day now.”
“He’s been saying that for weeks.” The complainer made a rude, scoffing noise. “Any day now. I'm striking ready now. Ready to take those Fenra rats down and make some heads roll.”
Heads roll? My pulse raced. Why had I gotten so close to them? I held myself as still as I could, which wasn’t hard since I was paralyzed with fear.
Then the door behind them swung open, and the two men straightened. A small square of yellow light lit the darkness until another man stepped into it. “You ladies done gossiping yet? We can hear you idiots inside. You’ve got a job to do, you know.”
“Oh yes, sir. Absolutely. Sorry, sir.” The man who’d been complaining spoke, while the tracker only nodded and looked away. The other man glared at them for a moment and then closed the door again. I watched the tracker, feeling as though I was missing something important. The cold, blank look on his pale face had looked eerily familiar, but I hadn’t been able to see his face when he arrested the twins earlier. Where had I seen him before?
My eyes adjusted to the dim light, and I squinted at their faces. I held back a gasp. The market. The man across the street was the same tracker who had come to investigate our stand at the market. He’d placed his hands all over our stand. And all over me.
He must have picked up a trace of Zel then. It had been years since she’d worn that dress. And yet, somehow, he’d been skilled enough to catch her trail.
I cringed, wanting to hide but too scared to risk missing some vital clue.
The tracker must have bided his time for days, waiting for the chance to lure Zel out of the bakery and get leverage over her. He’d likely known he stood no chance against her inside our home. But once he had her daughters?
Fury ripped through me. How could a man be so cruel that he would use a woman's daughters against her? How could a man be so desperate that he'd force an innocent woman to act as a weapon? And yet, I knew the answer. They were the Blight.
I joined this thing because I wanted to change things for our people. That’s what the other guard had said. They were rebel mages.
A charge went through
me as footsteps echoed on the street. Momentarily, I was overjoyed to see a uniformed member of the Quarter Guards walking down the street with a frown on his face. I was so desperate for help that I nearly called out to him, but he waved a friendly greeting to the two men in the stairwell. I held my tongue just in time.
He walked over to shake their hands. “Any day now,” he said.
“Any day now,” they repeated.
“You hear about the sweet tip I brought in earlier?”
Silas folded his arms and leaned back on the building again, but his partner answered. “Yeah?”
“Some low-level inspector in the Merchant Quarter passed it to me, hoping for a reward. He thinks there’s an unregistered mage hiding in the quarter. Even gave me her address.”
The man who’d been complaining nodded his head toward the door. “In there now. Get this—she’s got the Touch.” He chortled. “Bet your inspector didn’t realize that, or he wouldn’t have been so quick to sell her out.”
The guard took a hasty step back. “She’s inside? I thought no one in Asylia had the Touch.”
“She’s not Asylian. She’s Draician. And trust me, she’s got it.” He nudged the tracker. “This lucky idiot confirmed it.”
The guard took another nervous step back as the first man grinned at him. “We’ll see what happens. Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s any hour now. An unregistered mage with the Touch? She’ll be unstoppable. Better make sure your people are ready.” Despite his complaining earlier, the man looked downright gleeful as he boasted to the guard. What were they planning on doing with Zel?
“Uh, we’re ready,” said the quarter guard. “Just keep the marks coming.”
They said a gruff round of farewells and the guard went on his way. When he’d turned the corner, the first man nudged Silas again. “Bet you can’t wait to put greasy Fenra bastards like that in their place.”
Silas grunted. “You have no idea.”
I took one step back. And another. My recklessness had caused Zel to be captured by the very people who had the power to destroy our city, the people who’d been trying to destroy it for years. And now that they’d found an unregistered mage—one with the Touch, at that—whose True Name was not known to the city government, they could make their move at last.