I don’t even know what feel to use.
But at last I’m going to see my sister again.
There are diversions along the way. A cave full of hydroponic plants, smelling of roses and latrine nanos. A colony of bats trained to swarm the enemy, in case the lair is ever attacked. A shaft that goes straight down—Dex drops a rock for us and counts to ten before we hear the clatter below.
But then a rumble of voices echoes along the stone corridors like a distant waterfall, and my skin prickles. My sister is close.
Col takes my hand. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” My voice sounds shivery, but I decide not to reach for more Calm. Part of me wants to be ready for anything.
The narrow sides of the mineshaft open wide, out into a natural cavern. Stalactites loom like dangling knives. A mineral smell makes the cool air heavy, and glowworms cover the ceiling like a sky of green stars.
At least a hundred rebels throng the cavern. My sister has invited all the assembled crews to witness our reunion.
The crowd parts for us—and there she is, splayed across a chair carved from the stone of the mountain itself, a throne.
And at last I understand why she’s the boss.
Same as any rebel, Rafi is wearing skins and furs. But they fit her perfectly. Her jacket glitters with baubles of amber, quartz, the bones of small animals. Feathers shimmer in her hair.
Regal and composed, she’s the product of all her years of training, a lifetime spent preparing to rule.
Maybe this is why she picked a crew so deep in the wild—anyone who watched the gossip feeds would spot Rafi’s style instantly. Her imperious expression, her posture, all of it screams first daughter of Shreve.
When she stands to greet us, the room falls silent all the way to its corners.
Rafi lets the tension build. I can’t tell whether she’s happy to see me or angry that I’m here, threatening to bring down her charade.
I reach for Steadfast. I don’t know my own sister anymore.
Her face breaks into a smile.
“Rafi!” She crosses the room, wraps me in her arms.
Our embrace is hard and long, as rough as a hug from Boss X. She feels different in my arms now—leaner, stronger, like she’s the bodyguard and I’m the princess.
But it’s all part of her spell, an illusion.
Pulling away at last, she turns to Col, beaming again.
“Col Palafox!”
They hug like old comrades-in-arms, even though they’ve never met before.
It’s soul-rattling. A lifetime of pretending to be Rafi hasn’t prepared me for her pretending to be me.
All eyes dart back and forth between us, as if the rebels are amazed to have two copies of their boss in one room.
She lets Col go, turns to look me up and down. My shorn hair, my dusty body armor. “I’ve missed you, big sister.”
I draw myself taller, trying to force the old impersonation to settle. I’ve been in my own skin for so long, the scrutiny of this crowd feels like more than I can stand.
“I’ve missed you too, Frey. We have a lot to talk about. Perhaps someplace private?”
“Of course.” She smiles, glances at Col. “But are we planning a battle? Or a wedding?”
A murmur goes through the crowd.
A wedding? Then it clicks—if Col is still engaged to the boss’s sister, he’s almost as good as crew. The whole point of this performance is to build trust between the rebels and the Vics.
Rafi is still Rafi. Everything has a purpose.
And suddenly this is easy again.
“We have a city to save, little sister,” I say. “But after that, a wedding out here in the wild might be … diverting.”
Another stir passes through the cavern. Behind my sister, Sussy’s eyes have gone wide in the gloom.
They may not have the feeds here, but even rebels need this—the glamour, the gossip, all the things my sister was born to bestow.
“Diverting indeed.” My sister reaches out, and a young rebel hands her a flask. “The Smoke lives!”
As the cheer goes up, people start passing out bottles. Suddenly a bash is taking form around us—pure Rafi.
“Get X and Yandre,” she orders the boy who gave her the flask. “The other bosses too. We’ll meet in the Spider Room in half an hour.”
The names hit me like a touch of Calm. Boss X is here, and Yandre, and maybe more old friends.
But then I wonder—why aren’t they here now? A hundred rebels in this room, and not a single familiar face among them.
Rafia of Shreve leaves nothing to chance. So why weren’t my friends invited?
And with that question comes another:
Why don’t I trust my own sister anymore?
The Spider Room isn’t full of spiders.
It’s a junction with eight tunnels heading off in all directions, some climbing away, some slanted downward—like the legs of a tarantula in midstride.
My sister claps her hands. Artificial lights pop on, harsh and squint-making after the soft glow of the worms. An old wooden table fills the chamber, eight chairs around it.
The space is much smaller than the cavern, but it’s just me, Col, and my sister.
At last we’re face-to-face, no audience. No need to lie.
And the first thing Rafi says is—
“What happened to your hair?”
I stare at her. “An earthquake.”
“Of course, Frey. But you’re me now.” She reaches up and fingers my ragged haircut in disbelief. “There are standards to uphold.”
“Are you kidding, Rafi? I’ve crossed the continent to see you, and you’re talking about my hair?”
“Frey,” she says coolly, “do you even know why I’m here?”
The words make me shrink, and suddenly I’m her little sister again. Like she’s scolding me for a dropped line in a speech or a fumbled introduction on a receiving line.
“To get away from me,” I say, my fingers itching for more Courage. “You left me.”
“I left you?” Rafi laughs bitterly. “You were the one who put on Daddy’s choker. We were about to escape, together at last. There I was, the first moments of real freedom in my whole life, and you vanished! You left me with outcasts and barbarians—without a sister, when I most needed you!”
She looks at Col, her eyes flashing.
“All for some boy you’d met a few weeks before.”
What she’s saying hits me all at once, a stone from the sky.
The night of the battle, I was supposed to leave with the rest of them. But then Col was captured. I didn’t give any warning, just let the rest of them fly off without me. I put on Rafi’s dress, the bomb collar …
And left my sister to fend for herself. With no one to guide her but rebels, who hated everything she represents, and the rudderless Victorians.
Rafi turns away from us, staring into the darkness past our little puddle of light. “As you can see, I have adapted to your neglect. But now you’re trying to wreck this. These rebels are dangerous, Frey. Do you want them to find out their new boss is a fraud?”
“We’re here to help,” Col says firmly.
“And you.” She turns to him again. “In another week, I’ll have two dozen crews here. An alliance of rebels is shaky—the last thing I need is Vics making them nervous. That’s why I left you behind!”
I reach for my wrist, but I don’t know what to feel.
I was raised to protect Rafi, and I disappeared when she most needed me.
Dona Oliver’s voice sounds in my head.
But you threw it away for a boy.
One of the feathers in Rafi’s hair has come loose and floated to the floor. I bend down to pick it up.
“I’m sorry,” I say, offering her the feather. Under the artificial lights, an iridescence limns it. The colors match streaks of dye in her hair.
She takes it from my hand. “From the Amazon, little sister. As valuable as gold.”
Everything that brought me to this place—the Iron Mountain, the fall of Paz, the fight against my father—fades away.
I just need to know one thing.
“You knew they were rescuing me, Rafi. Why did you run away? And why keep being me? All I ever wanted was my own identity, my own name. Why take that?”
A little snort comes out of her. Her hands slide down her leather dress, touching every beautiful bit of tailoring. “Do I look like I’m trying to be you?”
I take a step backward. “But that’s what Srin …”
“She asked, so I gave her some psycho-babble about my identity. But you know me better than that.” Rafi slides the feather back into her hair. “This masquerade has a purpose.”
“What is it?” I plead.
“You have to swear not to tell anyone,” she says. “Especially not your rebel pals.”
“Of course. I just need to know.”
“And this boy can keep a secret?”
Col draws himself up taller. “I spent a month pretending that Frey was you. Surrounded by dust, and they never realized.”
“True.” She gives him an approving nod. “By the way, Col, you didn’t make a bad fiancé.”
“Thanks,” he says. “What’s this all about?”
“Our family.” Rafi’s voice falls lower. “When I was in the jungle, there was an old rebel in Boss Smith’s crew. He told me something about Seanan.”
Something sparks in my chest, all on its own.
“Your kidnapped brother?” Col asks.
Rafi nods. “There was a second chapter to the story, one our family never knew. After Daddy refused to surrender power, the kidnappers couldn’t give Seanan back. But they didn’t want to murder a child in cold blood, it turns out.”
I lean back against the cool stone wall, suddenly dizzy. “He’s still alive?”
“The kidnappers gave him to rebels to raise.” Rafi leans closer. “A crew way out here in the wild so Daddy would never find him.”
Under my sleeve, I reach for Steadfast.
Seanan’s kidnappers were rivals of my father from Shreve. But they must have fought alongside rebels after they lost power, just like Col and his Vics are now.
“These are the wildest rebels on the continent, Frey, the most secretive. Thanks to the Iron Mountain, they’re all gathering in one place. What if he’s one of them?”
Rafi takes a step forward and wraps her arms around me again. Gently this time, like when we were littlies, after a long day with our separate tutors. Like when she came back from my father and had to be comforted.
Steadfast floods me.
This is the big sister I know. We were born to protect each other.
“There should’ve been three of us,” she says, “not just you and me. And Seanan’s a rebel, Frey, raised to fight our father. He’s the brother we need.”
Something settles in my body, like Belong. Like there’s always been a missing piece of me, and it’s falling into place.
“Why didn’t you wait for me in Paz?” I ask. “I would’ve helped you.”
“For him to come to me, I have to be a famous rebel, little sister. It would’ve taken you years to become a boss. But I’m glad you’re here now.”
She holds me tighter, her voice a whisper.
“Seanan’s out here somewhere. And we’re going to find him.”
A few minutes later, the others join us in the Spider Room.
Boss X is here, along with Yandre and two bosses I’ve never met before.
Col and Yandre exclaim at seeing each other again, but X greets me like a mere acquaintance.
“You look well, Rafia of Shreve.”
His reserve is for the other bosses’ benefit, of course, but right now the deception is too much. Despite my promise to Rafi, I want to tell him everything.
My brother’s out here somewhere.
At last I know why the rebels feel like home to me.
I give him one of Rafi’s arch smiles. “Hopefully this time around, we won’t lose any battles.”
“The Smoke lives,” he says, his wolfish face unreadable.
We all repeat the words.
Boss X introduces the other bosses, Em and Zachary. They have thick local accents, and their crews live not far away, in Rusty mine shafts like this one.
That’s why they’re in charge of breaking into the Iron Mountain. They know all about deadly underground gasses, mapping empty chambers with sound charges, not getting killed in rockslides.
“It’s about two hundred klicks from here,” Yandre explains, spreading a map out on the table. “Originally it was a coal mine. But the Rusties turned it into something else.”
“A tomb,” Boss Em says. “Like in the saying.”
I remember the meeting in Boss X’s lair in Paz. They never die who are buried in the Iron Mountain. “Who’s buried there?”
“Not who. What.” Yandre leans back in their chair. “Everyone knows about the Rusties’ big mistakes—the wars, the extinctions, the damage to the planet. But their most dangerous creation doesn’t get taught in school. They invented a kind of artificial being, legally a person, but not human.”
Col frowns. “AIs?”
“Sort of. But these were designed to have no conscience.”
“So more like military cyborgs,” I say.
“These didn’t have bodies, or even processors. They didn’t think or feel. They were built of legal contracts, algorithms, documents—so they couldn’t be killed or put in jail.” Yandre’s voice drops a little. “They were called corps.”
“Um, okay,” I say. “But what were they for?”
“Making money,” Boss X says with a low growl. “At first, the Rusties controlled them—but eventually it was the other way around. They didn’t answer to people, or even governments. They divided up the world, almost killing it in the process.”
Yandre shrugs. “There’s a theory that most Rusties didn’t really want all those wars, the pollution, the prisons. But the corps did, and they were too powerful to stop.”
“So that’s what’s buried in the Iron Mountain?” Col asks. “A bunch of Rusty algorithms?”
Boss Zachary speaks up for the first time. “Not just the code. The Rusties worshipped their corps. They backed up every transaction, every contract. And all the data they harvested. They stole people’s lives—their conversations, feed channels, cam records, pings—and built ways to manipulate them based on that information.”
“You mean like Shreve?” I say.
“Your father’s city has only a million people,” Yandre says. “There were nine billion Rusties. Imagine a present-day propaganda team getting hold of all that.”
That makes my head spin a little, remembering the city of Diego trying to become my friend. What if it had a database a thousand times larger?
“They stuffed all these records into old mine shafts,” Zachary says. “So a corp could be brought back to life after a disaster. A whole mountain full of undead, world-killing data. And somewhere in those stacks, the city of Paz stored a copy of itself.”
“Why would it pick this place?” I ask.
Yandre taps with two fingers, zooming the map into detailed topography and schematics. “Because the Iron Mountain lives up to its name. It’s a fortress, designed to withstand a nuclear attack, guarded by an army of Rusty war machines. Paz didn’t want anyone messing with its backup copy.”
“Someone in the city government must have had a password to get in, in case the worst ever happened,” Boss X says. “But Paz didn’t count on a decapitation strike following an earthquake. We’ll have to use brute force.”
“Are the Rusty machines still working in there?” Rafi asks.
“The local stories go way back,” Boss Em says. “Rebels trying to explore the mountain and disappearing. Lights in the sky at night. Bears triggering guard drones that come out shooting. Back in the pretty regime, this whole area was off-limits.”
“But you can’t make copies
of city AIs,” Col says. “The city is the program—all those solar arrays and traffic patterns.”
“Usually,” Yandre says. “Paz was different.”
“Right,” I say, recalling what Diego told me. “Pazx didn’t want their walls and traffic lights snooping on them, so their AI was kept separate from the city. That’s why Daddy could kill it so easy—it was all in one place, buried underground.”
Rafi looks at me. “Our father told you that?”
“Diego explained it all.” I shrug. “It wanted to be friends.”
Now they’re all staring, like they think I’m kidding.
“Cities like me.” I give them one of Rafi’s smiles. “One day, I’m getting one of my own.”
Col shakes his head. “But Paz’s processors were destroyed. Even if we find this backup copy, there’s nothing left to run it on.”
“Shreve’s virus is fixing that,” X says. “The whole city’s being rebuilt as one big processor—every wall, every wire. We just replace Shreve’s spyware with the original.”
“The city reborn overnight, with all its ethics and customs,” Yandre says. “Everyone knows Paz had some kind of defense plan, a way to drive any occupier out. Shreve will never see it coming!”
My sister sighs. “This is all very interesting. But why do we care?”
Em and Zachary look surprised—I am too. If Rafi wants to find my brother, this mission is the perfect way.
“Two million people are falling to a dictator,” X says. “This is their best chance to fight back.”
Rafi shrugs. “Are we servants of Paz now?”
“The free cities aren’t perfect,” Yandre says. “But this is a chance to hurt Shreve, keep Paz free, and destroy a mountain full of Rusty world-killing code!”
“Are you having second thoughts, Boss Frey?” X asks.
“Of course not,” my sister says, relenting with a smile. “Just wanted to make sure you were all committed. It’s not a game, breaking into a mountain, tangling with three-century-old war machines, and stealing a city-size AI.”
The meeting moves on to details then, when and how to strike against the mountain. But I start to wonder how she chose this crew in particular, so close to the Iron Mountain.
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