Renegade Red

by Lauren Bird Horowitz

  Noa knew it was dangerous, but she had to say it; she had to build something in stones too strong and clean to change their shape.

  “I’m from the mortal realm, Marena,” Noa said, this truth a golden bridge, “and when they ran, they ran to me. I’m the reason they came back, not to rejoin their father. That’s real.”

  Marena’s eyes grew wide, but she wasn’t afraid.

  They held each other eyelocked, even as they felt the storm around them picking up. Even as the wall across from them began to shimmer,

  and Arik came inside.

  • • •

  Arik’s eyes immediately went to Noa.

  “Good, you’re awake.” He turned behind him, where whatever Guard had opened the door was following him through the opening. “Not needed, thank you.” The Guard turned and left so quickly Noa barely caught a glimpse of him—just a swirl of silver and dark hair as it vanished.

  Dark curls.

  Arik let the wall seal up behind him.

  “Where are they? What have you done to them?” Noa demanded, shocked at the force of her own words.

  Arik didn’t answer right away, but calmly walked to what had been Judah’s cot, smoothed its cover sheet, and sat carefully upon it.

  “You passed out before. Probably a side effect of the Smoke—I apologize. We’ve really only just started using it.” He paused, as if he were actually waiting for her to accept his apology. When she was quiet, he played a little with the corner of the cot’s cover sheet, caught himself, and folded his hands. “I’m told when you were interrogated, Captain Lia passed out as well. Improper Channeling technique. Again, not your fault.”

  “Where are Callum and Judah?” Noa repeated, more nervously.

  Arik sat back, sighed a little. Then he leaned toward her plaintively, hands on his knees.

  “Is it so difficult to imagine that Callum and Judah see the wisdom of this movement? Our father started it, after all.”

  Noa pressed her lips together.

  “I get it. You think I’m evil. That this movement is something terrible, and cruel.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Noa saw Marena clutch her knees once more.

  “My cell mate was melted into ooze,” Noa replied stonily. “Tell me that’s not evil.”

  Arik bowed his head. “Captain Lia has a difficult job, but remaking the world takes change, and sacrifice. I thank the Otec every day for not giving me her post, essential as it may unfortunately be.”

  Noa frowned.

  Arik nodded. “I suspected as much. Lia didn’t pass out in your interrogation because of her technique, did she. You did something to her.” Something about his tone—conversational, frank, even … respectful—made Noa feel uncertain.

  Noa bit her lip. “If so, I don’t know what,” she answered honestly.

  “You think she’s a demon, too. But you don’t know her, just like you don’t know me.”

  “I think I’ve seen enough.”

  Arik leaned back, smiling sadly. “The world before was very unkind too. Surely you remember? Or maybe you don’t, because you’re not Clear, and so were not the one being hurt?”

  “Clears weren’t slaves, Channeled like lifeless tools,” Marena said from her cot, eyes angry.

  Noa felt a pang of pride.

  Arik considered her, as if actually thinking about her opinion. “Not slaves in law, perhaps,” he acknowledged, “but certainly in practice. In a million ways that went unsaid.”

  “It’s not the same,” Marena whispered, holding her knees even more tightly.

  “No,” Arik agreed solemnly. “It was unregulated and so boundless, depthless. An insidious kind of hate, left to the hater alone. We had no powers, so they made us powerless. And abuse was governed by no laws.”

  “It’s the same, isn’t it?” Marena asked.

  “No,” Noa answered, surprising even herself. “No … it’s not.”

  Arik was watching her. “Captain Lia, whom you so dislike … would it surprise you to learn she feels the same? That she knows that difference?” Noa bit her lip, and Arik continued: “Before Otec Darius Awakened the Clears, Lia’s husband was a Blue politico. To curry favor, he made a practice of renting her—his powerless Clear wife—to useful friends. She was quite a beauty, before.”

  “She agreed to that?” Noa breathed.

  “She was never asked,” Arik replied simply, “and had no say. Clears were useless, and Blues, you know, the unofficial elite … such an impressive power.” For the first time, strain flickered at Arik’s jaw. He suppressed it, continued: “When Lia learned she was with child, her husband suspected it was not his and punished her, though his doubts were his own fault. He threw her through a window so hard she cracked the wall and split open the ceiling, which crashed down on top of her. The glass and rubble massacred her face and ear, and when Blue medics arrived, her husband explained she was just a Clear in need of a lesson.” He looked at Noa. “They left. Standard procedure.” To Marena: “Powerless, you see? Not simply without gifts.”

  Noa couldn’t help it; sympathy’s tiny jaws yawped and cried inside her. Sympathy, for Captain Lia. Memories began to play through Noa’s mind—not hers, but those she’d seen in Lia during the interrogation.

  Arik’s story was the truth.

  “It’s a terrible story,” Noa murmured.

  “But still you think us monsters.”

  Noa closed her eyes. Just as when she had tried to think of her memories of Callum, her mind was betraying itself, throwing into question things she had known to be the truth.

  Judah once told me about the Hunter who followed him through the Portal,” Noa began, grasping onto a strong, solid memory.

  “Thorn,” Arik nodded. “I knew him well.”

  “He was cruel for the sake of being cruel.”

  “Like every Clear,” Marena mumbled.

  Arik nodded at Noa grimly. “Thorn did enjoy the distasteful things, it’s true. I met him in the Clear Province, before it was such a place. When it was the burned-out market shantytown where Clears went to starve in safety.”

  Noa bit her lip. Another truth from Arik, she knew. Judah and Callum themselves had told her about the old, ruined marketplace—just not that it had been the last refuge of persecuted Clears.

  “I lived in that place with my mother and several other abused Clear women,” Arik continued, “The smell, the air…” he shivered. “It’s where we met Lia actually, after she’d fled her husband. Thorn arrived there too one day, alone and badly beaten—he was seventeen, skinny and starving, had been caught faking his Colorline to stay in school. Thorn had known the risks, but he was so curious, had such an appetite to learn…”

  Noa shut down her sympathy, refused to feel it. She remembered Thorn’s ‘curiosity’ well—he had tortured Callum for sport.

  Arik didn’t seem to notice her sudden anger. “We were rotting in that ruin, living decomposing lives. Otec Darius saved us. He changed everything.” Arik’s eyes shone. “Imagine! A Clear who was not powerless at all, despite having no gifts. He had his own power that came from inside him. No one could deny it, not even the Colors; even they knew he was born to lead.”

  “Exactly,” Noa pointed out. “He was a powerless Clear, and yet he rose to lead. Because at least in that society, he had the freedom to try.”

  Arik didn’t seem to hear her, lost in his memory. “I remember seeing Thorn at the Otec’s rallies. Skinny Thorn! Those hollow eyes, round and bright with worthiness! He grew strong with it, we all did. Like tasting sun for the first time….” Arik looked into Noa’s eyes, reverent. “The Otec rebuilt us, he made us real.”

  “And melted some people along the way,” Noa replied.

  Arik’s eyes turned cold and hard for the first time. “Do you know what that prisoner did? That old cell mate you grieve for? He ra
n a service disposing of Clear babies! So parents could try again until they got the Colored children they desired!”

  Noa flinched. She had not loved Geezer, but he had sacrificed himself to set her free. She had come to consider him at least a fellow victim.

  Arik laughed harshly. “Such a nasty cosmic joke, Colorline being random for every child. They couldn’t just breed us out. At least it gave Fae like your cell mate a lucrative trade!”

  Arik made a visible effort to regain control. “Can you even imagine how Darius must have felt when he learned of Gwydion’s hideous crime? Not only to suppress all Clear powers, but to erase the knowledge that Clears ever had them at all? To make us, everyone, believe we were intrinsically worthless?” Noa had to look away from the blaze in Arik’s eyes. “That is why there was no Otec until Darius, because he is father to all Fae. The only one who loved us enough to right something too evil to let stand, no matter what it cost!”

  “Why … why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I need you to understand what happens next.”

  “What … happens next? I don’t understand.”

  Arik met her eyes with no hint of apology: “Your sacrifice.”

  • • •

  Arik left, his final word uncurling like a serpent. Noa and Marena locked eyes, tasting the same dread.

  That night, under the cover of darkness, they talked—not about what was to come, or how they might evade it, but simply to connect. In careful, whispered words, fragile daisies chained together, Noa told Marena about her world, her family. About Isla who’d been lost, but whose spirit lived; about Sasha, beloved, bestial and brave.

  Marena told Noa about her younger brother, Gerard, whom she’d tried to protect after the Segregation, clinging fast to him in the Barracks in violation of the law. Gerard was wrapped inside Marena’s spirit, the way Sasha and Isla beat through Noa’s heart.

  “He’s dead now,” Marena said finally, without tears.

  “How do you know?”

  “I feel it.”

  Noa nodded. She had felt it, too, when Isla died.

  “What?” Noa asked. Marena was studying her.

  “It’s just—you’re no pixie, and as a Greenie I can feel that’s true. You feel different. It’s small, but it’s there.”

  “But … ?”

  Marena’s mouth had furrowed a little. “But when I talk about how I know my brother’s dead? I feel you feel it with me. Not just listen, but feel. But that’s Green. That’s Fae. Our gift.”

  “Or empathy,” Noa replied softly, “which is human, too.”

  Marena nodded, but her eyes remained uncertain. They dropped off into silence for a time.

  Finally, just when Noa was sure the pixie had fallen asleep, Marena asked, “Why’d you come back for me, in the cell? When you and the boys were escaping?”

  “I heard you call my name. I knew it was you in there.”

  “That’s just it,” Marena murmured. “I didn’t say anything. I never said anything at all.”

  • • •

  When Arik returned, Callum followed him inside.

  “Callum!” Noa shrieked, surging awkwardly against the chains.

  Callum didn’t answer. He was standing ramrod straight, curls shorn short and tamed, jaw square and face erect. He wore a silver uniform, perfectly pressed, and scuff-free, polished boots. He looked at her, and Noa trembled. There was no recognition in his eyes. They were hard. Dark. Callum, always tall, suddenly seemed to loom. And worst—the very worst—was his stillness. The stillness of purpose.

  And certainty.

  Arik took in Noa’s horror. “It’s what’s right,” he told her gently.

  “What have you done?” Noa wailed, whirling on him. “What have you done to Callum?”

  “Nothing, pixie!” Callum spat.

  “Pixie?” Noa repeated, wondering if this was some secret message, some way of Callum telling her he was simply playing along—

  Callum turned to Arik. “Is this the prisoner?”

  Noa suddenly knew with terrible certainty that this was no act. “Callum! It’s me! It’s Noa.”

  Callum’s face only flickered in annoyance.

  Arik answered Callum, ignoring Noa. “No, you’ll do the other.” He tilted his head toward Marena, who screamed in terror and hurled herself in the only direction she could: against the wall.

  “Callum! No! That’s Marena!” Noa cried. “Marena!”

  But they weren’t listening, neither of them; they were turning to greet the third Guard who’d just arrived. Another Guard perfectly erect in a shining silver uniform, but slighter, darker—

  “Judah!” Noa screamed. But Judah’s eyes were cold too.

  “Judah! Judah, please! Don’t let Callum hurt her!”

  But Judah didn’t stop Callum; he simply moved aside, blank-faced, as Callum grabbed Marena’s arm. Marena howled, squirmed, kicked, bit, but Callum was too strong, too calm. He unlocked Marena’s chains, held her easily by a single, skinny arm, dangling her like a broken doll.

  Noa didn’t know how to think, how to react; her mind had become too feral in its incarceration. Something important was pulsing urgently through her brain. She had to listen, she had to listen more than she ever had before—

  Noa shook her head, trying to clear it: she had seen this before, this Callum-But-Not-Callum, this impostor in her beloved’s skin. But where had that been, what place, what time, and hadn’t she found a way to wake him? To uncover what was buried, find a touchstone to call him back, a talisman against the madness—

  Noa flung her left hand to her wrist, remembering. In the In Between, freeing Callum from the Man with White Hands, she’d needed the talisman—but her wrist was bare now, Arik had taken the talisman when they were marching through the square—

  She looked desperately at Arik, opened her mouth—

  “Judah, that one’s yours,” Arik ordered immediately, and Judah grabbed Noa’s arm. But Arik’s gaze had flickered, Noa had seen it. She squirmed, twisted to look where Arik had looked in that split instant: at Callum’s wrist. There, encased in a thin red tube, her own talisman was clasped.

  “Callum! Callum! It’s the bracelet—” Noa screamed, but Callum didn’t even turn her way. “It’s the bracelet—it’s controlling you!”

  Callum ignored her, shoving Marena, still kicking, screaming, biting, out through a passage he conjured in the wall. Judah yanked Noa along behind them.

  “No! Callum!” Noa spun and flailed in Judah’s grip, fighting with all she had. She was bigger than Marena, and Judah had always been slighter than Callum; Judah had to haul Noa in front of him, grasping her basket-style to hold fast her wild limbs. She wanted to scream at the absurdity of it, this hero’s hold now when he was not him and she was not her. Judah—always the mockery of a hero, posture right and conviction wrong.

  Noa struggled to keep fighting, humiliating tears streaming in torrents down her cheeks. Because through their blur she’d seen it—the bracelet on Judah’s wrist which meant Marena had been right about it all. For though it was a bracelet Noa had never seen, she recognized it by heart: another talisman, housing a broken soul. Like Callum’s, it was encased in a red tube, and fastened around the wrist of the one whose spirit had been torn.

  “Judah,” Noa shuddered with terrible tears. “No, no, Judah—” She choked on her sobs, gasped so hard she couldn’t see. Something about this bracelet, Judah’s bracelet, was the worst thing, the very worst thing. She melted, sliding down through his hands, the hands cradling her like the dear one she never now could be. Because now she could never tell him the important thing, the only thing, the thing that she hadn’t known she’d known and only now knew was important.

  That was why it almost didn’t register when Arik motioned for Judah to face Noa to the glass; why she almost didn’t hear A
rik’s words, “Be brave,” or realize where Arik and the brothers had taken them.

  The glass cube room. Where Geezer and Crazy had been turned to ooze.

  It wasn’t until Callum’s back came into focus within the room, his strong, broad arms holding Marena’s screaming, flailing form directly in front of Noa’s eyes, that Noa understood what was about to happen.

  “No! No! Callum, no!”

  But it was too late, Callum’s hands were on Marena’s skinny, fighting body, and then Marena’s skin was glowing Green and sizzling, dripping off her bones. Noa screamed and struggled, insanity making her strong—and for the briefest instant, Judah’s grip faltered. Noa’s arm flew back wildly and crashed into Arik’s nose, shattering the bone.

  Arik yelled, grabbed his bloody face as Judah regained control of Noa’s arms. Marena’s voice howled and also gurgled; she had no legs now, no hands, her arms were melting into sludge…

  “It’s necessary!” Arik yelled at Noa, desperate for her to understand. “The final test!” But Noa wouldn’t understand, couldn’t understand, never would; nor would she stop screaming. She wailed and wept until she wasn’t even human, until she was just a beast, an animal, a thing. And like an animal, she couldn’t look away because she had no Reason, so she stared into Marena’s wide and mink-fringed eyes—the eyes of Isla, of Sasha, of Noa herself—until they became islands, the only islands left, and then they too dissolved into the sludge beneath his hands, Callum’s hands, those white, white hands.

  A horrible keen tore itself from Noa’s throat, from that place that was pure instinct, pain. She knew she was next and didn’t care, and then she realized that if they were tests, as Arik said, she was supposed to be Judah’s—

  Judah’s hands—

  —and suddenly she had to say it, even though she knew he couldn’t hear it anymore.

  “You were never broken, Judah!” she told him with force and focus. “You were never an impostor!”

  “Judah, bring her in!” Arik ordered. Callum filed out of the room, holding the tube of Green goo that once had been Marena. Judah’s hold tightened on Noa’s arms, but his step hesitated, just minutely. His eyes found hers, and something flashed in them, so distant and so brief—