by L. J. Hatton
Birch and Greyor both took a step back, the latter with a protective arm in front of the former. I was too angry to question why he’d do that.
“Get out, or you can see how well your precious potatoes grow in ashes,” I said, holding my hand out toward the hutch. “I’ll burn the whole place, me included.”
“Go,” Greyor said, nudging Birch toward the doors.
“I don’t understand. What did I do wrong?” Birch said sadly, but he ran.
“If the heat reaches the fire-detection equipment, an alarm will sound,” Greyor said with remarkable calm. He followed Birch out.
I shook my hand furiously to dislodge the energy contained there, then retreated into my hutch. If Greyor told the warden I was there, hiding wouldn’t help.
I’d spent sixteen years whining because I thought our train was a prison I’d never escape, but without it, my world was smaller and lonelier than ever.
CHAPTER 26
I incinerated the coat, then sat vigil in my hutch, jumping at every noise, expecting every moment to be the one when the door was ripped away by Warden Nye. My new creeper-light friend elected itself my sentry, patrolling the greenhouse’s walkway. But the night passed. The chimes sounded for breakfast, and I was still alone and uncaptured.
Had I been wrong?
Was it possible that Greyor was the asset Birch claimed?
And Birch . . . Oh, what I’d done to Birch. I’d threatened to annihilate the only place he felt safe. I deserved a foul fate.
There had to be a way to fix this. I couldn’t survive on my own for long, and I had a suspicion that Birch couldn’t, either. I needed to find him, but I nearly lost my nerve once I opened the greenhouse doors. There was so much movement and sound in the hall that finding anyone seemed impossible.
Greyor seemed to know I needed time to collect my thoughts. I hoped that would mean that he or Birch would be close enough to spot quickly. I picked a direction and headed out—straight into someone going the opposite way.
“’Scuse me,” the man said. “Didn’t see you there, brother.”
“Sorry,” I replied in one of the dozen voices I’d acquired in The Show. “Still not used to the layout.”
“Map’s on the wall now,” the man called back over his shoulder as he carried on, lugging an official-looking messenger bag.
I saw it. A few feet away, there was a frame bolted to the wall between two of those massive tanks, which now sparkled with water.
“You shouldn’t have any trouble now, but mind your feet before you get where you’re going,” the man with the bag said. “Report for duty in those, and you’ll be cited.”
I glanced down at my boots, then nodded another nervous thanks before turning back to the wall.
A wide glass case contained several official bulletins, which I ignored. Right in the middle someone had tacked a floor-by-floor schematic of the Center. The scale nearly took my breath away, but I could come back and marvel in horror later in the night. For now, all I needed was very specific information. Luckily, the map was color-coded, and my new creeper-light buddy was there to shine a light on it.
The dining hall was blocked in green. A yellow section denoted guests’ quarters, and blue was for permanent residents. That’s where Birch would live, so that’s where I went, head down, and careful not to shuffle my feet.
“Thanks for the help,” I whispered to the creeper light. “You should go join the rest of your friends, before you’re missed at whatever station you’re assigned to. I’ll be fine.”
The light blinked good-bye and rolled away into the scattering herd of identical units that were assisting on the floor.
No one else noticed me at all.
I was tall for a girl, but here, I was barely above average. I was thin, with jutting angles for knees and elbows, but so was everyone I passed.
“Hey,” someone called. “You there, in the silvers.”
“Me?” I asked. A man on a ladder was staring down. He was fixing a metal lid to the tanks.
“Yeah, you. Toss me that filer plate, would you?” he asked. “Up and down’s an awful pain.”
His toolbox was sitting open, with a stack of metal files on top, so I grabbed the first one and handed it up.
“Thanks,” he said. “Wouldn’t want these spilling over on folks, would we, little brother?”
I tried not to shiver at the endearment. It made the place sound like a cult.
“You’re welcome,” I said, and hurried off.
I passed the first junction and went to the second, which according to the map was where I’d find the living areas. Only whoever pasted up the map had put it backward. I was in the guests’ section. The uniforms here were a rainbow of trouble, all guarded by Commission-approved men in body armor at the head of the hall.
“Keep walking, little brother,” one said gruffly. “Not your hall.”
“Which way’s the dock?” I asked, with feigned confusion.
“One back and take a left,” he said. “You’ll get used to it.”
“If I’m around that long,” I grumbled, and the guard chuckled.
This wasn’t going to work. I was never going to find Birch on my own.
I reversed my track, and headed back for the greenhouse, passing through an official’s contingent as it headed in.
“Take some silvers for the hauling,” I heard someone say, and nearly fainted dead when a hand latched on to my jacket.
“Where you headed?” its owner asked. He had one of the maroon patches belonging to that gargoyle Arcineaux on his shoulder.
“To the dock.”
“Welcome committee?”
“They don’t tell me until I get there.”
“Then consider yourself told. Get some help, and take this to the dock jockey. You’re collecting for Warden Arcineaux.”
All that practice inside the Caravan saved me again. I knew how to keep my face blank.
“What’s this?” I asked, staring at the card that the man stuffed into my hand.
“Clearance card for the warden’s ship. You need it to verify possession of his things. Four bags, six boxes. Bring them straight to room forty-one. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “Four, six, forty-one.”
Anything to get away from there before the warden showed up.
“What’s your name?” the man asked.
“Jermay Baán,” I said automatically, and hardly kept from cringing.
“I’ll tell the warden. He remembers those who do a good job.”
That’s what I was afraid of.
“Thank you, sir,” I said, surprised I had enough breath to speak. “I’ll be quick.”
“Even better.” He let me go.
I wanted to run, but I managed a decent walk. I’d nearly reached the bend in the hall when—
“Baán,” the man called me back, but Arcineaux could have been beside him now. Maybe he wanted to meet the person in charge of his things, and I couldn’t risk the warden recognizing me.
I sped up, as though I hadn’t heard him.
“Baán!” he called again.
The gargoyle’s voice added, “I want to speak to you, young man.”
I threw his card down and ran, charging through the workmen’s stations as the sound of feet closed in behind me.
“Stop!” Arcineaux called.
“Baán!” the aide added.
I sprinted into the main hall, but couldn’t stop in the greenhouse. They’d come in after me, and if Birch was in there, or they found evidence that he’d been helping me, then he’d be on the hook, too. I ran to the wheel.
More people milled through here, but at a less frantic pace. Some shouted “Hey!” when I flew by, upsetting their routines. I passed into the hall beyond it, but as I neared the first junction there, I heard anot
her familiar voice in the mix—the other man who thought I was Jermay.
I needed a distraction, but they were in short supply. None of the personnel was going to help me evade a warden, especially not a warden as feared as Arsenic—unless the personnel in question weren’t human.
I glanced at the mixing room. The tangle of climber lights was now properly installed and waiting to be activated. Hopefully, they were as accommodating as my other friend.
“Hey!” I tapped on the glass. Every light swiveled toward me. I was never going to get used to that. “Keep them busy. Make a mess.”
They understood me as easily as the ones who’d saved me from the warehouse. The lights whipped themselves into a flagellating storm, flinging fixtures around the mixing room to create havoc. The three nearest the glass began to beat against it like they were trying to break free. That triggered an alarm and created a convenient bottleneck to give me cover.
“Thank you,” I told the lights, then headed for the biggest doors, hoping they went outside so I could lose Arcineaux and his aide for good in the shuffle of ships being unloaded.
After I passed through, a security gate slammed down, and the doors shut behind me. Gears moved inside the walls, shaking the room slightly; the sudden force of upward acceleration threw me to the ground. I’d walked into an elevator lift, and I had no idea where it was taking me.
CHAPTER 27
I was stuck to the floor until the ride ended. The recoil of a sudden stop threw me again.
The gate rose behind a set of etched glass doors to reveal a curved room. It was empty and silent, save for the sound of moving air. Then I heard thump, thump, thump.
I ventured out, surprised to find that rather than being set into a wall, as it had been on the primary floor, the lift was now in a center column. The thumping sound came from its other side.
Thump, thump, thump.
There wasn’t much furniture, nothing hung on the walls except a control panel of some sort, and like the spaces below, there were no windows. The lights were set to a low burn, allowing the reflection of the metal surfaces to carry the glow all the way around the column. It was like being inside an oven—an idea I cast out of my mind quickly, before the horror of it could take root and fill my thoughts with the agony of roasting alive.
Thump, thump, thump.
The sound came again, still in the same tight burst of three. I swallowed my fear and kept walking. It wasn’t a machine, I was certain, as there was no true rhythm to it, and it didn’t come at a set interval the way cycling ventilation might. As I passed around the last quarter of the domed room, dread edged in, prying my nerves loose.
Thump.
A brilliantly shined piece of silver streaked past my face and lodged in the column.
Thump.
Another matched it perfectly, nearly sharing the same space.
Thump.
The third wasn’t so precise. I heard the rip when a hole opened in my sleeve at the shoulder. A slim dagger had left a swatch of material pinned to a target against the back of the lift.
“Penelope?”
I turned toward the voice, and found myself facing the warden who had plagued my every step since the train was destroyed.
“You came back.” Nye moved slowly, in a dreamlike daze, approaching at an angle, the way one might a butterfly they didn’t want to startle. He stopped a few feet away. “Or did you never leave?”
The fury that had fueled my attack on Greyor roared back to life, stoked higher and hotter until the burn threatened to sing the stars down on both our heads. But that was too easy. I wanted to hurt him, and I wanted him to see me do it. Blood for blood.
I reached for the dagger that had ripped my jacket, pulling it free of the target with the piece of material still skewered on its tip, and lunged for Warden Nye. All he did was step sideways and let my momentum carry me past him.
“Keep your eyes open, pet, or you’ll never hit your mark,” he mocked, fully returned to the arrogant man I’d met before.
“I’m not your pet!” I pivoted on my heel and took another arcing slash at him.
“I wondered how long it would take to get your temper up.” He caught my hands and pinned my arms beneath his own.
I tried to speak, but it came out a wordless growl.
Nye released me, shoving me away. I scrambled sideways, expecting an attack, but he hadn’t moved—and didn’t, until I tried to skewer him again.
“And don’t close your eyes in anticipation of contact,” he said as he dodged. “You’ll never make a clean kill.”
I ended up colliding with the column. My stomach turned instantly sour; my knees buckled. I landed hard and couldn’t get up.
“Still tender, are they?” the warden asked. “Very little hurts worse than broken ribs.”
“I dealt with them,” I rasped, no longer facing him with the silence of a slaughterhouse animal awaiting death.
“So I see.” I flinched when he reached down. He picked off a bit of wilting green where one of the leaves Birch used to wrap my ribs had drooped from under my shirt. “I think this is the first time Birch has ever deliberately misled me. Are you rubbing off on him?”
“I stole the coat. I don’t know anything about birch trees.”
Nye tsked at me. “Terrible performance. I expect better from you.”
He thumped my side with two fingers. I spasmed, screaming, with my knees drawn up.
I kicked at him when he pulled me off the ground, even tried to bite him, but he was always just a little faster and just a little more agile than he had a right to be.
“Rage is a good thing. Now you just have to learn what to do with it.”
The knife was now under his control; he began to walk me backward with the dagger’s edge against my throat. I felt the solid surface of the lift’s column behind me. The other two knives glinted at the corner of my eye, just out of reach when I stretched my arm to take one.
“What you lack is the skill necessary to follow through.” His voice had become a near whisper. “You weren’t even aiming for my heart, pet—it’s here.”
He used one arm to hold me to the wall, displaying strength no man his age or size should have possessed. With the other, he flipped the knife so that the handle was to me and the point was nearer his own chest.
“Stop calling me that!”
He nudged the handle into my hand, leaning in until the tip dented his shirt. I didn’t move.
“If you’re this easy to tame, I’ll be disappointed, pet.”
With no choice but to look directly at him, I could tell that the lines on his face were scars more than years of life. Hair I would have called silver or gray at a distance was neither, but rather very white blond, and the eyes I had labeled devoid of color and soul were blue as Jermay’s, and sharper than the edge of the knife in my hand.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“Lesson one. There’s a look a man gets when he knows he’s about to die. The whole of his life gathers to a point. You can see everything he ever was, every dream he ever had, and all the things he’ll never be because you’ve decided his life is over. You have to be close to see it—”
Warden Nye leaned in, driving the tip of the blade into himself until he bled.
“—close enough to breathe in his final breath. You have to be willing to see his face every time you close your eyes, because it will never leave you. There’s no other feeling like it, and—”
I wrenched the knife from between us and threw it clattering into the distance. He stepped back, laughing.
“You really are your father’s daughter,” he said. “And don’t think that’s a compliment.”
Nye crossed the room, bending to retrieve the dagger.
“Never lay aside your weapon, unless you mean to surrender, and never squander an offered oppo
rtunity to best your opponent. Another may not present itself.”
The jovial façade went back into place as he shook the blade at me like a scolding finger.
“And I wasn’t trying to hit you, so you know. Throwing keeps my hands limber.” He worked the last two daggers loose from the lift column and returned all three to his pocket. “It’s not in my interest to let anyone harm you, after today.”
“After?”
The back of his hand slammed against the side of my skull so hard, I would have sworn I heard metal clanging. My sight went black, covered with a bursting lace of lights. All that remained as I drained away was Nye’s voice:
“Iva, ready room six, and fetch the boy.”
I’m sorry, Birch. I’m so, so sorry.
CHAPTER 28
I woke in my room on the train, and there was something in my eyes. I sat up; hair fell around my face and over my arms, down my back in a cascade of dark waves. My ribs no longer ached. I had to be dreaming.
My mirror was hung on the door of my armoire, so I ran to it, excited by the feel of my hair as it swept behind me like Vesper’s magnificent wig. The girl looking back at me was more exciting still: she was Penelope proper, and every vapid wish I’d ever wished.
Sister Mary Alban’s medallion dangled to my waist on its long chain. Clips kept my hair in place at each side of my face. My fingers had been painted with the polish that Penn had never been allowed. A deep red ring sat on my middle finger, a perfect fit to match the gown I’d somehow acquired. It, too, was red, with cut-out spaces that showed gold lace and underpinning. So what if the ring looked like Birch’s tracker. In my dream it was nothing but a bit of shine with an inconvenient shape.
And it felt so real . . .
The replica of my room was perfect, right down to the flowered wallpaper I had covered with torn-up comic books in real life. I heard a purring sound and found Xerxes curled up asleep in a basket, still wearing the pink ribbon Warden Nye had put on him. When I laughed, he opened his eyes, scowled at me for the interruption, turned his head away, and went back to sleep.