The Shifter

by Janice Hardy

  “I’m looking for Aylin.” The voice sounded familiar.

  “Open it,” said Aylin, climbing over the bed.

  Danello cracked open the door and peeked out. “Name?”

  “Where’s Aylin?”

  “Kione?” Aylin said, shouldering past Danello and opening the door wider. Soek stepped back before it could thump him in the nose.

  Kione took a step inside, but Danello didn’t let him in any farther. “I need your friend, the crazy one who kept sneaking into the League.”

  “Why?” Danello said, moving forward as if he were trying to hide me and Tali. “Aylin, who is this guy?”

  Kione took a step closer, and Danello flicked the rapier. I couldn’t see much past his back, but I had a feeling the rapier was aimed at Kione’s throat.

  “Don’t skewer him.” I jumped up and tugged on Danello’s arm until he lowered the weapon. Defending me was a sweet gesture, but Kione might know what had happened at the League. “He helped get Tali out. Kind of.”

  “Kione, what’s going on?” Aylin asked.

  “They’re lying.”

  “We know—there’s no disease; the pain killed them.”

  “No, they’re lying about them being dead.” Kione shoved inside until he was face-to-face with me. “Nya, the apprentices are alive.”

  SEVENTEEN

  “They’re alive?” I repeated, wanting to believe it, but afraid too.

  “Most of them. A few died, and I think that’s what gave the Luminary the idea to say they all did. Some of his men were seen taking bodies to the morgue.”

  Tali laughed, relief bright on her flushed cheeks. “That’s wonderful! We can still save them then.”

  “What? No,” I said. “If we go back, we’re all dead.”

  “But we have to, Nya. We can’t leave them there.”

  Kione nodded. “That’s why I came to find you. They hurt Lanelle. I saw her in the spire room in one of the beds. That Elder, the sick one who wants to cut them up—”

  “Vinnot.”

  “Yeah, Vinnot. He had me carry up some supplies, and I saw Lanelle and the others. I heard the Luminary tell him they could finish in peace if the Duke thought the Healers were dead. That they could set sail long before he came to investigate.”

  “The Duke’s coming here?”

  “I’m not sure.” He shrugged. “I couldn’t quite catch it all, but I got the impression that they expected him to, and they wanted to leave before that happened.”

  “Why would the Luminary lie?” asked Danello. “Why would they leave?”

  It didn’t make sense. I glanced at the five scared faces in the room. Though cruel, the Luminary wasn’t stupid. He had to know telling Geveg the Healers were dead would upset folks, and when Gevegians got upset, riots almost always followed. He wouldn’t do that unless—

  I stiffened. “Could he have caused the riot on purpose?”

  Aylin hugged herself. “Why would anyone do that?”

  “I don’t know.” The Luminary had a plan, that much was clear, but beyond that—what he was after was murky as marsh mud.

  “Who knows what they’re up to over there?” Kione said. “I just know that not long after I overheard them, that announcement was made. Things are really bad now, Nya. You need to go back and save Lanelle.”

  I bristled at his tone. I needed to, not him. Not us.

  I shook my head. “We’ll never get back inside. The entire League is on alert. There are a thousand people clogging up the streets. Soldiers are all over the place.”

  “I know. But you got in before—you can do it again.”

  Saea be damned I would. “Lanelle helped them, Kione. You know that, don’t you?”

  “She had no choice! I helped them too, but I also helped you.”

  I scoffed, and he glanced away.

  “Okay, not a lot, but I could have said no.”

  “Nya,” Aylin said, “if you’re right and the riot is on purpose, then whatever the Luminary is doing is about more than just Lanelle—or the apprentices,” she quickly added. “Look outside. Those people are angry because they were told the Healers are dead, not because they actually are dead. You heard them yelling—they think that’s a lie, that the Duke stole them just like he did in the war.”

  “It is a lie,” Danello said, his fists clenched at his sides. “Does it really matter which lie the Luminary tells?”

  My guts said it did. The Luminary was telling a lie to make us angry when he could have just lied to the Duke. There was no reason to make us angry unless it somehow aided his plan. Maybe the Luminary thought the Duke wouldn’t believe him unless Geveg did too? The Duke had to have spies here, and riots would support the Luminary’s claim.

  But why claim it? I sighed and ran my hands through my hair. The Luminary and Vinnot wanted to do something, and they didn’t want the Duke knowing about it. So if the lie was about the Healers, then that something had to involve the Healers in some way. What value could Healers have to the Luminary that didn’t include the Duke?

  Lanelle had said Vinnot was doing “special research” for the Duke, so his creepy symptom list must fit in somewhere as well, though I couldn’t see how. The only thing the Duke cared about was pynvium and getting more of it. No, it had to be something both he and the Luminary would want for themselves. Something valuable enough to risk a citywide riot over.

  I jerked my head up and gasped. Of course!

  “Unusual Takers!” I cried. No one listened. I climbed onto the bed and shouted it. “He’s after the unusual Takers!”

  Everyone gaped at me.

  “The last few years,” I began, “the Duke has cared about only two things—pynvium and unusual Takers. He’s spent money and soldiers to get both. The Luminary and Vinnot have been searching for something among the injured apprentices at the Duke’s request, something rare enough that they’d risk lying to him to keep it.”

  “Takers?” Soek said, puzzled.

  “Takers like us. I think the Duke’s figured out a way to force Taker abilities to manifest. Tali, you said apprentices were disappearing days before the ferry accident, right?”

  “For almost a week.”

  “And Kione said there were two other rooms with Healers in them. Small rooms, so they were probably set up before the ferry accident as well. He was already testing for unusual Takers. The accident just gave him an opportunity to test everyone at once.”

  Aylin looked just as lost as Soek. “Test them how?”

  “By giving them pain, and lots of it. It’s just like the twins—I didn’t sense anything about them until they were carrying pain, but then I did.”

  Danello paled and held a hand out. “Wait, what twins? My brothers? Jovan and Bahari?”

  I bit my lip, sudden guilt quenching my excitement. “Oh, Danello, I’m so sorry. I should have told you before, but I was trying to protect them.” I explained what I’d sensed when the twins had been linked and full of pain. How their talents had felt stronger. He paled even further.

  Kione wiped a hand across his lip. “Lanelle did say she was ordered to watch several of the apprentices who’d exhibited specific symptoms. She had a whole list of them.”

  “She was paying a lot of attention to me when I first starting getting better,” Soek added softly. “I started pretending I was more hurt than I was, and she stopped.”

  “But Vinnot works for the Duke,” Danello said. “So does the Luminary.”

  Kione folded his arms across his chest. “Just because you work for someone doesn’t mean you’re loyal to them.”

  “Everyone knows what he’d do to them if he found out,” Danello said. “So why risk lying to him?”

  “Who cares? Are we going to go back for Lanelle or not?” Kione whined, his gaze darting to the window, the floor, the door, like he was—

  “Distracted,” I said, shivering at the thought. “It’s all a distraction! That’s why the Luminary caused the riots. Not only does it help support the lie t
hat the Takers are dead, but who’d notice the Luminary and Vinnot escaping in all the chaos?” What heartless rats! Both had proper Baseeri travel seals, but the Takers they planned to kidnap wouldn’t. They’d show up on the travel records the Duke received, proof that two men he’d trusted had lied to him. Stolen from him. They couldn’t afford that. They had to bypass the checkpoints, distract everyone so they wouldn’t see the escape.

  Saints, they were actually planning to betray the Duke! I was all for turning against him, but not at the expense of Geveg.

  Tali looked hopeful. “So if everyone hears that the Luminary lied to them and that this isn’t the Duke trying to steal our Healers again, they’ll stop fighting?”

  “It’s possible,” I said, though it seemed like a lot to hope for. “It might make them angrier, but at least then the Governor-General could arrest him. That would calm folks down. But if the riots don’t stop…” I didn’t want to finish that sentence. The Duke might burn us out like he had Sorille.

  “See?” said Kione. “You do have to go back to the League.”

  I wanted to, I really did. All those Takers were just as helpless as Tali had been, but they didn’t have anyone to come save them. “We’d never get back inside. There has to be another way to prove the Luminary is lying.”

  “What if you flashed your way in?” Soek said. I winced as all eyes turned to him.

  Tali looked at me. “What’s he talking about?”

  “It’s how we escaped. She was incredible,” Soek gushed. “She threw pynvium chunks at the guard and flashed them. I’ve never seen anyone do that before.”

  Tali’s eyes got big as oppas. “You flashed? How?”

  Soek and his big mouth. At least he hadn’t mentioned what I’d done to Lanelle, and for that I was grateful. I pulled one of the chunks out of my pocket. “I don’t know. I was angry, and hurt, and it…happened.”

  Tali got a funny look on her face and reached for the chunk. “Let me see that.” She held it in her palms, her odd look shifting to disbelief. “This is empty.”

  “It can’t be empty—we used them all. I know we did.”

  “You…shifted it out, maybe?” She held the plum-sized chunk between her hands, brows pulled tight together. “I don’t know what you did, but this is usable again.”

  Excited murmurs raced around the room. Soek mumbled something about me being incredible. Even Kione seemed to realize the importance of this and stayed quiet.

  “That’s not possible,” I said. The only way to empty pynvium was to enchant it to flash, and after that, it would never hold pain again. No one had ever found a way to reuse pynvium, and the enchanters had tried for years.

  “Possible or not, you did it anyway.”

  I sat there, staring at the impossible chunk. What if I really could empty pynvium? Forget testing for Takers; the Duke would send an army to bring me back if he found out. What a resource I would be for him! I shuddered.

  “Can I see that?” Soek asked, reaching out his hand. Tali nodded and dropped the chunk into it. His brows furrowed, and he nodded. “It is empty.” A moment later he sighed and handed me the chunk. “Mostly empty now. Good to be rid of those aches.” He handed it back to me. “Your turn.”

  I just stared at it. Danello looked torn, as if he wanted to spare me the embarrassment of explaining but didn’t know if I wanted Soek to know I couldn’t fill the pynvium chunk. Tali picked up the chunk and enclosed both our hands around it. My fingers tingled as she drew my pain away, into the chunk that should have been useless. She cupped the pynvium for a moment, then set it on the small table. Her fingers hovered over it, as if she was reluctant to let it go.

  “So what about Lanelle?” Kione insisted again.

  Soek shook his head. “After what she did to me? I’m never going back there.”

  “It wasn’t her fault,” Kione said.

  “She got what she deserved.”

  Kione swore and stepped toward Soek as if he was going to hit him. Aylin grabbed his arm. “We don’t have time for this. This isn’t about one person. If the Luminary gets nervous enough, he might really kill them. We have to expose the Luminary before the Duke sends more soldiers here.”

  “And before people start taking their anger out on the Governor-General,” I added. Once that happened, the Duke might decide merely occupying Geveg wasn’t enough to control us. He might decide to obliterate us—just as he’d done to Sorille. I sighed. “You’re right. We have to go back.”

  Heads nodded all around, except Soek’s.

  “I can’t go back,” he pleaded. “I want to help, really I do, but I’ve escaped both Verlatta’s siege and that room, and I don’t think I have another escape in me. My luck can’t be that good.”

  No one said anything. Kione looked ready to join him, even though he was the one trying to get us to go.

  “I’ll stay here and guard Aylin’s room,” Soek said after the silence became uncomfortable. “I can make sure no one loots it. I know it’s not much, but I don’t…I just can’t go back.”

  Aylin looked uncertain. “It’s a nice gesture, and I don’t mean to offend, but I have no idea who you are. I’m not just going to leave you in my room.”

  Soek didn’t seem offended. “I’ll stay in the hall then, or on the stairs.”

  She thought about it a moment, then nodded. “Well, okay, I guess that’s good enough.”

  I stared at them: at Tali, the sister I loved, at Aylin, the friend I loved like a sister, at Danello—who was someone I probably could love if we survived long enough to spend any real time together and find out. They were all willing to risk their lives to save strangers. Just like Mama, like Papa, in the war. Should we do this? Could we? Grannyma’s words nudged me. Doing what’s right is seldom easy.

  “We can’t fight our way in. We’re not trained soldiers, so even with the flashing it won’t work,” I said. I looked at the chunks just waiting to be emptied and filled again, and a plan started to form. “We’ll have to sneak in, just like I did to get Tali, and then get back out.”

  Danello frowned and rubbed the back of his neck “How do we sneak out sixty injured apprentices?”

  “We don’t. We flash and use this pynvium to heal them and all escape together. We’ll be able to refill the chunks inside, so we should be able to flash our way out as far as the courtyard. Once we get to League Circle, we can show everyone in Geveg the Luminary is a liar.” And save who knew how many lives at the same time.

  “Can we hold off the guards that long?” Aylin asked.

  Danello shrugged. “Depends on how many the Luminary sends to stop us. But if we can get inside without alerting the guards, we might have a while before anyone checks on the apprentices. With the mob outside, they probably don’t have many guards inside.”

  A big if. “The door to the spire room locks, doesn’t it?” I asked.

  Tali nodded.

  “As you heal the apprentices, we could use their cots to barricade the door,” said Danello.

  It wasn’t a great plan, but it was our only hope. I pulled out a handful of pynvium. “All we need to know now is if I can flash these things on purpose.” If not, our rescue plan didn’t stand a chance. I turned to Tali, staring at me with fear and excitement in her eyes. “Do you still have the chunks I gave you for Danello’s pain?”

  “Yes. I didn’t know what else to do with them.” She dug into her pockets and handed them to me.

  “Everyone move back. I don’t know how large the flash will be.”

  “I’ll be in the hall,” Kione muttered. Soek and Aylin nodded and followed him outside.

  “I’m staying,” Tali said.

  “Me too.” Danello leaned back against the wall and smiled.

  I took a deep breath and tried to clean my churning mind. The pynvium felt cool and rough. How had I felt before? Hot and angry? I reached for that anger and threw.

  Thud.

  The pynvium bounced off the wall and rolled under the bed.


  “It didn’t work, right?” asked Tali.

  “No. Trust me, you’ll know it when it happens.”

  Anger wasn’t right. I had been angry, but I’d been more scared of getting caught when it flashed. I took a deep breath and tried again.

  Thud.

  “Maybe if you—”

  “Tali, I’m working on it.”

  “I’m just trying to help.”

  “Maybe you should wait outside.”

  “What if you—”

  “Tali, will you just go…” away. I stared at the pynvium chunks in my hands while Papa’s words whispered in my ears. Enchanting a trigger feels like blowing dandelions in the wind. I’d been six, maybe seven, sitting by the forge as Papa shaped and enchanted the pynvium bricks. It’s easy to set them, Nya-pie, he’d said, cooling the brick in the water bucket at his feet. You’ll feel the pain gather in the metal, tickling under your fingers. Next, you think about what it needs to do, and you give it an order. Then you let it go. Just picture it drifting away like dandelions blowing in the wind.

  Dandelions.

  “I have it. Stay back.”

  I took another breath and threw, picturing light and fluffy seeds bursting apart, flying away on a wind I couldn’t see.

  Whoomp!

  The fine-sand tingle washed over me, same as it had when I’d flashed the guard. Tali and Danello yelped behind me.

  “We’re okay,” Tali said as I spun around. “Just a sting.” She picked up the flashed chunk and held it, her eyes closed. Then she looked at me with wonder and a little bit of pride. “You really can do it. And you thought you were useless.”

  My eyes watered, but she ran outside before I could figure out how to answer that. Maybe not useless, but was this how I wanted to be useful? I heard their excited voices in the hall. For good or bad, I could do this. There’d be no excuses to stay now.

  Saints save us, we were going back to the League.

  EIGHTEEN

  Moving with the mob was a lot easier than fighting against it, and we made it to the League with less fuss than we’d left it. Most people were cramming themselves into the front courtyard and the main doors, so the side path around to the rear gardens was clear. We sank down behind the all-too-familiar hibiscus bushes by the side gate seldom used by anyone but apprentices and League staff. If I was going to keep this up, I might as well set up a cot here and move in. Guards patrolled the outer courtyard and stood by all the entrances, while the Governor-General’s soldiers shoved angry people around League Circle. More than a few shoved back.