by Janice Hardy
Jeatar started down, but the big man stayed up, his arms folded across his barrel-like chest. A guard, sure as sugar.
I followed Aylin, the air growing cooler as we descended. Smooth-cut steps, a simple wrought-iron railing, short, wide candles in wall sconces every five feet.
I stepped out into a much brighter—and much bigger—room filled with Baseeri. The girl I’d helped—Neeme—was there, next to a stack of uniforms. She raised a tentative hand and waved.
Jeatar turned to me and spread his arms wide. “Welcome to the Baseeri Underground.”
ELEVEN
Underground?
Danello nodded. “Like the Sorillian resistance, right? My ma used to lecture on that, but the University Elders made her stop.”
All emotion vanished from Jeatar’s face. “Exactly like that. Some of them are even here.”
“I thought everyone in Sorille died?” Danello asked.
“Not everyone.” Jeatar turned away and walked toward a woman holding practice weapons.
Had Jeatar survived Sorille?
No one survived Sorille, Papa had whispered, unaware I was hiding under the table. Not even those who lived.
I’d seen Jeatar’s scars the day I flashed the Slab. Burn scars across his chest and shoulders. Some things never fully healed, even when you took the pain away.
We’d seen Sorille burning. Seen the glow from the flames, a sunrise in the darkest night. We’d smelled the smoke for days as it rolled across the marshes like mist on the lake.
“He couldn’t have!” Mama cried. “All those people?”
“We should have known.” Papa sounded angry and scared. I’d never seen him scared. “He should have warned us, sent word about this.”
“Unless he killed him too.”
There were knocks at the door then, and people came in who always made Mama and Papa nervous. Mama wanted to send help, but they refused. Said we’d need those supplies ourselves. Had they been Geveg’s Underground? Had Jeatar been part of Sorille’s, or had their Underground formed after the Duke killed everyone in his city?
Not everyone.
“So they’re fighting the Duke too?” Aylin asked, her nervous gaze on the Baseeri staring at us with their cold blue eyes.
“They’re Baseeri,” I said. “Why would they fight the Duke?” But I pictured the boy who’d helped me, how scared he’d been of the Undying. The pack that ran in terror thinking I was one of “them.” A quirker. Even the jail guards had been afraid. What had the Duke done to his own people that he hadn’t done to us?
“You never should have brought them here,” the woman yelled.
“What was I supposed to do?” Jeatar folded his arms across his chest. His scarred chest. If he was from Sorille, why would he care about Baseer?
“Make them someone else’s problem.” She spoke lower this time, but we were all listening now.
For a moment they glared at each other; then Jeatar left her and knocked on one of the two doors in the back. A third was on the opposite side of the room next to the practice area. He waited a moment before going inside.
The Baseeri woman now glared at us. So did the others. A sea of black hair and scowls. They didn’t want us here, but now we knew their secret and they couldn’t just let us go.
“I don’t like this.”
Barnikoff leaned close over my shoulder. His lip was split and bruises darkened his eye and cheek, all caused by Baseeri soldiers. “We’ve got your back if you want to teach these reed rats a lesson,” he said. Others nodded and murmured agreement.
Aylin didn’t look as worried as the rest of us. “Nya, I don’t think they want to hurt us.”
We stared at the Baseeri. They stared at us. Nobody moved, except Neeme, who got up and carried a stack of uniforms to a cabinet and put them inside. She pulled another stack from a different shelf and carried them to the table. She reached into a sewing basket, pulled out needle and thread, and picked up the first uniform on the stack.
Mending them. Had she stolen old uniforms? But they looked new. Maybe she was tailoring them to fit. Having a few of those would make our lives in Geveg easier.
What was taking Jeatar so long?
The door opened and Jeatar stepped out. Another man followed him. He seemed familiar—tall, wide-shouldered, short dark hair. As he got closer, I caught a scent—metal, fire, and smoke.
An enchanter!
“We’re going to have guests, so I expect everyone to show them proper hospitality,” he said to the scowling Baseeri.
The woman wasn’t any happier with him than she was with Jeatar. “But they—”
“Will not be here long.” He shot her a look.
“You can stay,” Jeatar told us. “We have rooms in the rear, but it’ll be crowded. In the morning we’ll see what we can do about getting you home, or finding transportation elsewhere if you prefer.”
“Told you they weren’t planning to hurt us,” Aylin muttered.
I glanced at the practice weapons and the uniforms. They were planning something, sure as spit. Something they didn’t want us to know about.
“Danello?” Halima said, tugging on his sleeve. “We’re not leaving without Jovan and Bahari, are we?”
“No, we’re not.”
“Good.”
The enchanter turned to Neeme. “Could you please show these people to the guest quarters?”
She nodded and jumped up, setting her mending aside.
“Follow me.”
Barnikoff and the others followed Neeme through the second door, next to the one the enchanter had come out of. I stayed behind, and Danello stayed with me. The enchanter might not have wanted to talk in front of the others, but I was ready for answers.
“What’s going on?”
“Let’s speak in my office,” the enchanter said, pointing to the open door.
So they didn’t want to talk out here in front of their others either. I looked at Jeatar. He tipped his head at the office.
“That would be nice,” I said.
I walked inside. It was warm, with worn books on the walls and carpet on the floor.
“Are you okay?” Danello whispered in my ear. His breath tickled the back of my neck.
“I’m fine.” But he did make it hard to concentrate when he did that.
I just didn’t like being in a room where the only person I knew I could trust was him. Or having thirty Baseeri between me and the exit. Or not knowing where my sister was.
“Who are you?” I asked the enchanter as he sat behind his carved wooden desk.
“Onderaan Analov. Please, sit.”
Breath left me. Analov? That was my name. Nya de’Analov. How could he have my name? How could a Baseeri have an almost Gevegian name?
I sat but didn’t stop staring.
“Nya?” Danello touched my arm.
“You’re their leader?” I said, finding it hard to speak at all.
“I’m the leader, yes.” He folded his hands and placed them on the desk. “You’re their leader?”
“No.”
He smiled gently as if he didn’t believe me.
“Um. What are you doing?” I hated the way my voice sounded. Squeaky. Cracked. Not like me at all. “With all these people, I mean…and uniforms and things?”
“Trying to get a snake away from the chickens.”
He sounded like Grannyma. No…
His voice sounded like Grandpapa. Looked like him too. Same eyes, same nose. Papa’s eyes, Papa’s nose.
My chest tightened. “You’re really fighting the Duke? You want him gone?”
“My family has fought the Duke for seven years, since the day he seized power that wasn’t his. His father never intended for him to rule. My father never wanted it either. When he died, I swore I’d drag that greedy, warmongering fiend off his throne if I had to do it with my bare hands.”
I knew that voice. That anger. I’d heard it before.
So much yelling from the first floor. I lay in the
shadows at the top of the stairs and listened, like I always did. This time Grandpapa wasn’t there. Other men were. They smelled like the heavy black smoke that had been blowing over Geveg all day and night.
“We can go right now and rip that murderer off his throne.”
“How? Our forces were in Sorille. We can’t launch an attack now.”
“He killed them, Peleven, he killed our parents.”
Peleven was Papa’s name. The other voice had to be—
Onderaan. I trembled. No, it wasn’t possible. “Your family is here, too, then? Helping you?” That wasn’t what I wanted to ask. I wanted to ask about the uniforms, and what they were doing, and maybe even ask for help saving Tali. But I had to know if his family was alive. If they were, then he couldn’t be—
“They’re dead. He killed them all.”
Not everyone.
I squeezed my eyes shut. It was all a coincidence. This man was Baseeri, with hair dark as night. Papa’s hair had been…I sucked in a breath. Bald. Burned it all off at the forge, he used to joke. Mama was the blond one. Tali and I got our pale curls from her.
“Jeatar says you lost your family as well,” Onderaan said, his voice softening a little. “That your sister was recruited by the Undying. He says you need our help, but I’m not sure what we can do.”
I’d been in Baseer long enough to know I’d need help to save Tali. I didn’t know the secrets of the city, the patrol routes, which soldiers were lazy and which would run after you. He knew all that—and more. It shouldn’t matter who he might be. “There has to be something you can do. You have uniforms, weapons, all these people. You know things.”
“It’s not just her family,” Danello added. “They have my brothers too. They have lots of other people’s brothers and sisters.”
“I understand, but the Duke guards his Takers well. We’ve been trying to get someone inside, but it’s impossible.”
I scoffed, my face hot, my hands cold. “All you had to do was send in a Taker.”
Onderaan’s kind demeanor flickered. “It’s not that easy.”
“We sent some in and we weren’t even trying.”
That shut him up. Onderaan stared at me, his mouth slightly open. Jeatar’s eyes widened. Even Danello seemed surprised.
“Um, Nya?” he said. He shot me a what-in-Saea’s-name-are-you-doing? look.
I had no idea. I was just angry. “You have people and money and resources and all the things you could possibly need to save those Takers.”
Jeatar put his hand on my arm. “Nya, you don’t understand.”
“I do understand!” No one in my family would sit back and let innocent people suffer. He was not family. He was not my father’s brother.
I was not half Baseeri.
“You think it’s too hard,” I continued, “or too dangerous for you to risk your fancy villa and save people you know need saving. People who could help you stop the Duke!”
At some point I’d jumped to my feet, though I couldn’t say when. I stared down at Onderaan, into brown eyes that were not the same shade as my father’s. As Tali’s. As mine.
“You’d rather sit here in your safe chair in your safe cellar while cities burn and lives are ruined and say you tried to help, but it was too hard!”
Onderaan stared back, jaw tight, eyes hard. “No, child. We just don’t have any Takers.”
TWELVE
No Takers anywhere? “I don’t believe you. You’re just—”
“Maybe we should discuss this in the morning?” Jeatar said while Danello squeezed my shoulder—hard.
“Yeah,” Danello said, “she’s exhausted—we all are. It’s been a rough few days.”
“I’m fine!”
“No, you’re not,” Danello mumbled just loud enough for me to hear.
“I don’t think there’s anything more to discuss,” Onderaan said. “Jeatar, this isn’t going to work. I want them all out by end of day tomorrow.”
I folded my arms. The sooner I got out of here, the better. “Fine by me.”
“She didn’t mean it,” Jeatar said, shooting me a look of pure disbelief. “She spent the last week in a box.”
“Gone by tomorrow.”
“Onderaan, they have nowhere to go. They’ll just be captured again.”
“We don’t need the distractions right now. We need everyone focused, and this child”—he waved a hand toward me—“is not conducive to that.”
“I’m not a child,” I said. What did he know about me anyway? “I’ve been on my own for years, caring for my sister, my only family.”
“Get her out of here,” Jeatar said to Danello, who grabbed me by the arm and dragged me toward the door. Jeatar turned to Onderaan. “We need to discuss this.”
“I’m not jeopardizing everything we’ve worked for because you feel sorry for this girl.”
“It’s not that, it’s—”
Danello slammed the door shut. The Baseeri stopped and stared, drawn by the yelling in Onderaan’s office. I glared back.
“What are you doing?” Danello asked, keeping his voice low. “We need his help to get Tali and the twins out.”
“He’s not going to help us.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you can’t trust a Baseeri!”
Danello’s eyes widened. Perhaps I’d said that a little loud. Angry murmurs rumbled through the room.
“Come on,” he said, dragging me away again toward the guest rooms. “Maybe Aylin can talk some sense into you.”
“I don’t need sense talked into me.” I needed to make sense of things that didn’t make sense. Maybe Analov was a popular name here. Maybe Papa just had one of those faces that looked like everyone else. Lots of people lost family in the war. It didn’t mean anything.
Danello shut the door behind us. The hallway was full of Gevegians. They crowded around me, looking for answers I didn’t have.
“What’s going to happen to us?”
“Can we really stay?”
“Who was that man?”
Gaunt faces, tired eyes. Scared and hungry people who would be turned out tomorrow because Onderaan was too selfish to—
“We can stay the night, but we’ll have to leave tomorrow,” Danello said, his hand still tight on my arm.
“He’s throwing us out?” Aylin said, probably the only one who seemed surprised.
Barnikoff spat. “Should have known. Can’t trust a Baseeri.”
Danello looked at me, his eyes encouraging me to speak yet worried that I might. I looked at the people gathered around us. People who would have been safe if not for me.
Saints, what had I done?
I was the one being selfish. I’d made deals I didn’t like before. I could have kept my mouth shut and my ears open, learned what I needed here, and convinced Onderaan to help us. I’d have had Jeatar on my side, and he’d already convinced him to let us stay.
I swallowed, my throat dry. “Jeatar is working on it.”
“Everyone, go to your rooms and rest while you can,” Danello said, sounding like the leader Onderaan thought I was. “Let’s show them we won’t be any trouble at all.”
“We won’t be trouble?” someone asked. I couldn’t tell who.
“I know, but look, these people are fighting the Duke. For all they know we’re a bunch of spies. Would you be happy to see us if you were them?” Grumbles all around. “Stay put, stay quiet, do as they say, and let’s see what happens tomorrow. At the very least they’ll feed us.”
A few chuckles.
“Okay, we’ll sail it your way for now,” Barnikoff said. He glanced at me before he turned and uncertainty washed across his face. The others didn’t look at me, but they did return to their rooms.
“We’re in here,” Aylin said, opening the first door on the right. “Danello, you and Halima are next door, there.”
“Can you watch her a bit longer?” Danello nudged me toward the open door. “I need to talk to Nya.”
&n
bsp; “Do you need me?”
“No, it’s okay. Thanks though.”
Aylin hesitated, casting me a worried look. “Everything okay?”
“It’s fine.”
She arched an eyebrow.
“We’ll talk after,” I said, shaking off Danello’s hand and walking into the room. Not as cell-like as I’d expected. A lot like Millie’s Boardinghouse, really. Simple beds, one on each side, but the pillows looked soft and the blankets warm. A small table with a lamp sat against the wall between them, a basket underneath for clothes.
It took me a moment to notice Danello hadn’t followed.
“…wrong with her?” Aylin said softly, one hand covering her mouth as if that would hide her words.
“I don’t know. She’s acting crazy. I’ve never seen her like this.”
I sat on the bed. Folded my hands in my lap. My fingers were cold and I slipped them between my knees. What had I done?
“Do you know what’s wrong?”
“No, but it happened right after that Onderaan guy showed up.”
Vyand would find us and arrest us. They’d all climb the gallows’ steps and hang. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to apologize to Onderaan. Explain why I…
I sighed and rested my forehead on my knees. Why I overreacted. That’s all it was. He couldn’t be related to me—it made no sense. I couldn’t be half Baseeri. I didn’t look like them. Think like them. I wasn’t cruel like them.
You hurt people. Killed people. Maybe that was your Baseeri side.
The door clicked shut. The bed squeaked as Danello sat next to me. I sat up.
“What happened?” His arm slipped around my shoulders. Warm. Solid. Safe.
“I got confused.”
“Confused? About what?”
“What would you do if you found out your father wasn’t who you thought he was?”
He paused. “You mean, like, if he lied to me?”
I hadn’t thought about that. Had they lied to me? “I don’t know.” I rested my head on his shoulder. The kind of shoulder you could count on when things got bad.
You could count on Papa.
That’s because he was Gevegian. He fought the Baseeri. Baseeri didn’t fight Baseeri—except Onderaan and the Underground were doing just that.