“What does it matter if you punish her now or punish her later? The girl is dead either way.”
“Because I can’t stand to look at her! Every time I see her, I’m reminded that if she’d returned the controller to Rowansmark instead of taking it to Logan, my dad would be alive.” Ian’s voice shakes. “I want her dead. Not tomorrow. Not whenever Logan brings the controller to Rowansmark. I want her dead now.”
A chill slides across my skin at the hatred in his voice. I understand that hatred. It boils and churns deep within me, waiting to lash out at the man whose actions ruined my life. Waiting for a chance to kill the Commander. That kind of bone-deep hatred is ravenous. The more you feed it, the hungrier it gets.
It can’t be stopped. And it certainly can’t be satisfied with slim assurances that the object of its bloodlust will pay her debt sometime in the future.
Ian is going to try to kill me the very second he thinks Samuel isn’t watching. And with my useless arm and my crippled lungs, I’m going to need a miracle to fight him off.
It was one thing to threaten to kill Ian despite my injuries when I thought I had both Samuel and Heidi firmly on the side of keeping me alive. It’s another to realize that Samuel blames me for Ian’s craziness, and that Heidi can discuss disposing of me like it matters less to her than what she might choose to eat for breakfast in the morning.
A week ago, I would’ve welcomed the fight with Ian, despite the overwhelming odds against me. Maybe because of the overwhelming odds against me. A week ago—before the fire, before Eloise had Melkin’s baby girl, before I cried over Sylph and started to feel real again inside—I didn’t care if I lived or died.
I care now.
I’m not going to deliver myself to Ian on a silver platter. I’m going to do what Willow and Logan kept urging me to do as we traveled through the Wasteland—I’m going to be smart about this. I’m going to have a plan and an exit strategy. And I’m going to have to come up with one fast, because it won’t be long before one of the trackers notices I’m no longer lying by the campfire’s ashes.
Should I head east toward Lankenshire and hope to stumble into Quinn? Go north and then cut east after a few hours? Find a river or a creek to wade in so that I don’t leave a trail? If I can just find Quinn, we can join up with Logan again. We can face all of this—Ian, Rowansmark, and the Commander—together. Logan will have a plan with five hundred backup scenarios just in case. We’ll have tech and weapons. And I won’t be going up against a madman with nothing but my left hand and a knife.
I’m pretty sure Logan would approve of this exit strategy.
I ease back, but freeze when Heidi says, “Maybe James Rowan would be satisfied knowing that Logan will return the device. And that he can expect the Commander and Carrington’s forces to follow the device straight to Rowansmark. We can give him that information, and it might be enough. But we can’t predict if Logan will come alone, or if he’ll bring troops. James Rowan is going to want Rachel as a bargaining chip in case Logan has an army of his own.”
Ian’s laugh is ugly. “It doesn’t matter how many troops show up. Weren’t you listening? The tech was finished just before we left Rowansmark. By now, it will be installed around the city’s perimeter. Let Logan bring an army. The Commander, too. In fact, let every single city-state show up at our wall. We’ll destroy them in the time it takes to push a single button.”
My throat goes dry, and my hands tremble as I press my fingers into the dirt to keep my balance.
“If the tech works, yes, but—”
“It works. My father and I designed it.” Ian’s voice is proud. “One button, Heidi. That’s all James Rowan has to push, and he can call an entire army of tanniyn to surface just outside our wall. Those who dare to march against us will be annihilated before they’ve had time to realize their mistake.”
My heart knocks against my chest in quick, hard thumps as the escape plan I’d hatched sinks beneath a bloody vision of Logan, Baalboden survivors, and Lankenshire troops all decimated in seconds by an entire army of Cursed Ones. Until we arrived in Lankenshire, I didn’t realize there was more than one beast still alive, much less enough to surround the city of Rowansmark, but I don’t doubt the absolute confidence in Ian’s voice.
The tech exists. The tanniyn exist. And Logan has no idea that the trap he’s walking into is far more dangerous than a single modified piece of Rowansmark tech can handle. Even if I escaped to warn him, what could we do? The only way to give us a fighting chance to break Rowansmark’s tyranny is to get inside the city.
Forget escaping. Forget being afraid to die at Ian’s hands. I’m going into Rowansmark, and I’m going to find that tech and destroy it before it takes the last of my family from me.
Ian can try to kill me, but he’s going to fail, because I’m done losing those I love.
Pushing my hands against the dirt, I start crawling backward, intent on returning to the campsite and pretending to be asleep before anyone realizes I’ve gone. I’ve moved a little over fifteen yards when someone grabs the back of my cloak and hauls me roughly to my feet.
“Got you,” Ian says.
I open my mouth to answer, but his fist slams into my face. Tiny lights explode across my vision, and then everything goes black.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF–NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
CHAPTER NINE
LOGAN
Another Brute Squad guard, a blond man with freckled skin and eyebrows so pale they look nearly transparent in the torchlight, waits outside the dungeon’s doorway as Willow and I walk out. A boy who looks to be about Rachel’s age stands apart from the guard, his eyes wide as he stares at Willow’s bloodstained tunic and the chains that bind my wrists. Something about the boy’s dark eyes and hair, about the line of his jaw and the set of his shoulders, reminds me of Clarissa. A glance at the gold emblem that pins back his green travel cloak confirms that the boy is an emissary of Lankenshire. Probably the one who approached the Commander to lay out the terms of my “escape.”
The Commander strides past me and stops in front of the boy. “Get us out of here.”
The boy nods quickly. “The tunnel entrance is relatively close. I can return you to your army in about an hour.”
The Commander grabs the boy’s shoulder before he can turn to lead us down the hall. “We aren’t going back to the army. We’re going to retrieve something from the Wasteland.” He gestures roughly toward Willow. “The girl will tell you which direction to lead us.”
“I have a name,” Willow says, her eyes challenging as she meets the Commander’s gaze. “And it isn’t ‘the girl.’”
The Commander steps closer to her and says with quiet menace, “You are nothing more than a tool I’m using to get what I want. I don’t care about your name, your city of birth, your reasons for getting mixed up with Logan, or anything else you feel like sharing. Tell the boy where to take us.”
Willow lifts her chin, her long hair floating behind her as she moves to stand toe to toe with the Commander. “My name is Willow Runningbrook, and you don’t scare me.”
The Commander’s face twitches as if she’d slapped him, and I step forward, my chain links clinking softly. “We’re wasting time. We need to move.”
“I concur,” the boy says. “The longer we debate amongst ourselves, the greater the chance of discovery by our mutual enemy Rowansmark.”
His voice is both lyrical and precise, like a mathematician reciting poetry. I’ve never heard someone close to my age speak so formally, but now isn’t the time to try to figure him out.
I nod toward Willow, and she says, “We need to exit northeast of the city.”
The Commander turns to the blond guard who’d waited outside the dungeon. “Once we get into the tunnels, return to camp. Take Alford, Vale, and Roland along with extra horses and supplies. Meet us at the northeast tunnel exit.”
&nbs
p; The guard frowns. “I don’t know where the northeast tunnel exit is.”
“Do you know where northeast is?” the Commander asks, his tone biting.
“Of course.”
The Commander chops his words up, each piece covered in scorn. “Then simply walk around Lankenshire’s wall until you reach the northeast side and wait until you see us.”
The Lankenshire boy leads us through the corridor until we come to a short, curved hallway that ends in a windowless brick wall. Without hesitating, the boy hurries down it and stops just short of the wall. Beneath his feet is a square of tile with a small iron ring set into its center. He crouches beside it and lifts it free. It opens on silent hinges, revealing a thick iron ladder that leads to the tunnels below.
“You first, Orion.” The Commander gestures toward a short guard with a thick beard that completely covers the lower half of his face. “If either Logan or the girl try to escape, hurt them.”
Orion’s dark eyes flick over me and settle on Willow. The speculative way he runs his gaze over her body makes me want to punch him.
“Show some respect,” I snap.
Orion laughs. “Says the outcast to the Brute Squad guard.”
“Or you could continue to disrespect her, and I’ll show you how fast an outcast can beat you senseless.” I step forward, and heft my chains. He takes a small step back. Maybe he’s heard about the way I used the chains in the Commander’s dungeon to attack his guards. Or maybe he’s just a bully who doesn’t know what to do when someone isn’t afraid of him. Either way, he won’t treat Willow the way guards in Baalboden were allowed to treat women. Not while I’m still alive.
“Stop talking to my guard as if he’s your equal,” the Commander says. He pauses as if waiting for a response from me, but I just glare at him. It isn’t very satisfying, but I’m in chains, surrounded by guards, and I need the Commander’s cooperation if I’m going to keep my promise to destroy Rowansmark’s tech. Seeing that I don’t plan to respond, the Commander turns away and says, “Orion, get down that ladder.”
As Orion hurries to obey, Willow moves to my side and says quietly, “I can defend myself. I know how to take care of men like him.”
My chest burns as I imagine the kind of things Willow endured at the hands of her father. She won’t talk about her past beyond explaining the significance of the feather she wears on her ear cuff, but I see the weight of it when she doesn’t think I’m looking.
“I know you can,” I say as we move closer to the tunnel’s entrance. “I’m not defending you because I doubt your skills, Willow.”
“Then why?”
“Because we’re family now. And because he shouldn’t treat women like objects put here for him to use however he wants. I can’t be the person I want to be if I let that pass.”
The Commander grabs my shoulder and shoves me forward. “A useless sentiment clung to by those too weak to take what they want. Get into the tunnel.”
My chains clang sharply against the ladder as I make my way down each rung. The second my boots touch the tunnel floor, Orion grabs my cloak and shoves me face-first against the stone wall.
“Still think it’s a good idea to tell me what to do?” he asks, his breath hot against the side of my face.
I tense and roll to the balls of my feet, but remain silent. Above us, the blond guard begins carefully descending the ladder, his torch held aloft.
“I’m talking to you.” Orion shoves me harder.
I lift my hands to my chest as if trying to protect myself from the wall, but refuse to answer. He curses, and digs his fingers into my cloak.
“I asked you a question,” he snaps.
When I still don’t answer, he jerks me around. I plant my right foot and raise my fists as I spin toward him. The length of chain that dangles from my wrists whips out and lashes him across the face. His head snaps back. I raise my hands and pound the bulk of the iron shackles against his skull like I’m hammering a nail.
He stumbles back, but I don’t follow him. The blond guard is nearly at the base of the ladder, the glow from his torch illuminating the craggy white-gray stone of the tunnel. Willow is climbing down above him. I don’t need either of them trying to intervene. Besides, Orion has learned what I needed to teach him: I’m not a helpless outcast cowering in the shadow of the almighty Baalboden guards anymore, and anyone who wants to disrespect those I care about will have to go through me to do it.
“What happened to your face?” the blond guard asks as the torchlight shows a trail of blood leaking from Orion’s cheek and a bruise swelling around his left eye.
“Nothing. Mind your own business, Peter.” Orion wipes the blood away and glares at me. I guess he doesn’t feel like admitting that he took on the shackled prisoner and lost.
Willow steps off the ladder and looks at Orion. “Looks like your face ran into a wall. Don’t worry, it’s an improvement.”
He gives her a look of pure hatred, and she laughs as she brushes past him to stand next to me. Moments later, the Commander, the Lankenshire boy, and the last guard, a rail-thin man with sharp cheekbones and a torch of his own, join us in the tunnel. The thin guard, a man called Gregory, lights a spare torch and hands it to the Lankenshire boy. The Commander sends Peter, the blond guard, back to the waiting army of Carrington soldiers and Baalboden guards, and then we begin moving toward the northeast exit.
The Lankenshire boy leads, followed closely by Willow and me. The Commander walks behind us, and Orion and Gregory bring up the rear. Walking with my back to the Commander makes me feel exposed, but I don’t have much choice in the matter. Not if I want this uneasy alliance to hold.
The tunnel is just wide enough to allow Willow and me to walk side by side without touching. The air is dry and warm enough that my cloak is beginning to be uncomfortable. Here and there, the stone ceiling becomes a square of wood with another ladder leading up into Lankenshire, but the tunnel we’re in twists and turns so much, I’ve lost track of what part of the city we’re currently under.
“I’m curious as to our planned route once we exit the tunnel.” The boy breaks the silence as he leads us around a sharp right corner, his torch illuminating yet another long length of craggy gray-white stone.
“You’re returning to your city once we exit the tunnel,” the Commander says.
“Actually, I’m escorting you to Hodenswald as Lankenshire’s official emissary.” The boy’s voice is calm, though his words tumble out too fast. I don’t blame him. Correcting the Commander is a good way to get killed.
“I never agreed to that.”
The boy gives a small, one-shouldered shrug as if to apologize. “The triumvirate intended for my presence to assist you in gaining support at Hodenswald. Our alliance with them is strong.”
The Commander grunts and falls back a few steps, his only concession that the boy can continue on with us.
The boy waits until the Commander is closer to his guards than he is to us, and then says, “The triumvirate is under the belief that you’re capable of dispatching our difficulty with Rowansmark.”
“You talk like a character in an old book,” Willow says.
The boy rubs the nape of his neck and casts a side glance at her. “Perhaps because I prefer spending most of my time with old books.”
“Why?” Willow asks.
“Books are nicer than most people. I suppose that makes me appear weak to someone who can fight off a Rowansmark tracker.” He squares his shoulders as if waiting for her judgment.
“My brother loves books, too—poetry mostly—and he’s the best warrior I know,” Willow says. “And this one”—she points to me—“thinks mathematical equations are better than kissing, and he’s anything but weak. Worrying about what others think of you is a waste of time.”
The boy flashes a smile. “I’m Connor. You’ve already met my mother, Clarissa the Great. And my sister, Cassidy the Soon-to-Be-Great.”
Willow laughs. “Does that make you Connor the Al
so-Great?”
“Not exactly.”
“I’m Logan, and this is Willow. And for the record, I don’t think mathematical equations are better than kissing,” I say as we turn yet another corner. The air is cooler in this portion of the tunnel. I wonder if that means we’re closing in on an exit.
Connor grins. “I’d imagine it would depend on whom you were kissing.”
I return his smile, but my heart isn’t in it. My heart is somewhere in the Wasteland with Rachel. The last time we were separated, I was worried that Melkin would try to kill her on the Commander’s orders. I was scared that she’d be forced to kill him instead. And I was kicking myself for not realizing earlier that Rachel—fierce, loyal, reckless, intelligent, beautiful Rachel—was the one person I couldn’t bear to live without.
This time, I know what loving Rachel and being loved in return feels like. But instead of holding on to that like a lifeline, I’m shackled to the thought that Rachel’s father knew who I was. That Oliver did too. That no one trusted me enough to tell me the truth, and all the respect I thought I’d earned, all the love I thought they’d had for me, was a lie. I sift through my memories of Oliver and Jared, and nothing feels like a lie, but feelings aren’t the same as facts.
The fact is that I was the Commander’s investment, stolen from Rowansmark with the intention to coerce my father into giving tech capable of weaponizing the tanniyn to the Commander.
The fact is that my Baalboden mother wasn’t my real mother.
The fact is that Oliver took care of me, but so did the woman who pretended to be my mother. If she did so on the Commander’s orders, maybe Oliver did too.
The fact is that Jared brought reports of my well-being to my father every six months. Every time Jared treated me like a son—every bit of training, every shared dinner, every moment I spent with him—was simply so that he would have something truthful to report.
And the fact is that Rachel, the girl who wears her every emotion for the world to see, is incapable of the kind of long-term dishonesty that keeping my secrets would take. Which means I can still trust her. I can still look at my memories of her without the taint of suspicion poisoning everything we had. The foundation I built my life upon might be crumbling, but Rachel is still my constant, and I’m not going to lose her.
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