by Ann Denton
Mala dragged her skirt back down, biting her lip. Lowe raised his eyebrow and said nothing. Good to know, he thought, suddenly far more tense.
“Where were you when I was on shore?” Mala asked, pushing her hair back behind her ears. “I didn’t see you. Ouch!” she yelped as Lowe twisted her ankle. He slowly turned it the other way, pushing gently against the straining tendons.
Watching you, he thought. “I didn’t want to be seen,” he said darkly, weighing her reaction.
Mala shrank back a bit, frowning.
She plays scared well.
Lowe turned her ankle in a small circle and pressed against the swelling skin with his thumb. Mala winced and cursed quietly.
“So, am I broken?” she asked, trying to smile. “Do I need to hire you to carry me around?”
Now that’s a wet-dream job. Lowe swallowed and offered Mala a half smile. “Just twisted,” he said. “But I wouldn’t recommend swimming for a day or two.”
Her pretty face fell. “I’ll figure something out. I’ll swim somehow,” she said, mostly to herself. Then she turned her chocolate eyes back to Lowe. “Thanks. I’m fine now.” She stood, gingerly putting weight on her ankle, as though she’d been resting it for days and was ready to run.
Lowe frowned. Unless she was an expert, Mala was not a spy. She was awkward, distant, a bit callous even. And she lacked calculation, or even the dull hatred of an Erlender agent. She didn’t appear to have any mask.
Lowe thought of her spell in the woods. The cut on her hand, the boon she asked of whatever gods she thought were listening. To be saved from herself, that pain might never look on her face. That wasn’t the prayer of a spy.
“That’s completely illogical, you know,” Lowe responded, determined to keep talking to her. She was with Sorgen, so clearly she was someone’s agent. “Why would you injure yourself more just to go swimming?”
Mala made a face, something that tried to be irritated but only managed to look sad. “Swimming’s the only way you get away when you live on a boat.” She turned her gaze out over the water. There was a longing in her eyes as she peered out into the darkness of the Gottermund, as though she’d rather be at the muddy bottom of the river than anywhere on dry land.
Lowe leaned against the boulder, staring at her. “And you swim … a lot.” He hadn’t meant to, but he said it like an accusation.
Mala whirled on him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Lowe shrugged. He decided to push her a little more. See how well she kept her emotions in check. Double agents had to suppress a lot. He went with an insult. “Clearly you’re a misanthrope.”
“A what?”
“You hate other people.”
“I do not!” Mala shrieked, and she looked as though she wanted to storm away.
Lowe’s heart turned heavy. He swore he could read her thoughts in that moment. I don’t hate people, people hate me.
Or maybe that was his own thought.
He leaned forward. “Then why are you always swimming alone? Why were you avoiding everyone tonight? Why’d you sneak off into the woods? I’m guessing it wasn’t to meet Garon.” He said the soldier’s name with a venom he didn’t intend, but he couldn’t look away now.
Mala’s face reddened and her whole body went stiff as she realized he’d been watching her. Lowe felt his own face flush, but he kept his eyes hard on Mala, unblinking.
She clenched her fist and turned up her chin. “I don’t swim alone.”
“Yes, you do,” Lowe said. “Every day you bait and check sixteen traps. Today you caught a catfish.”
Mala clenched her teeth, and her knuckles turned white. “How do you know that?” she asked coldly.
“I’m a very observant person,” Lowe forced himself to keep his voice level, to sound stern and knowing. Trying not to feel like he was somehow invading her privacy. Gathering intel was his job now.
“So fishing makes me a misanthrope?” she demanded. “Because if that’s the case, you need to let just about everyone on that platform know.” She gestured at the dancers far behind them.
“No,” said Lowe. “There’s more.” He was attacking her now. “I’ve asked around. For as long as anyone can remember, you’ve been quiet, elusive. A ghost. You avoid everyone.”
The ghost looked at him, her eyes narrow and accusing, questioning, but she said nothing. He held her gaze, folding his hands, studying her.
She seemed afraid. She was shaking, though that might have been adrenaline. She bit her lip, worried—or maybe angry, maybe vulnerable.
And there it was, in the back of her eyes, in the paling color of her skin, in the tight ball of her fist. She was hiding something.
Lowe put a neutral expression on his face, the shadow of a smile, but inwardly he scowled. Erlender, Erlender, he thought, but the more she spoke, the less it made sense. She has secrets, but what kind? And more importantly, had she shared them with anyone who might unmask Stelle?
Mala broke eye contact abruptly and stood. She grimaced but said nothing of the pain.
She’s putting too much pressure on it, Lowe thought, and started to say so.
“You know, you’re right,” Mala said, her voice dull and solemn. “I avoid everyone but my mother. You included.” She started limping away.
Lowe stood quickly and grabbed her shoulder, spinning her back to face him, more roughly than he’d intended. They were a hair’s breadth apart now, close enough to taste each other’s breath. Cinnamon and sweat lingered on his tongue. He fought the urge to reach out and taste more.
“Why?” Lowe demanded, forcing himself to look at her eyes and nothing else, to see nothing but a spy, an enemy, a threat to Stelle. He heard his voice turn steely. Mala tried to pull away. Lowe’s hand slid around her back, his touch impossibly gentle. She went still in his arms.
Close enough to kiss, Lowe thought. And if she hadn’t begun speaking, he might have.
“Have you ever tried to speak with my mother?” Mala asked.
“No,” Lowe said, and started when he realized no one had said a word of him about Mala’s mother, even in passing.
“Never asked anyone about her past in your stalkerish curiosity?”
Lowe felt himself grinning. “I haven’t had that much time to ask questions,” he said. “I just discovered you haunted these boats, Misanthrope.”
Mala scowled. “You’re so funny.”
And that was it. He couldn’t stand to see that bitter twisted look on her face. Wide-eyed innocence was beautiful. Embarrassed was adorable. But jaded? Something deep inside him rebelled. He cut off the interrogation and blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “It’s a side effect of being incredibly handsome.”
Mala laughed. A long, loud, bawdy sound that sent strokes of liquid lightning pulsing through his veins. The smile nearly split her face, and in a moment of insanity, stupidity, bravery, Lowe leaned forward, started to pull her close—
Mala stepped away, still laughing. He bit back his disappointment and stood straight, crossing his arms.
“That’s kind of offensive, you know,” he said.
Mala dried a tear with the back of her hand and sighed when she caught her breath. “What?”
“That you find my looks so laughable.”
Mala shrugged. “Well, I am a misanthrope after all. I hate everything about you.” She grinned.
Lowe grinned back. He opened his mouth to reply.
And a sound like summer thunder split the air. Mala paled as the island went silent, the sound sweeping over drunken mouths and slamming them shut. For three long seconds, no one moved. No one breathed. The only sound was the gong, the alarm sounding from the far side of the island. Calling them to battle.
It could only mean one thing. Lowe cursed.
Erlenders.
Chapter Eleven
Lowe’s blood ran cold. Erlenders, he though incredulously. Why are they here? Unless Stelle had told them to come here. Stelle could have told them. Or Ma
la could have heard about the secret island from Sorgen. She could have told them.
Across the river, somewhere in the dark, an Erlender war horn started to sing.
Bara and her second were shouting, their voices nearly lost in the din. Guns, hammers, homemade grenades were tossed like party trinkets—to anybody who could carry one. The drunken Senebal guards swarmed across the grass and past the bonfires, the heat of liquor and bloodlust burning their lungs as they cried for a fight.
Across the platforms, Mala ran hard against the human current.
Mucking hell.
Lowe chased her, stomping across the muddy shore. He found her at the edge of the platform, her hands on the shoulders of a petrified woman. Her mother. She couldn’t have been anyone else; brown hair and dark eyes, the very picture of her daughter. Utterly beautiful. Or she would have been if her face wasn’t drawn, joints locked, if her mouth wasn’t frozen in a silent scream.
That’s her. She was on the boat too. She’s the other woman who pulled Sorgen out of the woods.
He’d found the pair. The question was, what would he do with them?
Lowe swept in beside Mala and hoisted her mother up over his shoulder. She went limp as a fish, shivers wracking her slight body, icy beads of sweat streaming down her face. She made a low grunting sound, a moan trying to be a word.
He turned to Mala, ready to play the idiot hero to see if she’d lead him into the viper’s nest. “Which way?”
Mala blinked in surprise and pointed to black shadow of the woods.
They ran for the trees, and across the island the battle erupted.
Gunshots split the air. One after another until the night was chopped into pieces by the whizzing bits of metal. Steel blades bit at each other, ate right through leather and skin. The air went red with heat and noise and blood.
An Erlender the size of a tree wielded a giant ax. In a single blow he decapitated a shadowy Senebal racing for the treeline. The Blue Nose wrenched the axe from the soldier and held it above his head, shouting, letting the blood fall on his face like rain. Lowe turned his gaze in another direction.
That’s when he thought he saw it. Just a flash. He squinted. Looked again. His feet slowed, though he knew he had to hurry. No, it couldn’t … but no. There!
A tall man, thin as a twig, with wild eyes and a spear in his hand. The single strip of blond hair on the back of his head. A clear nose, not marred by any stripes.
Lowe’s muscles turned to stone. His lips went dry. He could scarcely form the name.
“Blut.”
Chapter Twelve
Lowe tore through the underbrush after Mala.
“We’ll get away, Mama. Don’t worry. We’ll get away.”
Mala’s mother was panting on his back, breathing through her mouth, gulping the hot night air. He could feel panic coming off her in waves. Her heart thrummed against his back, rippling like a dying engine. Too much noise, Lowe thought, trying to muffle his steps in the dead leaves littering the grass.
The biggest fighters would be around the bonfires. The most aggressive. It was the panicked ones they’d have to worry about in the trees. The unpredictable.
Unpredictable. His mind circled back to Blut. He’s cracked.
It happened to a lot of Kreis eventually. Melting took a toll, a heavy one. The Erlenders might say they deserved it—if they knew what Kreis were, that madness was a fair price to pay for their abilities—but if the madness came, when it came, certain death followed.
They said it started with visions. Then paranoia. Near the end people would black out, zone out, sleepwalk. Start doing things they couldn’t remember. Then they were as good as gone.
Blut going on a killing spree, covered in blood and screaming? That was par for the course. What Lowe couldn’t fathom was why Blut was here.
Verrukter had been tracking him nearby. Maybe he’d seen the movement, the attack. Hopefully he still remembered he was Kreis.
Lowe hoped the mania was at least doing some good. That Blut was running in insane circles around the bonfires, screaming and slamming axes together like cymbals, cracking Erlender heads and snapping their necks.
But it was far more likely that Blut was here on accident, or—and he didn’t linger too long on this thought—that the Erlenders had brought him here themselves as a sick joke.
The trees’ cover ended abruptly as they reached the opposite shore of the island. Lowe saw a small boat bobbing in the dark water—the green medic’s boat, Mala’s boat. Even in the dark, he could see the dark stain of Sorgen’s blood on the deck, a shadow that wouldn’t wash away.
And another shadow, rising and falling on the other side of the cabin as it breathed.
Mala took a broad step out of the trees. Lowe grabbed her arm and dragged her backward. Damnit.
It had been instinct. But had she been about to meet an Erlender? Had she been about to take him into a trap? He might have just ruined his chance to find out.
Erlender sympathizer, he thought dully, Erlender magic.
Mala spotted the shadow. She turned to him, terror etched into every line in her face.
Her panic calmed him. Good. Panic is good. Panic means innocence. Unless it’s for show.
Lowe mouthed silently, “We have to go.”
Mala nodded and took a deep breath, but she only seemed to shake harder. Lowe gave her hand the slightest squeeze, to comfort her, even as his mind wondered. Is she being overdramatic? Trying to sell me so I’ll turn my back?
He turned to her mother. No way he was going to keep walking hindered by her weight, when he was so torn about what to do. He needed to be able to run.
“Can you walk?” he whispered. “I need to guard the rear.”
Mala took her mom’s hand. “She’ll walk. She’ll be fine,” she said, but her mother said nothing, staring straight forward. Still as stone.
Lowe pressed his lips into a firm line. “If I’m going to protect you, I need to know you’re both running. I need to know she wants to run.” We won’t have time to come back for her if she freezes up again.
Mala gave him a look so venomous he almost flinched. “She wants to run,” she hissed.
Lowe made a face, fought a tide of frustration. “I need to hear her say it,” he said. “Her voice.” He’d seen enough soldiers lock up on the battlefield. Shut down. It was a death sentence—for them, and for anyone who tried to help. If she didn’t want to move, Lowe needed to leave her behind.
“They stole her voice!” Mala hissed.
They, Lowe thought. Erlenders? He frowned, trying to reconcile Mala’s tone with his lingering suspicions. Unbridled rage simmered in Mala’s eyes.
“Show him, Mama,” Mala instructed, turning to her mother. “Show him what the Erlenders did.” Her gaze flicked back to Lowe. “They stole my mother’s voice, so she could never name them or what they did to her.”
Her mother touched his shoulder, turning him to face her. But Lowe knew. Even as she opened her mouth to show him, his stomach twisted, and he knew. His aunt had suffered the same fate.
Her mouth opened. A black pit. They’d cut out her tongue.
Mala’s expression was dark. “She’ll run,” she said, in a voice that brooked no further questions. Her mother nodded briskly.
“I’ll take the rear,” Lowe gestured. Let Mala lead. See what she does. The Erlender-hater who somehow knows spells. He scanned the darkness, bulldozing his thoughts. Put his senses on high alert.
Mala took off into the trees. Lowe followed, his mind shooting daggers at the back of her head, trying to pierce her skull, figure her out.
Maybe she’s just superstitious. Maybe she and her mom were Erlenders. But the tongue … maybe he was trying to find something where there was nothing. Maybe she was just a girl.
But that train of thought had nearly gotten him killed on his first mission. A wide-eyed Senebal girl, yellow hair like duckling fuzz. She’d only been four. Maybe six. And skipping, she’d led him right into an am
bush.
Lowe turned back to Mala, his eyes hard as gemstones. Only one way to find out, he thought, and he followed her into the dark.
Chapter Thirteen
Two minutes passed. Through the trees ahead of them, an orange flare pierced the blackness. Mala held up her hand, and Lowe and her mother stopped.
“Wait here,” Mala whispered, making for the light.
Lowe grabbed her wrist and pulled her back, mouth open to protest—but her glare silenced him.
Could be getting backup. Could be a trap. Could be pooling resources with a contact, doing an intel drop.
He remembered flashing his Kreis brand to Garon and cursed his stupidity. Did she see?
Mala vanished into the trees.
I wonder how much of this I’ll regret tomorrow. If I make it that long.
He reached into a secret pocket sewn inside his shirt and pulled out a vial, a thin metal canister full of powdered oleander.
Mala’s mother stiffened at the sight of the bottle. She started to stand, her eyes impossibly round.
Lowe grabbed her hand. “It’s a last resort,” he said quietly. “If they catch us, I won’t let them play. I promise.”
She nodded slowly and sat when he tugged her hand. He didn’t let go; he rubbed his thumb along her wrist, soothing her. If something went wrong, if the fire was an Erlender camp, if Mala was calling them now to come and grind him into a bloody pulp … he would need her mother.
The word leverage sat like lead on his tongue. Necessary, he had to remind himself. He silently scolded himself; he’d never needed reminding before.
A sudden sound at his ear, whirring like a spinning gear, made Lowe duck. A soft pop sounded from a nearby tree as a bullet bit into the bark. He dropped to his stomach.
Lowe crept forward, Mala’s mother crawling beside him. They rose to their knees to peer over a small rise.