by Ann Denton
Mala threw down her knife, pinning a black beetle to the dirt. “What?” she demanded.
Impossible, thought Lowe. Ridiculous. But he asked anyway. “Where were you when you said you saw me?”
“On the lake, duh.”
Lowe leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “But where? What side were you on, my right or left? What was behind you or around you?”
“I don’t understand the point of this,” Mala growled, but she answered. “I was probably three whole feet away from you. In the lifeboat.”
The little girl. Shock sizzled through Lowe, starting at his heart and gathering in the back of his throat. He swallowed. She’s Kreis. Mucking hell. This was supposed to be a fake assignment.
Chapter Sixteen
Lowe and Tier hadn’t discussed what to do if Lowe actually stumbled across a Kreis recruit. The probability wasn’t that high. Real Recruiters were lucky to find a few recruits a year. And they were looking.
Without orders, Lowe felt lost. Part of him wanted to march right back up the hill and radio for Tier. The other part of him was overjoyed. Mala was alive. And she was like him.
The practical side edged out his emotions. I’d better make sure. “Mala?”
“What?” she snapped.
Lowe picked over his words, selecting them carefully. “I’m not sure I saw you. Just stick with me here, okay? Lowe stood, palms forward to silence her onslaught of questions. “I saw someone in that boat. But I didn’t see you.”
Mala scoffed and turned her back on him. “That’s ridiculous.”
Actually very possible. “No, hear me out. I saw a little girl—six, maybe seven years old.”
“There was no one else in there,” Mala said, forcing certainty into her voice—but her face was carved out with confused lines. She slid to the ground. “… did you see things too?”
“See things?” Lowe smiled, trying to appear reassuring. “I’m not crazy.”
Mala flinched at the word crazy, and she got the same angry, wounded animal look she’d worn when he’d called her a misanthrope.
Lowe spoke softly. Poor kid has no idea what she’s doing. What she’s capable of. “But I think I might know what happened to you.”
Her eyes locked on his.
Splash. His eyes flickered to the shoreline. A figure climbed up the rocky bank. A kid bent over, a bout of crackling, wet coughing folding him in half.
Lowe shot to his feet, wrenching Mala’s dagger from the dirt. Father mucking hell. How in Deadwater’s name … I’m an idiot. Why did I go to the nearest outpost? He knows it’s the nearest outpost. He must have seen me.
Lowe adjusted his grip on the dagger, holding it point down, breathing slowly. “Mala,” he said, barely above a whisper.
A voice at his ear asked, “What?”
Lowe jumped. Mala was right behind him, her mouth at his shoulder.
Lowe looked at her. He glanced back at Blut. His mind raced. Did she lead him here? Erlender magic, Erlender spells, Erlender blood.
Erlender blood. Last night flashed up again. Her mother’s blood on Erlender hands, Erlender faces. His suspicion faltered.
But she’s Kreis. Unregistered Kreis. Old for a recruit. Could she be working with Blut? How’d she survive the bullets last night? If she was on the raft … she’d have been an easy target.
“We have to run,” Lowe said. “Now.” He watched her carefully.
Mala peered around him and snorted, loudly. Lowe’s hand was over her mouth in an instant, pressed so hard against her lips he could feel her teeth. His eyes burned.
“Quiet!” he hissed.
She pulled his hand away. “You can’t be serious. Run from a kid? He can’t be more than eleven.” She gestured at the boy as he clambered over boulders. “He’s just—”
Lowe pulled down his collar, exposing his Kreis brand. “Have you ever seen this before?” Any other day, this would have been a gamble—but she was either a spy and she knew, or she was innocent and it didn’t matter.
Mala’s eyes went wide. She took a small step back, flinching. “You’re Kreis?”
“Yes,” Lowe said. “I’m Kreis. And that little boy you’re laughing at was one of our best assassins.” He let his collar fall back and turned to the blond boy. “Blut. He’s gone rogue.”
Blut bent double and the coughs turned to desperate hacking as he struggled to free his lungs of river muck. Lowe dropped his arm and wrapped it around Mala, slowly walking backward up the hill, back to the base.
“But … how?” Mala murmured, her brow furrowed in confusion.
He was torn. He couldn’t decide if she was acting.
“Now is not a good time for this discussion,” Lowe snapped. “I’m trying to come up with a plan.” He could lead Mala away and question her. He could leave her behind and see if Blut tried to attack her. If he brought her with him, he might end up having to fight both.
“Well, you’re Kreis,” Mala snapped back. “Why don’t you just kill him?”
Lowe felt his face grow hot. Even melted to a child, Blut was a force to be reckoned with. And he was one of the fastest melters on record. Not to mention he was almost an Ancient. He’d been on twice the missions Lowe had. Mala and her snarky mouth are clueless. He snapped back at her, “Oh, really? Novel idea. You’re a genius. Wish I’d thought of it myself.”
Mala scowled, but she kept her voice low. “You’re older. You’re bigger. Shouldn’t you be better than him?” Blut caught sight of them. Lowe pushed Mala forward roughly. “How tough can he be? He’s ten.”
Low couldn’t help it. He laughed. The sound was low and dark. “Mala, you have a lot to learn about being Kreis.” Lowe set a brisk pace through the trees.
“I don’t understand,” Mala said, “can’t you just throw a knife or something? You’re Kreis, you supposed to be the scariest warriors around.”
Lowe scowled. “We aren’t warriors the way you’d think. We’re either spies or assassins. And my specialty is poison.”
Mala stiffened. “And Blut’s?”
“Hand-to-hand combat.”
Mala snorted.
“I’m serious. He’s more dangerous than you think. Appearances can be deceiving …” Lowe chanced a look back and saw Blut smile. The boy gave a small mocking wave. Lowe nearly tripped. “We have to stay as far ahead of him as possible.”
Memories of Blut smashing his face into a blue practice mat buzzed through his brain.
He glanced down. Mala’s knife was still in his hand. He made a decision.
He didn’t have time to question Mala, to wait out her reaction. Stelle didn’t have time. If Sorgen had told Mala anything, Stelle’s cover might have already been blown. Guilty—Mala had already told Blut and they’d come after Lowe together. Innocent—if Blut captured her, she’d sing. Mala and her loyalties needed to be determined now. He was going to have to force the issue.
He had a plan. It was probably going to get him killed.
Chapter Seventeen
They slowed in the dead brush and waited for Blut. He was fast, and they wouldn’t have been able to outrun him for much longer anyway.
Lowe turned to Mala and put the blade in her hand. “He isn’t human anymore, he’s an Erlender now.”
Panic lit Mala’s eyes. Tremors made her body shake like a child locked in a nightmare.
“Go for the gut,” Lowe said.
Mala shook her head. “I … I can’t.”
They argued. Is she scared? Or is she buying him time so they can take me on together? Each second that passed, Lowe grew more tense. He uncapped one bottle of Engel powder deliberately, letting her see it—gauging her reaction. She didn’t know—or pretended not to know—what Engel powder was.
Lowe’s skepticism grew. Her mother had been a medic. She should know poisons. He waved a vial in one hand and secretly uncapped another. He sprinkled it on the rocks and dead leaves near his feet. Blut was barefoot. Lowe was betting the other man had gathered at least a s
cratch on his soles. Engel powder could kill in seconds. And Lowe needed Blut dead fast. Particularly if he was going to face another agent.
He studied Mala’s face. She broke down crying. He stepped forward—as if to comfort her—all the while ready to twist her wrist and take her knife. He spoke soft and encouraging words, keeping his hands close to her, ready if he had to fight.
A flash of blue eyes. Blut was there. It was the moment of truth. Lowe half-turned, retreating a step.
Blut stepped forward into the Engel powder on the ground. Lowe held his breath, eyes darting between Blut and Mala. Unsure if he had two enemies. Or one.
But then … she did it. Mala threw the knife.
Blut should have been able to dodge it. Would have normally. He was far too good a soldier to let some novice nail him in the gut. Blut’s shock when the knife hit its target showed. Those blue eyes flickered to Lowe’s.
Lowe bit down on a smile. He’d gambled right. The Engel powder at Blut’s feet must have hit its mark.
Thirty seconds later, Blut was dead. And Mala shocked Lowe to his core.
He watched as the heat overtook her. She walked toward Blut in a trance, her body shifting as she went, her bones popping and growing, skin undulating. Mala melted. When it was done, Lowe’s jaw dropped. As Lowe had suspected, she was Kreis.
But she wasn’t like any Kreis he’d ever seen. She didn’t turn younger or older. She didn’t turn into a different version of herself—she turned into a different person.
Blonde hair, pale skin. Vibrant blue eyes; eyes like ice. A dimple in her left cheek. She was taller. She’d looked like Blut the way Beza looked like his father Lamm, the way Lowe looked like his mother. The same angles in her face, the same color in her skin.
Every muscle in Lowe’s body tensed. Because Mala didn’t melt like a normal Kreis. She melted like the one Kreis in history whose name sent chills up a grown man’s spine.
Mala melted like Klaren, the deranged.
Lowe hadn’t known Klaren. He’d come to the Center about eight years after Klaren’s execution. But the rumors and the hatred were still as sharp as nails. And for a second, Lowe was convinced Klaren was alive and in front of him.
But then Mala started crying. And Lowe’s fear evaporated. She was just as lost and scared as he was. Maybe more.
It took Lowe a while to convince Mala she wasn’t insane, hallucinating, or magical. He grimaced when she brought up that last one. And he tried to explain, about the bomb, and the genetic mutations. He failed miserably. And couldn’t help wishing Ein were there so he could bore Mala to death with some scientific drivel that would be mind-numbing but utterly convincing. He almost smiled at that thought. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever wanted that muck-head jerk around.
Through it all, Lowe came to one conclusion. I have to bring her in. It would interrupt his mission, the president’s mission. But one of my main info streams is gone. Bara. And he couldn’t just leave Mala.
Kreis left men behind all the time. Trained soldiers knew not to expect rescue. But a new recruit? A powerful recruit? Who doesn’t know how to control her melts?
Lowe shook his head. He was pretty sure he was rationalizing. He wanted to bring Mala in. He wanted her safe. He wanted her trained. I want … his mind trailed off as he looked at her, still trapped as a leggy blonde. I want to help her. That wasn’t all he wanted.
Before he was too tempted, he made his way back to the river to build a raft. They needed to get back to the Center and let Tier know what had happened. The terrain was rough. The Gottermund would be easier.
It took some time to convince Mala though. She didn’t just jump in his arms to pole off down the river to the Center. She’d fought, said she wanted to go back to the secret island to look for survivors. There weren’t any. But grief warps the mind.
Mala dove into the river to swim back. But she smashed into the rocks on the riverbed.
Lowe rushed over, scooped her up. And, to his awe, found that Mala melted back into her own body. Holding her so close, seeing the sunlight glisten on her eyelashes, he couldn’t resist.
He kissed her.
Her resulting smile had been like the sun. It had nearly blinded him. Sent a rush of emotion he hadn’t felt since he was a teen. And then, suddenly, Mala melted down.
Her face grew sharper. The chocolate color of her hair faded. Steely eyes, penny-red hair, freckles across her porcelain skin.
Lowe swallowed. Hard. Stelle …
He lost control. He melted down. His fourteen-year-old body appeared, scraggly and lanky and oily.
That wasn’t supposed to happen. Lowe battled a noxious mix of horror and fear in the trees as he struggled to melt back to normal. How did she do it? Has she seen Stelle? What in the name of Deadwater?
There were no answers to any questions that afternoon. Determined to find them, Lowe poled himself and Mala along the Gottermund. To the Center. To Mala’s new life as a Kreis.
He wondered if she would thank him for bringing her. After the months of training that would follow her initiation— the days spent in dark rooms meditating, putting feelings in bottles. The days spent covered in bruises and cuts and scrapes, learning every day about poisons and weapons and betrayal—if she would even be able to look at him.
Lowe remembered his first days below the lake and grimaced. But those days were necessary. A soldier had to be hard. The Center would make her hard. Burn away that shy demeanor. Forge her into steel. She needs that to survive.
He stared out at the black water, thinking. Thunder clapped like battle drums far to the west, and he thought of Blut’s mother. Lowe had never met her, but he’d seen pictures, sketches Blut had done of her himself.
Why his mother? Lowe wondered, but the more important question was how. Melting was one thing. Kreis were rare, but this … this was impossible. Kreis shifted shape by punching holes in the fabric of time and space and summoning the version of themselves that existed in the past or future—that was the working theory, at least. Radiation, said the doctors; mutations, said the scientists. Educated guesses, dancing around the words Senebals wouldn’t say. If only because the Erlender fools believed them.
Muck if I know, Lowe concluded. Let them figure it out. He grimaced. He could already picture Mala getting assigned to Ein, the brilliant mucking designer of the Dart. He almost felt sorry for her. Except for the tingle of jealousy at her ability to change herself completely. Deadwater, what I could do if I could do that?
At least her ability could explain one thing: his insatiable attraction to her. Surely there was something to that, some part of him that could just tell that there was more to Mala than her curves.
He looked over those curves now. Mala was asleep on the raft, her head pillowed on her arm. She was snoring. Lowe smiled, wondering if she knew she snored. She looked so innocent there, so fragile. So young.
And there was that as well. Her youth. She was hopeful. Emotional. More … human. More willing to be human. It made her more breakable.
Don’t forget awkward. Lowe recalled how stilted she’d been on the dance floor. So refreshingly uncomfortable, unguarded, honest.
Lowe grinned. He touched her hair, the dark brown tangle.
Not an Erlender, he thought. Just a girl. She had to change to survive this war. He’d help her do it. But he’d enjoy her dovelike innocence while it lasted.
Suddenly, he melted. Heat filled him and he looked down. He was fifteen, scrappy and thin, shaggy hair hanging well over his eyes. It happened without warning, and—for the first time in recent memory—without pain. Not so much as a popping joint.
He pushed his hair back and looked at Mala. At the shape of her face, the color of her hands, the way her shoulders moved when she breathed.
Lowe stayed where he was. Fifteen and peaceful, floating on the Gottermund in the dark.
He stayed like that for a long time.
Mala had woken in the dark with a nightmare. Lowe had tried to calm her,
so he’d proposed a game.
Foolishly, she’d agreed.
They played the question game: ask a question, answer with a question, and around and around until someone made a statement.
Make a statement, take something off, that was the rule. Mala had taken off her necklace. Lowe had taken off his shirt. And he was determined to win.
Blood pounded in Lowe’s ears, and other places. He had to focus to hear Mala’s question.
She was asking him about the kiss. About who she’d turned into when she melted. She wanted to know why Lowe had melted too, and why he’d looked so afraid.
And suddenly, Lowe wondered if this innocent little girl was not so innocent after all. He wondered what her agenda was.
“Why do you want to know?” Lowe asked quietly.
Mala blinked. “What?”
“Why do you want to know?” Lowe was cold as ice from the inside out.
“Did you know her?”
Muck. Had Mala seen Stelle? When she’d rescued Sorgen, had she seen her? Lowe tried to read Mala’s face. But the same timid sweetness that had overwhelmed him earlier was all he saw. Is it an act?
“Do we really know anyone?” Lowe replied, thinking of Stelle and how distant she’d grown. Thinking of Mala and how he’d been so sure, just a few hours ago that he could trust her.
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“Why are you so insistent?” Lowe said, quirking an eyebrow. But he couldn’t keep the edge off his voice. He cursed inwardly. Shit. If I didn’t give it away before-
Mala bit her lip. “Was it … your mom?” Her expression was pure red-cheeked anguish.
Lowe almost burst out laughing. The bubble of fear in his stomach popped. “Why the hell would you think that?”
After a long moment, Mala was brave enough to ask another question. “Was she important to you?”
Lowe looked down at his hands. Now that he wasn’t suspicious, he took her question seriously. He took a deep breath. He stared at Mala’s face, braced for the worst. She really likes me. He thought it only fair to reward Mala’s revelation of fear with some form of honesty. Limited honesty. But still.