by Ann Denton
Looks like Alba and I need to have a talk, Lowe thought as he strode down the long blue hallway. One mole to another.
Chapter Forty-Six
Lowe spotted Alba sitting outside the reed hut she shared with Mala. She perched on the floating platform that was their porch, a blanket tucked around her feet. She dragged a reed through the water.
“Alba!” Lowe called.
Alba squinted. Her face was etched with wrinkles, like someone had crumpled up a piece of paper and tried to smooth it out across her features. Looking at her, it was hard to imagine her feeding intel to the enemy.
“Hi!” Alba grinned as she recognized him.
“Can we talk?”
“Uh-oh, trouble in paradise?” Alba winked. “Don’t worry. I know just what to do. Verrukter always makes up with me by—"
“No. I’m here to talk to you about Blut.”
Alba blinked. “Blut? What—what about him?”
Lowe couldn’t decide if she was using the ditzy doe eyes as a cover or not. “He gave you a radio.”
“Um. I. What? Radio?” She shook her head, but her eyes darted away.
Lowe suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. “So you haven’t contacted Blut with the two-way handheld he gave you?”
“I. Um. Not…what?”
She was clamming up. He saw it in her face. Fine, if the direct approach won’t work, let’s try guilt. He had to be careful though. No one below level-five clearance knew Blut had turned. That he was dead. No one except Mala. And he trusted she would keep her word and keep quiet.
“People got hurt because of what you told him.”
Alba’s eyebrows shot up. “No way. I only told him—dammit!”
Lowe gave half a grin.
“Okay,” Alba said softly. “Ask me again.”
“Did Blut give you a two-way radio?”
Alba swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“Do you communicate with him using this radio?”
“Yes,” said Alba.
“How often does he contact you?”
Alba shrugged. “Once a week in the beginning. Then it was every couple of weeks. Sometimes months go by, but usually he at least tells me he’s okay.”
“What does he ask you?”
“Um,” Alba scratched her neck. “Just like, how I’m doing and stuff. He’s like my big brother.”
Lowe stared at her. She fidgeted. And he knew what he needed to do. Lowe measured his words carefully. A threat was like a knife. The power was in the fear. In the lead-up. “You’ve been stuck here for months.”
Alba bit her lip. “I know.”
“The Ancients have been talking.”
Alba’s eyes widened.
“Tier’s pretty adamant about getting rid of people who are useless.”
Alba covered her mouth. Lowe watched her eyes dilate. Her breath come shorter, quicker. He almost had her.
“You know he’s sending Mala to Troe’s compound. A mission way over her head. What do you think he has planned for a girl who can’t melt at all?”
“No.” Alba skittered backward, slamming into the side of the hut.
“Has he talked to you about electroshock yet? Lobotomy?”
Alba’s jaw dropped.
“I can get Fell to fend him off.”
“You couldn’t stop Mala’s assignment.”
Lowe tamped down on a surge of anger. “That’s because the muckhead President gave it the flag.”
“Why would you help me?”
Lowe took a deep breath. “I want someone else on Mala’s team. I don’t trust Tier.” As he said the words, he realized the truth of them. He didn’t trust his commanding Ancient.
Alba’s miniscule nod meant she didn’t either. Lowe pressed his advantage.
“I don’t think Blut trusts Tier. But he trusts you. That’s why he asked you to give him info. Info he could count on out there.”
Alba bit her lip. Lowe held his breath as her eyes flickered around his face, trying to read him. He relaxed his body. She mimicked him.
He bit back a smile. He’d won.
“He wants me to keep tabs on border towns.”
Lowe noted her use of present tense. So she didn’t know Blut was dead. Stick with that. “What does he want to know?”
“Counts of people who are missing. Or dead. Even Erlenders.” Alba shrugged. “I mean, those Typicals at the Archive track all that stuff, you know? Like, which towns have lots of radiation poisoning or kidnappings … just, like, keeping track of things. He’s like that. Always wants to know details. I didn’t think it was a big deal. I mean, he didn’t want anything classified. Is it a big deal?” Alba bit her lip.
Lowe didn’t answer her. His mind was too busy whirling. It wasn’t a coincidence. Ein had said as much. Klaren went to a border town. Came back infuriated at a mapmaker. Blut had Alba tracking border towns. Missing people. Dead people. But people die or go missing all the time.
“What are the numbers like for border towns compared to the rest?”
Alba shrugged. “Like, double or something. Why?”
Mucking hell. That’s high. The mapmaker… and his math. Was he tracking … radiation? A chill shot up Lowe’s spine. Images flashed through his head. The four boats burning downriver. The flayed man, arching on the sand, dying meters from the border. Not dying from his wounds. From something else. The alligator that seized up near Bara’s guard, a couple hundred meters from the border.
Is the radiation moving? Spreading? To have double the death toll in border towns, it would seem so. The Erlenders and their fertility problems popped into his head. The fact that Troe was looking for a queen to prove his fertility. Deadwater be damned. He ran a hand through his hair.
“It’s kinda weird though,” Alba said, when she realized Lowe wasn’t responding.
“What do you mean?” Lowe was dragged from his thoughts.
“The last three Kreis assigned to the border all went missing. Blut tried to help, but he was always too late.”
Too late? Or was he already collecting Kreis?
Lowe felt hollow as he wondered if maybe the Erlenders had been collecting Kreis for months before the hospital attack.
Mala’s theory rushed through his thoughts. How she’d believed Blut was pursuing her. Mucking hell. If the border radiation was getting worse—if it was spreading—the Erlenders stood to lose the most. Their towns were closest in the north. The border ringed them on three sides. If the border’s closing in, they don’t have a choice. They have to attack Senebal.
A brick slammed into Lowe’s gut. Troe didn’t just want an army to threaten the Senebals. He wanted war. He needed war. Lowe looked out over the frigid water. He ignored Alba’s endless prattle beside him.
Father mucking hell. There was no way Troe would make the trade. No way he’d make it easy. But there’s no way we can turn back. Because he won’t stop. He can’t. Not until we stop him.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Lowe left Alba sputtering electroshock therapy. He didn’t comfort her. Didn’t reassure her he’d speak with Fell. He wasn’t trying to be heartless. But his mind was whirring with revelations.
He needed to talk to someone. Needed a plan. He had two options. Ein. But he can’t know about trading Mala. Muck. That left him with a delusional double-agent. He had to talk to her. And come up with a plan better than the Ancients’.
“The sky is full of dead men’s smiles,” Lowe told his radio as he tromped through the woods lining the lake. He glanced back at the Center. The reeds disguising the floating surface huts were matted and swollen with ice.
Lowe tried his code again. He stared at the radio, hoping his concentration would force a response. It sputtered. “The earth is full of their bones,” Stelle’s voice sang out.
“We need to meet. Now.”
“The dead tree. Half a klick upriver, east of you.”
“Copy. See you there. Signing off.”
Thirty minutes later, Lowe was in a small g
rey speedboat traveling upriver. He ignored the scenery. The stick-thin trees draped in mounds of snow—like girls in white dresses—didn’t get a second glance. His only thought was his destination.
The radio sparked on his shoulder. “To your left.”
Lowe looked up. If he hadn’t been looking, he’d never have seen Stelle against the tree, hooded, face painted to match the white winter forest.
He dragged the boat up the bank and tied it to the nearest tree.
“Why the rush?” Stelle asked.
Lowe took his time cleaning the snow and dirt from his hands. He didn’t look at her as he briefed her on the mission.
“But I know all this. Tier contacted me.” Stelle slipped a hand onto his chin and forced him to gaze at her. Her eyes studied his. “What else?”
He took a deep breath. “I think radiation is leaking at the borders.”
Stelle’s face remained a mask. Only the briefest flicker in her eyes showed an emotional response.
Lowe continued. “If that’s true, there’s no way this trade will go through.”
Stelle put a hand on his arm. “You knew he was mad before, didn’t you?”
“But now he’s crazy and motivated.”
Stelle smiled, shaking her head. “He probably wouldn’t go through with the trade either way. The trade is a diversion, Lowe. So that I can get close.”
“But those kids …” Lowe yanked on his hair. “And she might die.”
Stelle put an arm on his hand. “Who’s she? That girl they assigned to this?”
Lowe stared at her. And that’s when her jaw dropped.
“This is the girl? Your girl?” He saw pity cross her face for a split second. But then she smacked a hand on her forehead. “You. You’ve always been a blindspot for me.”
Lowe was about to ask what that meant but Stelle smacked his shoulder.
“When did you meet her?”
“I. What? She was one of Bara’s.”
“So last summer.”
“I’d seen her. But I didn’t meet her until the night …” he trailed off.
“The night the Erlenders attacked?”
Lowe nodded. “Why does that matter?”
Stelle gave a bitter laugh. “It doesn’t anymore. It just means I’m an idiot.” She shook her head and grabbed a bag at her feet. She plucked out a piece of parchment and handed it to Lowe.
“Is this her?”
A sketch of Mala, beneath an apple tree, her curls longer than he remembered. But the likeness was there. It was good.
He glanced up at Stelle, questions in his eyes.
“I’ve seen her future. Or part of it. She won’t die.”
It was the first moment he wished he was a believer. That he could give in to the delusions and let them comfort him. He stared hard at the paper, willing Stelle’s words to be true. But he didn’t believe. Couldn’t.
She could have seen Mala when we were chasing Sorgen. She’d been out there at that mansion before I even came. It wasn’t far from Bara’s. Mala’s moved around a lot … His brain rattled off a million rational reasons Stelle could have seen Mala.
He heard her sigh. “I’m not lying.”
“I don’t think you are.” He met her eyes.
“But you don’t—”
He shook his head. “You were kept. Maybe tortured. Sometimes we need something to hold on to …”
“Don’t. Don’t with the patronizing sludge,” Stelle held up a hand. “You choose not to believe me. Fine. But I don’t know what else I can give you.”
“Plans.”
“I’ve never been to Troe’s.”
“But you are at Keptiker’s.”
“Yes.”
Lowe flipped over the parchment. “Give me a map. Make part one of this nightmare assignment easier.”
Twenty minutes later, he stared down at a series of Xs and squares. His eyes focused on Keptiker’s room. They needed to kill Keptiker so Mala could melt into him. Most of the Wilde Township was on the docks, a haphazard, stinking mess of shipping containers. Keptiker worked there. But he slept away from the morass. In a place he considered more defensible.
“The big one there is Keptiker.” Stelle tapped the map with her glove. “You shouldn’t have much trouble getting in. There’s a skylight in his front room. It was an old strip mall so there are windows along the front. But, actually, I think they’re bulletproof. I think the place he’s in used to sell weapons or something. Maybe a pawnshop. It’s narrow. Metal door behind the counter. Back is boarded and nailed up. You’re gonna want to lure him out.”
Lowe nodded, running tactics through his head, wondering what kind of weapons allotment he was going to get for this mission. If Tier has his way, it’ll be a toothpick.
Stelle interrupted his musing. “Do you remember the night after Wollen was attacked?”
“Yeah,” Lowe said softly.
Wollen was the little the village where they’d grown up. Two Erlenders, a man and his wife, had attacked a village meeting.
Stelle’s aunt had died that night. The next, he’d gone to comfort her. And a hug had become a kiss. And a kiss had become something more. Their first time.
“I remember that night.”
“Then you remember what I said. That some things are meant to happen.”
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“Lowe,” she said. “I know you. You like pretty rules and harsh lines, but life isn’t that simple. Sometimes things are messy and muddy. Sometimes it’s not light versus dark, it’s dusk versus midnight.”
“Are you coming up with the next code?”
“No. I just. Sometimes people aren’t good or bad, sometimes … they’re both.” Stelle pulled up her hood, obscuring her face.
“Stelle, I … what are you saying?” Lowe took a step forward. The snow crunched loudly under his feet, and suddenly he was acutely aware of the cold. He shivered.
“You feel like the bad guy. But sometimes you have to be one. For the greater good.”
Lowe glared. A mucking lecture. She thinks I don’t have the balls to follow through. “I can do my job, Stelle,” he snapped.
“Good. Because it’s the only way I can do mine.”
She turned and fled into the white woods. Lowe blinked and she was gone.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Alba was gone. Small wonder. Lowe supposed he should feel guilty. But he didn’t have the capacity for that. He supposed he should have told one of the Ancients. But he had enough weighing him down. Four lives. Plus all those kids. Beza. Alba’s idiotic treachery could take a back seat as far as he was concerned.
Lowe sat in the meeting room in a velvet chair. Ein and Mala were wet, wrapped in blankets after their dip in the lake; the byproduct of their attempt to stop Alba’s escape. Mala was arguing with Tier about exactly what kind of traitor Alba was. As if it mattered.
If Alba didn’t know Blut had gone rogue, was she a deserter? If she didn’t know he was dead, did it make her a rogue? If she knew Blut was dead and was on her way to meet with whoever was using Blut’s radio now … well, the reality was it didn’t matter what she was, in Lowe’s mind. She’d shot at Mala. And she’d run off. She’d be dead before dusk. The Ancients couldn’t stand for that. A Kreis attempting to kill another.
Lowe held Alba’s handheld radio in his hands. He tuned out the argument and stared at it. The radio she’d dropped on the shore. The one she’d told him she’d dropped in the lake. Blut’s radio.
He turned a dial, half-hoping someone would contact Alba.
The radio wasn’t the standard Kreis-issue machine. It was older, rougher. Most radios were jumbled mechanical messes, scrapped together. This one looked like it was manufactured. A relic from pre-bomb times. He smiled. As if something could have survived that long. Maybe Alba has hidden talents …
“A deserter is still a traitor,” Tier spat.
“Completely different kind,” Mala shot back.
“At least sh
e dropped this,” Lowe interjected, tired of their yelling. “It could be our way in.” Maybe they’d even get lucky, and whoever had the other radio would try to use it before Alba reached them.
“Blut’s dead,” Mala said. “What good is that gonna do us?”
“But,” Lowe argued, “she told you he was going to help her.” He had to tread lightly. He didn’t want Tier and Fell knowing he’d spoken with Alba. He didn’t have a way to explain that.
Luckily, Mala nodded, giving him the opening he needed to continue.
Lowe held up the radio and waggled it. “Which means someone’s been talking to her since then. Someone is pretending to be Blut. And whoever that is, they most definitely know Blut was a traitor.” He turned over the radio and spun the dial. Static cackled.
Fell sighed. “Well. I do think this accelerates our timeline. With a potential spy on the loose, and no idea what knowledge she may or may not have about this mission, we need to get it under way before she has a chance to report.”
Lowe’s whole body went stiff. Accelerate? I’ve barely figured out part one of our strategy. I haven’t even imagined how I’ll keep us all alive on the way to Troe’s compound, much less when we get there. Is she crazy? He looked in askance at Fell, who was still talking.
“I’d say we need to move out in two days, to be safe.”
Two days? he thought incredulously. Two weeks wasn’t enough time.
“Agreed.” Tier stood, oblivious to the panicked whirlwind inside Lowe’s head. Tier stretched and continued, “Cover story will be that Wilde has a suspected traitor among them. Close enough to your reality that it should work.” He chuckled. “Keptiker will tell the king he’s set a trap for the traitor. But needed to leave to give it time to work. Lowe, you can fill in the details.”
That’s a hell of a lot of details. Lowe’s mouth settled into a grim line, but he didn’t say a word as the Ancients swept out of the room.
Lowe spent the better part of the afternoon training his green crew. He had them memorize escape routes. Mala melted into Keptiker and tried to stay put. And Lowe spent many hours talking himself hoarse about how to act in Erlender company.