Derrick wiped at the sweat on his forehead as they started up the stairs.
“Keep it together,” Clementine whispered harshly from behind them.
“I’m trying,” Derrick whispered back, “but these are not going to be easy men to subdue.”
“You’ll be fine, Derrick,” Violet promised. “I’ve already risked too much for your pretty head. I’m not going to let anything happen to it now.”
They reached the second floor, where the corridor split in two. Sure enough, just as the kitchen staff had promised, light flooded out from underneath the cracks of the doors at the end of each hallway. Aster drew her revolver, her heart climbing her throat. She had no intention of using it, but this would go easier if the landmasters thought she did.
“Should we split up?” Clementine asked. “Take them at the same time?”
“We better,” Aster said quietly. She hesitated, trying to decide how best to divide themselves. She wanted Violet at her side—Violet, who had been ready to kill a man just moments ago to spare Aster the ugliness of it. Or Clementine, with her stubborn confidence. But then she looked at Derrick, shivering like a kitten, and knew she could not in good conscience leave him with anyone else. She sighed. “Clem, you and Violet go right. Derrick and I will go left.”
Violet caught Aster’s eye. “All right, but if there’s trouble, you better holler.”
“You know I will.”
Aster and Derrick set off down their corridor, creeping along the papered wall. Muffled voices rose and fell from behind the door at the end. They sounded like they were having an argument. Aster panicked when the floorboards squeaked underfoot, worried it had given her away, but whoever was on the other side of that door seemed to be rowing too loudly to notice.
“I told you I needed the bedroom this evening, Winnifred!” a deep voice bellowed. “Have one of the serving girls draw you a bath and come back in an hour.”
Almost there now.
“I won’t be chased out of my own bed, not again, not tonight—” a second voice said shrilly.
“What, you’d rather stay and watch?”
“Damn you, Colin. And damn your dirty Lucker bitch—”
Aster slammed the door open.
“On the ground!” she ordered, raising the revolver to point it square at Colin Harker. He was a short, meaty man, swaddled in a forest green robe and house slippers. Next to him, in a nightgown, stood a bony woman who Aster assumed was his wife, Winnifred. And sitting on the bed behind them, dressed only in a silk slip—
“He has a fortuna?” Derrick whispered, sounding shocked.
The dustblood girl looked to be no older than Clementine, with straight black hair that draped over her frightened face like a veil and a gemstone favor that glittered on her golden skin. Aster’s vision went white with rage, her chest suddenly so tight it felt ready to burst.
“On the ground!” she ordered again when the Harkers remained frozen in stunned silence.
“Y-You’re the leader of the Reckoners,” Winnifred stammered.
“Damn right,” Derrick said in a clear, steady voice. He raised his own revolver. “Now do as she says.”
“The children—” she choked out desperately.
“Won’t be harmed,” Aster promised. She took another step forward, her revolver clicking as she released its safety. “But you two will, if you don’t cooperate.”
Winnifred began to sink to her knees, but Colin stepped forward, shielding her behind his arm.
“You think you can bully me? In my own house? I’ll have my raveners strip the flesh from your bones and hang your skull above the mantle.”
“Your raveners are dead,” Aster said, hoping it was true.
Colin’s jaw tightened, the thick muscles twitching beneath his muttonchops.
“You lie.”
A gunshot rang out from the other end of the hall then. A hunting rifle, by the sound of it. Aster and Derrick exchanged a frightened look. Neither Violet nor Clementine had a rifle. It was someone else, shooting at them.
“Should we—” Derrick whispered.
Colin slammed into him. Aster had only taken her eyes off the landmaster for a moment, but he moved with surprising speed, and before she had a chance to react the two men were wrestling on the ground. Derrick kicked and scratched, squirming out of Colin’s grip, while Colin pummeled Derrick with heavy fists. Aster trained her gun on him, her blood beating so hard in her head that she saw red, her sweat-slippery finger hovering over the trigger. But she couldn’t pull it, not without risking hitting Derrick. She knew she needed to help him, knew she needed to holster her gun and fight Colin Harker with her bare hands, but the idea of getting any closer to him, of putting herself within range of those grasping, hairy hands, of pressing her body up against his, half naked now that his robe had fallen open—
Nausea rolled through her. Her mind was beginning to float away.
No, not now, by the dead, not NOW—
Derrick raked his nails down Colin’s face, pulling red ribbons of blood from his cheek. Colin let out a roar of pain.
“STOP!” Winnifred shrieked.
Aster whirled around. Winnifred was holding the young fortuna up against her, a penknife to the girl’s throat.
“You’re here for this little whore, aren’t you?” she said venomously. “That’s your whole crusade? Free the Good Luck Girls? You’ll get no complaint from me. All your kind do is tempt good men to evil.”
Aster locked eyes with the girl, who had still not said a word, her face a mask of terror.
“You don’t hurt her,” Aster warned Winnifred Harker.
“Put your gun down and I won’t have to.”
Derrick and Colin were still struggling behind Aster. She could hear them. She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw that Colin had now gotten on top of Derrick and wrapped his hands around his neck. Squeezing. Derrick flailed like a fish caught on a line. His dustkerchief still covered most of his face, but what Aster could see of it was turning red.
He’s going to kill him.
You have to shoot him, now—
“I SAID PUT IT DOWN!” Winnifred said again, and she pressed the knife against the girl’s throat so that a line of blood welled up beneath it. The girl let out a cry of pain and fear.
“All right!” Aster cried, immediately dropping her gun and holding her hands up. Her heart had climbed up her throat. She couldn’t breathe. In her recklessness, in her ambition, she was going to get this girl killed, and she would never forgive herself for it. “All right, please, just—”
“Aster…” Derrick whispered weakly.
He had fumbled his gun out of its holster, but he didn’t turn it on Colin Harker. He turned it upwards, to the glittering gasolier that hung above them all. Colin must have seen the weapon from the corner of his eye because he let out a curse, but he didn’t move quickly enough.
The sudden crack of a gunshot tore the air in two. The bullet cut through the chain hanging from the ceiling. The gasolier began to fall. Time seemed to slow. Winnifred yelped and jumped clear of danger, abandoning the Good Luck Girl. Aster leapt forward to push the girl out of the way. They crashed into the nightstand with bruising impact, and the gasolier shattered on the ground just behind them in an explosion of glass. The room had been plunged into the same near darkness as the rest of the house, but Aster could just see, in the pale moonlight, Derrick freeing himself of the shocked landmaster’s grasp. Colin reached for him again. Derrick shot him once, in the meat of his hand. Colin howled and rolled onto his back, clutching the wound.
“It’s done,” Derrick panted, standing up, holstering his weapon. He turned to Winnifred, who remained crumpled in the corner. “It’s done.”
Aster stood shakily as well, helping the fortuna girl to her feet.
“Thank you,” the girl said quietly, her voice thick with tears. Aster gave her her jacket to cover herself and held her close.
“You’re safe now,” she promised. The
n she turned to Derrick, not even sure how to begin to express her gratitude. “Listen—”
Violet and Clementine came running into the room from down the hallway.
“What the hell is going on here?” Violet demanded.
Aster let out a laugh of relief. “Here? What was going on over there? We heard a gunshot.”
“That was me,” Violet said. “Anthony was already in bed when we broke in. He tried to get up and grab the rifle over his fireplace, but I got to it first and fired a warning shot. He was docile as you like after that. He’s tied up and ready to go.”
“Damn you,” Colin snarled.
“Don’t start,” Derrick snapped, bending down to hogtie him. Colin struggled, crying out in pain when his injured hand was yanked behind his back, only for Derrick to neatly gag him with a rag.
“This one saved us,” Aster said, beaming at Derrick. “We didn’t know Colin had a fortuna. Miss—ah—”
“Sapphire,” the girl supplied, pulling her long hair away from her face.
“Sapphire here needs to be taken downstairs so Raven can make sure she gets to safety along with all the other staff. And tell them to finish gathering their belongings quickly,” Aster added. “As soon as they’re done I’m setting fire to this place.”
Violet and Clementine nodded, escorting Sapphire gently away.
“You’re monsters,” Winnifred sobbed from her corner. “All of you. You have no shame, no honor—”
“On the contrary,” Aster said wearily, “we’re showing you all a great deal more mercy and restraint than you and your friends have ever shown us. Colin and Anthony will be allowed to live, which is more than they deserve. And you, Mrs. Harker, will be allowed to go free, which is more, frankly, than you deserve.”
“Why?”
“Because you clearly don’t care a rip about other women, at least not ones like us.”
“No, no,” she babbled. “I mean why are you sparing me? What do you people want?”
Aster’s mouth hardened. She crouched down on her haunches, so she was at eye level with the fairblood woman, close enough now to smell her perfume.
“I am sparing you because no child deserves to grow up motherless,” Aster said, tears burning in her eyes as she thought of her own parents. “And I want you to raise yours to be better than you.” She stood then, pointing towards the door. “So go, now. The little ones will already be outside.”
Winnifred’s eyes were dark and furtive as she looked first at Aster, then at Derrick, then at her husband, trussed up as neatly as the game he hunted. Her face contorted with anger at first, but then, like something collapsing under its own unbearable weight, it was gone, and she simply looked tired, even relieved. She stood, with as much dignity as she could muster, and left them to their work.
“Well done, Aster,” Derrick said, crossing his arms as he watched the woman go. Even with the dustkerchief around his face, Aster could sense he was smiling. At his feet, Colin continued to struggle vehemently, his protests almost comprehensible through the gag in his mouth. Aster smiled back at Derrick, sorry she had doubted him.
“Not too bad yourself,” she said softly.
25
The rest of the job was pulled off with tense efficiency, although it was still another hour before Aster and her friends turned their backs on the Harker estate, the manor home engulfed in flames behind them, tongues of orange fire licking up hungrily at the night sky. Zee and Eli had fended off the last of the raveners, Raven had seen the dustbloods off safely in a wagon they could ride to the nearby farming camp, and the Harker brothers had been slung over the backs of the horses, ready to be taken back to Camp Red Claw.
The journey home was arduous, made no better by the Harker brothers’ making it difficult every chance they got, but everyone’s spirits seemed high. Against all odds, they’d finally done it: they’d taken not one, but two powerful landmasters prisoner. And with Sullivan dead and Cain captured by Cora’s crew, there were only two men left of the Landmasters’ Guild’s leadership: Dennis Boyle, prince of the shipping industry, and Jerrod McClennon himself. The Guild was surely losing its influence over Authoritant Lockley and the rest of the Arkettan government, while the Reckoners had surely become impossible for them to ignore. Lockley might give in to their demands any day now. Aster could not wait to hear what news she’d missed in their absence, and the anticipation kept her going through the blistering heat of the days and the bitter cold of the nights.
But once they finally got back to camp, her first job, of course, was to see the Harker brothers safely locked away.
“Take them to the kennels,” Aster ordered Eli, while the rest of her friends retreated for some much-needed rest. The Harkers had been blindfolded for the whole of the journey so they wouldn’t know where the Scorpion camp was hidden, and Eli guided them carefully on foot towards the long, low building where the camp’s dogs were kept. Scorpions and hotfoots alike jeered at the landmasters as they passed.
“My brother’s going to have a heartstorm trying to keep everyone from tearing these two apart,” Eli muttered out of the side of his mouth. “I’d say he needs to post guards, but they couldn’t be trusted, either.”
“We’ll have to guard them ourselves,” Aster agreed, though she hardly blamed anyone who wanted a piece of these bastards. “I’ll make sure one of us is with them at all times to see they’re not harmed.”
“And to see that they don’t try to break out, I’d hope,” Eli said, raising a brow at her.
Aster snorted through her nose. “Don’t worry yourself about that. They’re not going anywhere.”
They entered the kennels and locked the Harker brothers up in an empty one at the end of the rows, at last removing their blindfolds and gags and the binds around their hands. Then Aster sent Eli for food and water—she would not starve her prisoners, whom she needed alive, but neither would she let her guard down around them. It wasn’t just them who had to be protected from everyone else. She had to protect everyone else from them as well.
The barks of the dogs in the neighboring kennels echoed through the small space, the racket making Aster’s head ring. The Harker brothers considered her with hate.
“You will die for this, Lucker,” Colin promised. His face was deeply tanned from traveling, but Aster could still see the red beneath his cheeks well enough.
“Maybe so,” she said idly, “but if I do, I’m taking you with me beyond the Veil.”
He spat at her. It was not the first time. He had done so whenever they’d taken his gag off to try to feed him on the road. His brother, too. Aster curled her lip in disgust. A pulse of anger beat through her, making spots swim in her vision, but she swallowed it back. These men were at her mercy, in her power. She would not let them rattle her.
Eli returned with the food—hardtack and salted pork—and a jug of water for them to share. Anthony, who had done nothing but glare with his bloodshot eyes, sat up straighter and sneered.
“We’re not eating any more of your shit food,” he said.
“Then you’ll starve,” Eli said bluntly, cracking open the diamond-wire fence door and shoving the tin plates through.
“No one’s going to starve,” Colin shot back. “The law will find this place and bring it down around your ears by this time tomorrow.”
“They’ve been looking for us for a long time, and they haven’t found us yet,” Eli said. He’d also brought two pillows and rough blankets, which he tossed into the kennel. “So you’d better make yourselves comfortable.”
“How generous,” Anthony said dryly.
“It is, actually,” Aster said. “Let me tell you how things are going to work, gentlemen. The only way you two get out of here is if Authoritant Lockley and the rest of your friends in the capital meet our demands. So, if you have any information that could help us speed that process along, it’s going to be in your best interest to tell us.”
“We’re not telling you degenerates anything.”
&n
bsp; “That’s fine, too. Then we’ll keep rounding up members of your little guild until there’s no one left to stop us.”
Colin slammed his hand against the bars, making the metal ring out. “What the hell gives you the right?”
“What gave your ancestors the right?” Aster demanded, raising her voice despite herself. “They labeled thousands of people criminals whose crimes were far less than yours. People whose only crimes were to steal bread when they were hungry or to love the wrong person or to fight back against the armies that had come to conquer them. But you—you rape and torture and kill. You steal land and lives. And you make yourselves rich as kings while doing it. It’s time you pay your dues, Harker. Glory to the Reckoning.”
Eli gave an ironic salute.
Colin looked like he was going say something further, but then the sound of someone approaching made them all turn.
Derrick.
What the hell is he doing here? Aster thought, her mind spinning. His partnership with them was still supposed to be a secret.
“Hullo,” Derrick said awkwardly when he saw everyone’s eyes on him. He had washed up and changed into a fresh set of dress clothes, and he looked ready to do the Harkers’ taxes.
“Go on, now, Red, this is grown folks’ business,” Eli told him, not unkindly. He had been looking at Derrick differently ever since the Harker job—if Aster didn’t know better, she would have called it respect.
“I thought I could be useful,” Derrick said. “I know what kind of questions to ask them—”
“Wait a minute, is that Baby McClennon?” Colin said incredulously. “Boy, why the hell aren’t you locked up like us? What did you tell these bastards to get them to let you out? And what the rip have you done with your hair?”
“More important, why haven’t you gone for help, you damned fool—” Anthony started.
Derrick scowled and held up a hand to stop them. “You’re asking all the wrong questions,” he said shortly. “What do you expect from us? How can we helpful to you? These are the lines of inquiry you ought to follow.”
The Sisters of Reckoning Page 27