“Derrick,” Aster said quietly. “I appreciate your help, but we’ve got this—”
“Wait a minute,” Colin said again. “I see what’s going on here now.” He pressed himself up against the fence, his knuckles white. “You were never locked up in the first place, were you, you little rat? You’ve been working with them the whole time.”
Derrick’s expression betrayed nothing. “Like I said, you shouldn’t be concerning yourself with me right now.”
“Traitor,” Anthony declared. “By the Veil, we should have known. We mourned you like the dead, you know. Your mother was inconsolable, and we all felt so sorry for her. To lose both her sons in the space of a year. But your father”—here Anthony sneered unpleasantly again—“your father never shed a tear. He said you were weak to have let yourself be captured in the first place. And you know what, Derrick? Your uncle agreed with him, much as it hurt him to admit it. They blame you for getting yourself caught by a bunch of back-hill Luckers. Imagine their shame when they find out you went with them willingly.”
“I always knew you weren’t worth a copper compared to Baxter, but this—this here is lower than a snake,” Colin swore. “Couldn’t live up to the expectations put on you so you just decide to help a bunch of dustbloods tear the whole thing down, do you? You fool. You coward.”
Derrick had grown as red as Aster had ever seen him, wincing as if each word were a lash across his cheek. He opened his mouth to respond, his chin quivering, but Eli beat him to it.
“Mind how you speak to him,” Eli said roughly. “Derrick’s twice the man either of you will ever be. You all have no idea how much courage he’s shown.”
Derrick looked at Eli in disbelief. Eli gave him a single nod. Aster was so shocked she just stood with her mouth open as she struggled for words. But then her chest swelled with sudden affection for both of them.
How things have changed, Aster realized, that she could feel so at home with these two young men.
“Courage? How, by hiding down here?” Colin asked, oblivious to the sudden shift in the energy in the room.
“No, by choosing to do the right thing even though it’s cost his family and his future,” Eli said. “But it would have cost you two nothing to do the right thing and meet our demands, and still you refused.”
“Actually, it would have cost us a fortune,” Anthony spat. “It would have cost us the wealth that was left to us by our grandfathers, and that we would leave for our grandchildren. You would rob them of their future because you’re too lazy to do the work yourself, and you’d rather just steal it.”
Aster snapped out of her brief moment of warmth. “Us? The lazy ones? Us, the thieves—?”
A Scorpion boy came running into the room, panting and out of breath.
“What is it?” Eli asked, brow drawn in concern.
“It’s the Lady Ghosts,” he said. “The Lady Ghosts—have fallen.”
* * *
Aster ran to the meeting hall, only to find it in chaos. At least a dozen Lady Ghosts were there, all of them mud-stained and clearly exhausted from traveling underground. Aster scanned the familiar faces looking for Priscilla—she would not believe the Lady Ghosts had fallen until she had heard it from their leader herself—but the old woman was nowhere to be found. Marjorie and Agatha, her second and third in command, were missing, too.
Sam was at the front of the hall, taking down the names of the women when they came up to him. He had pushed his sleeves up past his elbows, and he wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his bare forearm. He did a double take as he spotted Aster, setting down his pen and striding towards her.
“Aster, thank the dead,” he said in an undertone. “Here, come up front with me. They’ve been asking for you.”
Aster held back. “What’s going on here?” she asked, her voice thick, as if she were dreaming.
“Something terrible’s happened. The Graveyard was discovered by the law. They had only a moment’s notice. Most of them were rounded up and at least four women were killed, including Priscilla. These are the only ones who got away.”
The words stuck in Aster’s throat, and only one managed to escape her lips.
“How?”
“We don’t know,” Sam said quietly. “We think someone must have given them up—one of their fairblood allies who disagreed with the turn our actions have taken, probably. Northrock burning, landmasters disappearing, dustbloods in open revolt…”
“But the Ladies didn’t even take part in those actions!” Aster protested. “They said specifically that they wanted to keep working within the law.”
“You know as well as I do the law doesn’t differentiate between the ‘good ones’ and the ‘bad ones,’” Sam said bitterly. “And they were still borderjumping girls. That’ll be more than enough to justify their capture, as far as the landmasters are concerned.”
The weight of the responsibility of her actions pressed on Aster like grave dirt. First she’d gotten her parents killed, and now … the Lady Ghosts … Priscilla …
She suddenly remembered Priscilla’s last words to her, spoken in such sadness.
I would wish you all to wander well, but I fear there’s only suffering down this path you’ve chosen. And so, just go with my love.
She could not go up there. She could not speak to them. She had failed these women in every way.
“Aster—where are you going? Aster!” Sam called out.
Aster had turned and fled from the hall, tears streaming down her cheeks. She did not know whose comfort she wanted in that moment. She would not burden Clementine. She could not get close to Eli. Violet, perhaps—
Raven, Aster realized.
Raven had to be told.
* * *
Aster searched for Raven at all of her usual haunts: the kitchens, where she and Tansy sometimes retreated to do some leisurely reading in the warmth and light; Sam and Eli’s cabin, where she sometimes disappeared to after supper or a camp meeting; and the shooting range, where Mallow had been helping her better learn her way around a gun. At last, though, Aster found Raven at the cemetery, curled up against a headstone, the end of a leadpoint in her mouth and her sketchbook in hand. The little underground boneyard was a modest affair, and not one Aster had visited often—she didn’t like to dwell on all the hotfoots who had died before finding freedom, or the Scorpions who had died trying to help them. But Raven had always claimed she enjoyed the peace and quiet, and found the company of the dead to be a comfort. It was the living she was unsure of.
She looked up from her sketchbook as Aster approached, setting it down and pulling the leadpoint from her mouth.
“Why the long face, boss? Don’t tell me the Harker boys broke out already,” Raven said with a smirk. Then her smile faded as Aster drew closer and Raven seemed to see how distraught she really was. “By the Veil, I was just kidding. Did they really—?”
Aster shook her head. “It’s not them,” she said, sitting down beside her friend on the cold ground. She swallowed, her throat swelling with fresh tears. “It’s the Lady Ghosts.”
Aster told her what had happened. Raven listened, her scowl deepening. Her face remained dry of tears, but Aster knew better than to think that meant she felt no grief. She was just, more than any of them, used to holding her emotions in, only letting them spill out on the pages of her sketchbook.
“Priscilla always knew the law would catch them eventually,” Raven muttered, rubbing at a smudge of lead on the pad of her palm. “I reckon it’s a testament to the Ladies’ strength that they—that we—lasted this long.”
Aster wiped a tear from her cheek with her thumb. She hadn’t thought of it like that.
“This means we have to win, though,” she said. “The Good Luck Girls who are still out there, they don’t have anyone left to fight for them. If this plan doesn’t work … we have to win, Ray.”
“And we will,” Raven promised. “You just trust me on that.”
Aster looked up at her
through the film of her tears. She had lost her mother, and she had lost the woman who had been like a mother to her, but she still had, at least, an older sister in Raven. She still had someone looking out for her. Warmth filled Aster’s chest at the thought.
“Forgive me,” she said, clearing her throat, now a little self-conscious. “I’m making this about me when you’re the one who knew her longer.”
Raven looked away, her jaw working. “Yeah, well…” She shrugged a shoulder. “I kind of had a feeling when I left the Graveyard that it was going to be a one-way ticket. I said my goodbyes to Priscilla before I went. I just … always thought it would be me who got killed, not her.”
Aster felt the threat of fresh tears, and she wiped them away quickly. She curled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them, wrapping her arms around her legs, letting out a long, shaky breath.
Raven sighed and turned to face her squarely. “Aster,” she began, “sometimes I wonder—it just seems like this is all getting to be too much. I’m worried about you. Is there someone you can … you know … talk to?”
“I’m talking to you,” Aster said, as if it were obvious.
Raven laughed a little. “Well, yeah, this time, because it’s about Priscilla. But I know there are other things you wouldn’t feel comfortable talking to me about. It’s like you’re still trying to earn my respect, somehow, so you’re afraid of looking like too much of a fool in front of me.” She gave her a playful shove. “As if I don’t already respect the hell out of you.”
Aster felt her cheeks warm. She hadn’t realized it was that obvious.
“What about little Eli?” Raven went on. “I know you two are sweet on each other.”
“Not as sweet as you are on his brother,” Aster accused, rather than answering a question she’d just as soon avoid. “I’ve seen your drawings of Sam. All that’s missing are some little hearts around his face.”
Raven blushed. “He’s called on me once or twice,” she admitted. “We’re taking it slow, but still, it’s been … good for me, I suspect, to be with someone who’s a little childish. Neither of us got to be children. It’s like I’m getting a second chance with him.” She turned the focus squarely back on Aster. “And listen, if that’s what Eli’s been for you, then I’m glad.”
“I … wouldn’t say that,” Aster said carefully. Raven arched her brow. “No, really, Ray … nothing’s happened,” Aster insisted. “Every time Eli even gets close to me … I keep waiting for the day when it doesn’t make me tense up, but … I’m starting to think that day’s never going to come.”
Aster tried to keep the bitterness and shame out of her voice, but it crept through anyway, forcing her tears back to the surface. By the dead, she was having a day.
“He’s such a good man,” she went on. She couldn’t stop, not now that she’d started. “If ever there were a man I could … you know … you’d think he’d be the one. The way he tried to comfort me when we found out about my parents—but even then, when he held me, I flinched. And maybe that’s just the way I am now.”
“Aster, you have to give yourself some time,” Raven said gently. “It’s only been a year since you escaped the welcome house. You’re still healing from that. And there’s so much else going on besides. Just because you’re feeling fragile now doesn’t mean there won’t come a time when you’re ready to do more, or a person you’re ready to do it with.”
“But what if I’m never ready?” Aster asked, giving voice to a fear she’d much rather have kept buried.
“Even so. That doesn’t mean you wouldn’t be able to have something just as special with someone as you would have otherwise.” Raven sighed, leaning back against the gravestone. “I’ve been at this a little longer than you, Aster, and I’ve seen it all. I’ve met women who were able to find much comfort in the arms of a good man. I’ve met women who found more comfort in continuing their sundown work, but this time under their own power. I’ve met women who could only stand to be close to other women after the welcome house, and women who couldn’t stand to be close to anyone at all. And I’ve met women who were uneasy around me, because of the kind of woman I am … and I had empathy for them, as long as they had empathy for me, too, as another woman and their sister, and one who’s felt more conflicted about my body than they ever could. It’s taken me years to learn to love myself, to not feel betrayed by my own flesh and bones. And I reckon it’s going to take you a long while, too. You just have to be patient with the process.”
“I’m not a patient person,” Aster mumbled. But still, it felt reassuring to hear Raven’s words.
“Listen, if you rush it, you’re just going to get yourself hurt,” she went on. “Trust that Eli will wait for you. And if he won’t, he wasn’t worth your time anyway. But Aster, as someone who’s trying to look out for you, I have to ask—do you actually even want something with this boy, or do you just want to prove to yourself that you can do it?”
The words caught in Aster’s throat. “I … both,” she said finally.
“Because if you’re in this for the wrong reasons—”
“Raven, I have to make this work,” she almost pleaded. “This may be my only chance at something real. Because as uncomfortable as I can get around Eli, he’s still the only person I’ve been able to get close to at all.”
“Come on, now, we both know that’s not true,” Raven said with a soft snort.
But Aster didn’t see any humor in the situation. “Do we? Who else has there been? Derrick? I care for him, truly, but he knows I don’t feel any—”
“No, you fool. Violet.”
Aster felt a sudden punch of panic in her chest.
“Don’t mess with me,” she said, her voice soft with warning. “Not today.”
“I’m not. I’ve seen the way you two are with each other. That’s what ‘something real’ looks like.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about. You barely even know us.” Aster didn’t know why she was getting so defensive, where this heat creeping up her neck had come from. She saw the hurt flicker across Raven’s face and felt a pang of regret, especially given how Raven had taken her in tonight.
But Raven didn’t back down, her brows coming together in defiance. “You’re hurt. You’re scared. You’re lashing out. I get it. But I do know you, Aster, much as you may try to hide your truest self away. You spend all your free time drawing people, and pretty soon reading their body language becomes second nature,” she said, talking about herself now. “I’ve seen the way the edges of Zee’s eyes crinkle up when his smile’s genuine, and the way he shows too many teeth when he’s just trying to make your sister laugh. Tansy tends to drop her shoulders and shrink into herself when she’s upset, while Mallow tends to puff herself up. Sam touches the stumps of his missing fingers whenever he’s unsure of himself; he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. And you, Aster—you feel like you have to make yourself strong for everybody except for Violet. Your whole body softens up when she’s around. Your brow relaxes, your fists unfurl. And trust me when I tell you she’s no better. Tucking her hair behind her ear every other minute, tugging at her dress to make sure it’s fitting right, checking for your reaction every time she speaks up in the group. That girl looks down on everyone, but she looks up to you.”
Even as Raven spoke the words, Aster knew them to be true, but they filled her with a fear she could not even begin to confront. It was as if she were walking over a bottomless black pit.
“How do I know…” She swallowed, still on the verge of tears, her throat burning. “How do I know I’m not just turning to a woman because I’m afraid? Of men?”
Raven sighed. “Well, maybe that’s played a part. But then again, maybe it hasn’t. Maybe those feelings were always there, but you needed to get away from the welcome house before you felt safe enough to acknowledge them. Maybe it’s not about women or men or anyone else, but about this one person. Or maybe you’re right, and you’ve changed because of the th
ings that’ve happened to you, and what you’re feeling now has grown out of that. It doesn’t make the feeling any less real.”
It was a conversation that, if she’d ever worked up the courage, Aster might’ve expected to have with Tansy and Mallow. They loved girls, loved each other, and always had. But Aster knew, though they would have helped her gladly, that she would have been too embarrassed to ask them. They were so much younger than her, but so much more confident in this. And they understood nothing of the sundown work that had so scarred Aster’s heart.
No, it was right that it was Raven. Raven, who did not expect Aster to know everything; Raven, who herself knew exactly what it felt like to have these feelings twisted up in something ugly. Aster felt so lucky to have her.
The tears spilled freely now. “I’m sorry,” Aster choked out.
Raven laughed gently. “What the hell for?”
“I just am.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about.” Raven opened her arms for a hug, and Aster curled up into them.
“Please don’t tell anyone,” Aster whispered with sudden urgency. “About Violet, I mean.” She did not like this sudden feeling of vulnerability, as if she were a remnant and now anyone could see through her.
“Of course not.”
“They wouldn’t believe you anyway. A year ago I was trying to kill her. I may still. She likes to test me.”
“Not so fast,” Raven said with a chuckle. “We have to finish off these damn landmasters first. For Lady Ghost.”
Yes, Aster thought, at last wrung dry of her tears. For Lady Ghost.
26
The last great landmaster family they had to take down was the Boyle family, but unfortunately, the Boyles were well beyond their reach. They lived south of the Scab, along Arketta’s narrow coastline, overseeing the dustbloods that worked in the port cities. The north of Arketta was dense with industry, but the south remained rugged and unfinished, as if the Scab were a sieve through which only the crumbs of the north’s riches could fall through. Aster had no contact with the dustbloods who lived there: the railroads had not yet made it that far, the Scorpions’ tunnels ran the other way, and to send a coded message by post would take longer than she felt like they now had. The loss of the Lady Ghosts had cut the legs out from under all of them, and the air in the camp was heavy with dread and despair. Aster could only imagine the rest of their allies were feeling the same, maybe wondering if they were next, questioning whether they ought to get out of this while they still could. The Landmasters’ Guild was old and powerful and might yet survive the blows they’d dealt it, but the Reckoners were new, their bonds still brittle, and one more loss like this could destroy them.
The Sisters of Reckoning Page 28