She stands before me, red hair matted and wild, face smeared with muck, and for the first time maybe ever, I’m really, really glad she’s here.
Lorcan hands me the reins to his horse. I don’t say good-bye. I don’t even look at him. By the time Daphne and I are in the saddle, he’s gone.
* * *
DAPHNE AND I RIDE north until the mountains begin their steep decline. I don’t know why she’s come with me, but I don’t ask. The truth is, I want her to stay. It’s better than being alone.
At night we make camp against a landslide overlooking Glasscaster. From here we have a clear view of the Witch Camps and the sinister gray-green smog that blankets the bright lights of the Black Lanes.
The city spills out into the distance, impossibly big. My family is somewhere inside those walls. There are as many places they could be as there are stars in the sky. It’s almost funny. I never worried about finding them in the mountains, but in the city, I’m overcome by the feeling that they are truly lost.
The crack of a branch behind me makes me turn, and I blink as a red-haired girl with her arms crossed comes into focus.
“You should get some sleep,” Daphne says.
Her saying so reminds me of how exhausted I am.
My feet drag as we walk back to where the palomino is tied, and I can barely keep my eyes open as I build a small fire. The camp is secure, we haven’t seen any other tracks since noon, but that doesn’t stop me from walking the area with Brax.
When I return, Daphne’s sitting beside the flames, twisting her neck from side to side, trying to place each rattle, yelp, or whir of the forest’s song. The hardest part of a new place is the not knowing.
“Did you eat?” I ask her, looking down at the charred jackrabbit I left to cool on a stone beside the fire. She stares at it, then lunges forward and digs in like she’s famished.
I blink, realizing that she’s been waiting for my permission. Daphne has never lived anywhere someone wasn’t telling her what to do, when.
After a while she stops and wipes her mouth clean. Her shoulders sag and she won’t look me in the eye. At an owl’s hunting cry, she jolts to a stand. When I don’t move, she sits.
“When I first came to the Garden, I thought there was a monster outside,” I say. “I swore I heard it stomping down the streets.”
She smirks. “What was it?”
“Music,” I say. “From the Black Lanes. It took me a while to figure it out.”
She gives a small laugh.
“Maybe he … the old Driver can help you find your cousins,” she says as she scoots inside the bedroll from Lorcan’s saddle. I notice how careful she is not to say the word father.
I shake my head, trying not to think about how we left him with nothing—no horse, no supplies.
“He seems decent,” she adds.
“He’s not.”
It never mattered what kind of man he was before, but now all I can feel is betrayal when I think of him.
“Well at least he didn’t sell you to the Garden.”
I face her, surprised, and find her picking the leaves out of her hair. My feet tuck under Brax’s belly while he happily tears apart a fish he pulled from a nearby stream.
“I thought that’s what you wanted. A nice home. People to look after you.”
She shrugs. “Maybe I want something else.”
She tilts her head up then, and I remember the night before auction when Buttercup turned her away.
“Someone who’ll fight for you,” I say.
She nods. “Who doesn’t care who you are.”
The crickets have begun to sing, but Daphne doesn’t even flinch. I wonder if things would have been different if Kiran hadn’t known, or cared, who I was.
“I bet it was hard giving you up.” I don’t know why I say this. I don’t know anything about her father.
“My birth mother was my father’s forever wife,” she says quietly. “He kept her and sent me away. I lied when I said I was his favorite. He was capable of love, he just didn’t love me.”
Daphne once told me how rare it was to become a forever wife. I don’t think she ever really thought it would happen to her. In that moment, I feel worse for her than I ever have.
Images of Nina on the auction stage plague my dreams, and when I can’t sleep anymore I sit on one of the logs by our fire and stare ahead, watching how the leaves that dance in the breeze are sucked into the flames and twist into tiny glowing flowers. Lilies, sweetpeas, daphnes. They flash gold for just an instant, just long enough to catch your eye, before burning to ash and disappearing forever.
* * *
DAPHNE AGREES TO KEEP watch while I sleep through the early morning, and when I wake, she’s braiding strands of tall grass beside me. Rubbing my eyes, I squint over at her work and a grin spreads across my face.
“What?” she says, lowering her hands.
“That’s it!” I count out the days in my head since the last auction. Trader’s Day is only four nights away; all those who made enough in the farmer’s markets in the outliers will be there. If the girls have been captured, they won’t be sold until the auction in two weeks. I’ll be able to find them by then.
I hope.
I’m going to make jewelry, like the kind I used to trade with Lorcan. I don’t have the booth fees to get past the city-gate guard, but if I can make enough pieces to sell, maybe one of the other merchants will let me go with them if I promise them all the profits. If not, I’ll have to steal the credits—and right now, I don’t care if it’s honest or not, I’ll do it. I look enough like a Driver; I’ve got a horse. If I muddy up my face enough, they won’t be able to tell I’m a girl.
I’ll get them out the same way Daphne left. We’ll make them all look like they’ve got the plague.
For the rest of the day I teach Daphne how to make simple snares from whittled branches. When the first catches a rabbit, I show her how to clean the kill and scour the pelt of flesh and hair, and then soften the skin with the animal’s brains.
She vomits twice and then tells me to do it on my own. So much for being helpful.
By sundown we’re cooking rabbit stew in Lorcan’s pot, and I’m cutting the hide into long strips that can be braided into a necklace. I tell Daphne we’ll need to gather precious stones tomorrow, and she only snorts and says, “We’ll see.”
It helps to have a purpose, but my thoughts keep pulling back to my family. I don’t know how long they’ve been in the city or what’s happened to them. I don’t know if they’re still together or if they’ve been pulled apart. Nina could be at one of the dorms preparing to come to the Garden. Tam could have already started treatments to become a Pip. Thoughts of Salma working the Black Lanes make me ill.
I think of Kiran, too, much as I wish I could shut him out.
Just after nightfall, Brax rises abruptly and sprints south. His instincts are just as good to me as the security fence at the Garden. There is no doubt in my mind that someone’s broken our perimeter.
Daphne and I are on our feet in an instant, stamping out the fire and preparing to escape. As soon as she’s mounted, I’m kicking through our tracks and cursing the Drivers that took back the bow. I only have twin knives from Lorcan’s pack.
I keep my ears trained after Brax, but hear nothing. It starts to worry me; he would’ve given me a signal if Trackers were coming—a growl or a bark. He knows the difference between what’s dangerous and what’s not, and his silence worries me. Daphne mounts the horse, reaching for my hand to pull me up, but I keep staring in the direction Brax ran off.
“What are you doing?” Daphne whispers. “Let’s go!”
“I’m going to go check it out,” I say. “It might be an animal.”
“A bear?” Her green eyes are as round as saucers.
I doubt it, but I’m not sure. I don’t tell her this though; the last thing I need if we have to move fast is a panicked Daphne.
“Be ready,” I tell her, and with a knife in
one hand and a palm-sized rock in the other, I creep around the boulders guarding our southern side.
I can make out the outline of a horse by the water. If it’s a Tracker, he’s come alone or his friends are somewhere nearby. Silently, I move on, keeping low and moving fast.
It doesn’t take me long to find our intruder. The night shadows leave only a silhouette; a figure crouched low over an animal lying still in the space between two trees. From here I can hear Brax panting. My blood runs cold—whoever it is has hurt my wolf.
Without another thought I launch the stone with full force.
A hand snaps up. Even in the fading light he catches it.
There’s only one person who can do that.
“Kir … Varick?” A moment later I remind myself that we’re not friends or anything else and steel myself for a fight.
He’s marching through the mounds of rotting leaves towards me, a bow in one hand, the arrows slung over his shoulder. I’m still not used to seeing his face so clean. Brax the traitor trots behind him, tongue lolling out of his mouth.
“Don’t call me that,” Kiran says, flexing his hand. I wonder if he’s hurt himself with that catch. I hope so. It was one of my better throws.
“It’s your name,” I say.
“Not to you, it’s not.”
I groan, tired of these games I can’t figure out, even as my stomach fills with the flutters.
“You’re better, I see.” I move back as he comes close. I don’t trust myself around him. He makes me lower every guard so that I’m defenseless when he casts me aside.
“Getting there,” he says. “Thanks to you.”
My heart squeezes. “What do you want?”
I hear the slow clip-clop of hooves, and in the growing dark my senses are baffled—has he brought his whole gang with him? Or worse, have Trackers found us? In a flash, I’ve stripped him of the bow and a handful of arrows from the quiver over his shoulder. He winces, letting me know that the ribs I just grazed haven’t been completely healed by the medicine.
“It’s just your father.”
It takes a moment to sink in. I’m not used to thinking of anyone, much less Lorcan, as bearing that title.
I lower the arrow. “He’s not my father.”
“Just because you don’t want it to be true, doesn’t mean it’s not,” he says.
I turn away, but he grabs my arm. I jerk it out of his grasp.
“Why are you following me?”
He’s close enough that I can see the flash of his copper eyes.
“I ran into Lorcan in the woods. In not-so-many words he told me your people are in the city.”
“I don’t have people,” I say bitterly. “I’m just a half-breed.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Better than being a full-blooded Driver I suppose.”
His words hang between us for several long beats. Kiran’s message is crystal clear: He thinks I’m angry not because of who my father is, but what he is. As if I haven’t always been an outcast, regardless of bloodline.
“I don’t care that I’m part Driva,” I say.
He laughs, clearly not believing me.
“It’s better than being half Magnate, isn’t it?”
He hesitates at this.
“Besides,” I say. “I need to be more than part Driver to get back in the city.”
It takes him a moment to realize I’ve already planned my disguise, and when he does, his eyes go round.
“You’re not going into that city by yourself,” he finally blurts.
I straighten. “I’m not one of your fragile women needing protection.”
Again with his I-don’t-believe-you laugh. I cross my arms.
“And that’s all that matters, is it?” he asks. “Believe it or not, Aya, your family isn’t the only one in danger here. Do you realize the harm you could do going into that city? What if you speak? What if that temper runs away with you and you pick a fight? You’re not an auction girl anymore, you’re a lowlife. A Watcher can kill you without thinking twice. And anyone that sees will only remember that a Driver overstepped his boundaries. In the best case we’ll lose business, in the worst, we’ll all be hunted.”
I step closer. “Just like I was?”
He steps closer. “Yeah, but this time if you get caught, they don’t set you up at a high-security resort. They get rid of you, right there.”
How dare he act like my life’s been easy? I lift my arm to punch him, but he catches my wrist with his good hand.
“This is exactly what I’m talking about.”
I shove away from him. “You’re picking fights on purpose.”
“You think they won’t? You walk through those gates and you’re nothing.” His voice grows heavy, and I know that his own city experiences are filtering through.
“I’m not nothing,” I say. I’m a cousin and a mother and a father and a sister all in one. “Even if you see nothing but a half-breed.…”
“Aya, you are a half-breed,” he says.
The word lashes out like a whip.
He moves closer, gaze holding mine, hands beneath my elbows. “Half girl, half bird. Always trying to fly away.” His mouth quirks in a tiny smile. “Once I dreamed you had wings.”
I can see his temper settling in his eyes, just like I used to, before I knew he could talk. Mine is falling too, and in its place, a strange, nervous feeling forms in the base of my stomach.
Half girl, half bird. I wonder if this is a compliment. I’m not sure what to think after he humiliated me in front of his friends.
“It’s not the first time someone’s called me names.” I do my best to hold my chin up. “I’m not crying about it. I just thought you were different.”
A twisted, hurt look pinches his brows. He takes a step back, and smooths out the front of his shirt.
“You really don’t care?” he says, bewildered. “You don’t care who you are? Who I am? That doesn’t bother you?”
I shake my head.
“I told them because I thought it would protect you,” he says softly. “My people can be … strict about the rules. I never meant to hurt you.”
I search his eyes for truth and find it. I wish I could tell him he didn’t hurt me, that they’re just words and my skin’s thick enough that they just roll off, but these would be lies. The girls at the Garden couldn’t knock me down, neither could the Governess. But Kiran’s harsh words are like knives.
“Would you have told me?”
He runs his knuckles over his chin. “There’s a lot I wanted to tell you.”
“So tell me.”
His mouth opens, but not a sound comes out. It reminds me of all the times I tried to make him talk to me in the solitary yard. I was okay with him being mute then. Now I’m not.
“That’s a lot, you’re right,” I say.
For a moment he chews his bottom lip, running a hand through his hair. Then he says, “I’m coming with you into the city. Do me a favor and don’t get sore about it.”
This is probably the only apology I’m going to get. I should object, but I don’t, because when it comes down to it, I don’t want him to leave.
“Great, I need someone holding my hand,” I say.
He laughs. “Was that a joke, Aya?”
“Shut up, Kiran.”
I smile at the ground.
Grasping his injured side with one hand, he bends slowly to retrieve the bow I kicked. “You know, Drivers got to look out for each other. There’s your first lesson, half-breed.”
I scoff, wondering how he flipped the term to become endearing when it had sounded so ugly just a day before. But then, the day before, he’d thought I felt Driver was an ugly word, too.
“Does Kyna know you’re here?” I ask.
He stills and his eyes grow sharp. I know that gleam—it’s the kind I get when someone says something mean about someone I care about. I don’t know why I brought her up at all; as much as I want to know what she means to Kiran, I don’t
want to know, too.
He breaks my gaze and digs the toe of his boot into the dirt.
“You don’t have to worry about Kyna,” he says. “I told her everything.”
I don’t know what everything entails, but it worries me all the same.
“Are you in trouble because of me?” There are many questions inside of this one that I’m too scared to ask: Will the other Drivers punish you for helping me? Will they make you an outcast? And the biggest question has the smallest voice: Is Kyna angry because you’re here and not with her?
“You’re one of us,” he says. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
It’s not exactly the answer I was looking for, and when my face falls, he moves closer.
“What is it?” he whispers.
I breathe in, out, in again. Looking for just a few seconds of courage to say what I want to say.
“Would you have helped me get out of the mayor’s house if you didn’t know I was one of you?”
Now that it’s dark, I can barely see his face. His shadowed hand lifts, and a finger gently traces the white scar on my earlobe.
“Aya, I knew you were like me. That’s why I crossed that stream in the first place.”
A stick snaps some ways away. It’s only a twig on the forest floor, but it’s enough to shatter our privacy. I jerk back, and Kiran lets me, though his movements are slower, like he’s thawing from a swim in a freezing river.
It’s Lorcan, and Daphne with him. They’re both riding, and Dell’s tethered to Lorcan’s saddle. At the very sight of my supposed father, anger boils up inside me.
“Oh good, you’re alive,” Daphne says to me. “Thanks for the update.”
I back another step away from Kiran.
Lorcan dismounts, returning my wary stare.
“I suppose he wants to come, too,” I say under my breath.
“He’s got an idea,” says Kiran.
“I have my own idea,” I counter.
“We’re going to make jewelry for Clover to sell on Trader’s Day,” says Daphne. Her words make me stand a little taller.
Kiran’s brows raise. “Where’d you get the credits to pay the booth fee?”
I fidget.
He gives me a half smirk. “There’s only two reasons the Watchers let a Driver into the city: If we’ve got a team of fresh rentals, which we don’t. Or if we’ve got enough credits for a booth license to sell goods on a Trader’s Day.”
The Glass Arrow Page 25