He pulls a small leather pouch from the back of the saddle and gives it a little shake. Something jingles inside. Coin. From his days working at the rental barn, no doubt.
“We’ll have enough to worry about without sneaking past the Watchers.”
I nearly throw my arms around him, but stop just before I get there and awkwardly pat his arm. My face feels like it’s on fire when Daphne snorts.
“There’s one more thing,” says Kiran. “Your father’s seen your family.”
I freeze. Turn slowly to face Lorcan.
Kiran continues to translate. “He went there to look for you. He never saw you, but he found your cousin in the Merchant district. He knows where she works.”
I am rooted to the spot, unable to move.
“And the twins?” My voice is weak.
Lorcan shrugs, mouth a tight, thin line.
“He never saw them.”
“You looked for me?” I ask Lorcan.
After a beat, Kiran answers again. “Aran wouldn’t let him into the barn, I guess. He is an outcast. Had he gone inside, he might have seen you in the solitary yard.”
I nod; it’s all I can do. I can’t decide if it makes me feel better or worse knowing my father has been to the city.
Lorcan reaches into the inside pocket of his long jacket and retrieves a woven rawhide bracelet, embellished with a glowing copper crystal. I recognize the work. I’d made it, years ago. It surprises me that Lorcan kept it. I guess it didn’t sell.
It seems we’ve had the same idea.
Daphne holds her hands out expectantly, and Lorcan drops the bracelet into them. “Ooh, that’s pretty! I’ve never seen anything like it. What is it?”
I gulp. She’s looking expectantly at me.
“It’s…” I hesitate, but I know I need to answer because now everyone’s looking at me.
“It’s a kiran stone.”
Before anyone else can say another word, I grab the palomino’s headstall and head back towards camp. I’ve got four days until I’m going back into the most dangerous place in the world. It’s time to prepare.
PART FOUR
THE GLASS ARROW
CHAPTER 21
MIST SEEPS THROUGH THE trees well before sunrise, lowering the sky, leaving droplets of dew on each tree limb and pinecone. It chills me to the bone.
Today is Trader’s Day. The day of a thousand maybes. Today I might finally be reunited with my family. I might be captured. I might be brought back to the mayor’s house in shackles, drugged until I can’t move, and made the plaything of Amir and his uncle.
I might not even make it that far.
So I breathe in the pine and the damp leaves. My fingers memorize everything they touch: the patterned bark on the trees, the rough surfaces of nearby boulders, the yellow-speckled grouse eggs we’ve gathered, and the freezing, clear water. And though it brings an ache to my chest, I say good-bye, because I know how it feels to be ripped away without that chance.
Our plan is simple: We’ll go to the gates with our wares—the thirty-three trinkets Daphne and I have been staying up late to make and the two bulging sacks of furs Lorcan and Kiran have gathered from the other Drivers. The gatekeepers will grant us a business pass to set up a booth beside the auction stage—used today just for the livestock—but we won’t be going downtown. We’ll be going to a pharmacy in the residential district of the Merchant class. Lorcan saw Salma there two months back. Three days ago he went back to try to see her again, but did not. I try not to think too hard about what this might mean.
He came back with something else, though: two posters from the city. One with Daphne’s body shot from the Garden—the head-to-toe picture that appeared in the leather book the Governess kept in her office. Kiran told us the caption below said that she’s wanted for the Watcher death in the solitary yard and that she’ll probably be in the Black Lanes hiding.
I didn’t know until then that he could read. I pretended I knew what it said too, but I think he knew I was lying.
The other poster was of me.
It was the photo the Magnate had taken during my capture, with a close-up of my face and my bared teeth, my wild eyes, the sticks and leaves in my hair. I imagined this is what the Governess, Greer, and even the mayor must have thought I looked like again after even such a short time away. “Property of Mayor Ryker,” Kiran had said. “Generous Reward.”
I know the poster said more, but he crumpled it up and threw it in the fire before he told me. I wasn’t too upset; it wouldn’t have stopped me from going back to that city anyway.
We’ve gone over the rest of the plan ten or more times. Kiran’s going to find some more Virulent costume makeup like he used to mark me when we escaped, and we’ll use the same Skinmonger dress—assuming Salma’s not already wearing one—to sneak my cousin out. The twins will go in the sacks in place of the furs, and we’ll be gone before anyone knows any different.
I don’t dwell on the obvious: that Amir’s family is looking for me, that the dead Watcher may mean our stretched necks. I don’t let myself think too much about Lorcan, who is still here even though he’s had plenty of opportunities to disappear, or how whenever he’s around I’m silent as he is, because this connection that hangs between us seems to have taken my voicemaker, too. And I definitely don’t let myself think about the danger Kiran is putting himself in to help me. But every time I look at him my hands tremble and I’ve got to fight the urge to beg him to stay behind.
He already told me not to get sore about it, so I won’t.
Daphne, wrapped in a fur mantle, comes to sit beside me in front of the pulsing white coals. Her red hair is growing out; it’s actually more yellow, like Kiran’s. Two nights ago she made me cut it short, almost to the skull. She said it was because of her picture on the posters, but I think it’s because she doesn’t want any more reminders of the Garden.
She’s quiet now, rubbing the line that’s formed between her eyebrows.
“You’ll be all right, Daphne,” I tell her. “The Trackers will all be in the city for Trader’s Day.”
Which doesn’t exactly bode well for me and Kiran.
She scrunches her nose, drawing attention to the explosion of freckles that seem to be multiplying by the day. I feel guilty for leaving her here with no one but Brax for protection, but there’s no need for her to take the risk of going in.
“If I don’t come back…”
“Shut up Clover,” she says. “It’s bad luck to say things like that.”
I snort. “I would have thought those Magnate scientists would’ve proved there’s no such thing as luck.”
Her eyes narrow on me. “Well if you catch me screeching to some mother hen, you’ll know I’ve really lost it.”
A smile quirks my lips. Daphne’s been growing on me these past few days.
“You’ll have the horses ready?”
“I’ve got one job, I think I can remember it.” Her face falls. She begins drawing circles in the dirt with a narrow twig.
“Clover?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you really think I could have stopped the new girl from frying herself?”
Straw Hair. Who ran through the electric fence at the Garden the day she was sold. I cringe, remembering the smoke and the sounds and the smell of it all too clearly.
“Maybe. Probably not.”
“I keep thinking I should try to stop you.”
I take a deep breath, wishing I could say something to make her feel better, but knowing anything I said now wouldn’t be true.
“You can’t stop me, Daphne.”
“I figured that.”
Kiran whistles, but before the three of us can make our way down the mountain towards the Witch Camps, I rest my hand on Daphne’s shoulder and say a quick, silent prayer for her protection.
* * *
WE STOP IN THE last bit of forest shelter before the field of discarded machines. There Lorcan takes the reins of both horses, and Kiran motions
me through the trees.
It’s quiet here, so quiet I can hear him breathe. We haven’t been alone since he came back to find me. He’s tried once or twice, but I’ve always been able to pull Daphne along, or stay near Lorcan. It’s hard to think when it’s just the two of us, and I can’t be losing my head, not with everything we’ve been preparing for, and not after what happened with the other Drivers.
Definitely not when I know Kyna is somewhere waiting.
When I realize he’s stopped, I stop too. He’s staring at me, and the intensity in his gaze makes my heart stutter. His eyes are bright and sad and fearful, and as I stare back I feel everything he does, like an echo. For a flash of a moment I think, This is exactly why I can’t be alone with you, but then the thought vanishes, and all I can do is focus on keeping my legs under me.
It’s hard to believe there was a time I used to look at him and wonder what he was thinking. Now it feels like I’ve always known.
He reaches for my hand, and I let him take it. There are calluses across his palm and the pads of his fingers and they make my hands feel soft and small. Soon they’ll be strong again like his, but I don’t worry about that now, because when he touches me like this it makes me think we’re going to make it. We’re going to be all right.
“You ready for this, Aya?” The way he says my name makes me calm and nervous all at the same time and I force myself to swallow because even though it’s stupid, it feels like he’s not talking about the city.
“I’m ready.”
He watches my mouth as I say the words, and that makes me look at his mouth and think about how I’ve never kissed anybody—never wanted to—which makes me wonder if I’m weak for wanting to now, and if thoughts like these change a person into the type whose only goal is pleasing her master.
“Nobody’s ever going to own me again, Kiran.”
He says nothing. His expression doesn’t even change. The only sign I have that he’s heard me at all is that he gives my hand a small squeeze. I think he must know I need to get this out.
“But,” I say, wetting my lips, “but if trust was a thing you could hold in your hand, I would give mine to you. I’d let you have it forever and never ask for it back.”
I take my hand out of his before he can say anything. My face is glowing, but I needed to tell him that, just in case this goes bad today. There were lots of things I wish I’d told my family before we were separated.
“Any last advice?” I ask.
He gives his head a quick shake and clears his throat.
“Just remember to be silent. If you think it, swallow it.”
I nod and absently adjust my hair. It’s tightly bound into a folded knot behind my head, just like the girl Driver I’d thought was a boy.
“And don’t do that,” he warns. I drop my hand and frown. The longer we stand here, the more aware I am of the bandages smothering my breasts. Daphne’s tied them so tightly I can barely breathe. At least I don’t look like a girl in these baggy clothes.
Without another word, Kiran pulls me down to the mud at our feet and smears my face with dirt. We cover our clothing, our necks, our hair. He even grabs a fistful of horse dung and smears it across my pants. I wish it made me invisible.
“Talk to you later,” he says grimly. I nod. And we continue on.
* * *
IN THE WITCH CAMPS I don’t even have to pretend I’m skittish. My memories from our last trek down this alley are still fresh and my eyes bounce from one side of the road to the other, searching for any of the defective Watchers we saw before. By the time we cross the wooden bridge—the last barrier between the mountains and the camps—I’m spooking at just about everything.
I wish I had Brax with me. I always feel safer with him.
Lorcan takes the lead, pulling the palomino by a grimy leather headstall. Two enormous sacks of pelts are strapped over the animal’s barrel-shaped body. Kiran holds steady the right side, I’m on the left. The smell is enough to make me gag. With such little time to tan the hides, they still reek of rot and the brine we used to cure them. Between that and the way I smell, I can barely breathe.
We pass the tower of rusted cars, an ancient sculpture in the gray light, and I swear I feel eyes—seeing or not—on me.
A line of townsfolk from the outlying villages has formed outside the city gates. Most are dressed in patched-up city clothes and are carrying baskets or pushing carts. A few have been denied entry and are standing off to the side while a Watcher rifles through their items. Fear tightens in my belly. We can’t be searched. If they get too close they’ll know something’s off. They’ll see right through me. They’ll know I’m a girl, maybe that I’m a runaway, maybe that I killed one of their own. And then I’ll never even have a chance to find my family.
“Keep your head down,” whispers Kiran.
I do as he says, only chancing a quick glance forward every few steps.
In the mist it’s hard to see clearly, but there are at least two parties before us. The man in front is trying to manage a small herd of goats for the livestock sales. Three people wait behind them, and as we get closer my gut clenches. A middle-aged man leads two girls in clean linen dresses. Stock for the Garden from a nearby town. The girls’ heads are hung in shame, and as I draw closer I can hear one of them crying. It’s the father. He keeps wiping his nose on the back of his hand and trying to hold it in.
“It’ll be all right,” he tells them with a hitch in his voice. “You’ll have everything I couldn’t give you.”
I don’t understand this; if he doesn’t want to give them up he shouldn’t. There are other ways to live.
The farmer in front is stopped at the open gate by two Watchers. After a few short words, he’s ushered off to the side, and half his goats make a break for it. He goes chasing after them, his long staff waving.
We step closer. The man with the two girls makes it through. And then I’m standing in the gatekeeper’s shadow.
“What. Have. You. Got.” The Watcher is practically yelling in Lorcan’s face as he points at the sacks. My spine straightens before I remember myself and slouch again, bolting my eyes to my dirty boots.
Lorcan’s showing the Watcher the pieces I’ve made. Another Watcher shows up. He walks to Kiran’s side of the horse and begins rummaging through the pelts and furs.
He keeps digging, and a drop of sweat makes a slow path between my shoulder blades. If he goes too deep he’ll find the knife at the bottom of Lorcan’s case.
Before he gets to the bottom, the Watcher abandons Lorcan’s case and rounds in front of the animal to where I wait. As he begins the same process on this side, I shuffle back, just like Kiran taught me. I’m never to stand too close to anyone. That way it’s hard to notice I’m nearly a head shorter than most of the men.
He searches for what feels like hours. Finally he gives the go ahead to the other Watcher who types something into a messagebox, and returns to the glass station. He comes back with a red form and shoves it towards Lorcan. Kiran’s told me this is a one-day business pass.
We’re in.
I keep my eyes down as we cross the threshold into Glasscaster, but not just because I’m supposed to. If I look up and see those high stone walls I tried to escape from for all those months, my feet might grow a mind of their own and run out of here.
The stones are hard under these big borrowed boots Lorcan gave me, and the buildings in the business district seem even more crowded than they were the last time I was here. They loom over me like Trackers with nets and make it hard not to hurry.
We join the main street I last travelled by carriage. The Black Lanes are quiet; the Virulent are either sleeping off the previous night, or have already begun their journey downtown, leaving just a few of the plagued leaning up against the trash bins and doors. On the side wall of a brothel I catch a glimpse of a line of posters, like the ones Lorcan brought back, but I don’t let myself linger.
I become suddenly aware of three men passing by.
They’re laughing drunkenly about something one of them has said. Without thinking, I lift my chin to watch where they’re going, but Kiran pushes me roughly back to the horse and I nearly fall. The men look over and jeer again.
When I glance up at Kiran, his copper eyes are blazing. But as he shoves me back to my position, he whispers something in my ear.
“The mayor’s looking for you. Remember that. Don’t let them see your face.”
My stomach drops like it’s filled with stones. I can hear Amir’s voice echoing in the back of my head: “Where are you?” My skin is crawling with the memories of Greer chasing me around the bedroom.
More people join us in the following minutes. Mostly townspeople coming to sell their wares at auction, but some Virulent too. Two hungover Skinmongers wobble by on the right. The closest one, in a skintight blue bodysuit, pukes in the gutter beside my feet. Rainwater and muck splash onto my pants. Then she stumbles into me, lifts my arm, and wipes her mouth with my sleeve.
I jerk away and lower my eyes. She casts me a look of disgust.
“Yick,” says her friend. “You got Driver on you.”
My jaw hurts because my teeth are grinding together so hard.
We edge into the residential district, and the flashes of my last trip here are coming faster. My last carriage ride to auction. The salmon dress and the satin gloves glued to my hands. My soft, filed-down feet within those impossible heels. Elegance. I am hardly elegant now.
More people, and with them, Watchers. I pass one on the right and when our gaze connects my stomach leaps into my throat. But he’s not staring at me, he’s staring through me. Like I don’t exist at all.
“Sell goats, not girls!” comes a shout to my right. I remember the activists from my last auction and feel a jolt of hope that the Red Right endures despite the odds. The Watcher’s head whips around and he’s lost in the crowd.
They might not endure for long.
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