My eyes land on a panel in the wall, pried back to reveal a tangle of wires and switches beneath. I can’t help but smile softly. Cal’s been tinkering.
“You think that’s smart? One wrong wire . . .”
That draws a weak but still comforting smile from him. “I’ve been fooling with circuitry for half my life. Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.”
Both of us ignore the double meaning, letting it slide past.
He finally decides to shut the door, though he leaves it unlocked. One hand rests on the metal wall, fingers splayed, looking for something to hold on to. The flame-maker bracelet still winks on his wrist, bright silver against dull, hard gray. He notes my gaze and pulls down one stained sleeve; I guess no one thought to give him a change of clothes.
“As long as I stay out of sight, I don’t think anyone will bother with me,” he says, and goes back to fiddling with the open panel. “It’s kind of nice.” But the joke is hollow.
“I’ll make sure it stays that way. If that’s what you want,” I add quickly. In truth, I have no idea what Cal wants now. Beyond vengeance. The one thing we still have in common.
He quirks an eyebrow at me, almost amused. “Oh, is the lightning girl in charge now?” He doesn’t give me a chance to respond to the jibe, closing the distance between us in a single long step. “I get the feeling you’re just as cornered as me.” His eyes narrow. “Only you don’t seem to know it.”
I flush, feeling angry—and embarrassed. “Cornered? I’m not the one hiding in a closet.”
“No, you’re too busy being put on parade.” He leans forward, and the familiar heat between us returns. “Again.”
Part of me wants to slap him. “My brother would never—”
“I thought my brother would never, and look where that got us!” he thunders, throwing his arms wide. The tips of his fingers touch either wall, scraping up against the prison he’s found himself in. The prison I put him in. And he’s caged me in with him, whether he knows it or not.
Blazing heat flares from his body, and I have to step back a little. He doesn’t miss the action and deflates, letting his eyes and arms drop. “Sorry,” he bites out, brushing a lock of black hair off his forehead.
“Never apologize to me. I don’t deserve it.”
He glances at me sidelong, his eyes dark and wide, but he doesn’t argue.
Heaving a breath, I lean back against the far wall. The space between us gapes like open jaws. “What do you know about a place called Tuck?”
Grateful for the change in conversation, he pulls himself together, retreating into a prince’s persona. Even without a crown, he seems regal, with perfect posture and his hands folded behind his back. “Tuck?” he repeats, thinking hard. A crease forms between his thick, dark brows. The longer it takes him to speak, the better I feel. If he doesn’t know about the island, then few else will. “Is that where we’re going?”
“It is.” I think. A cold thought ripples through me, remembering Julian’s lessons hard learned in the court and the arena. Anyone can betray anyone. “According to Shade.”
Cal lets my uncertainty hang in the air, kind enough not to prod at it. “I think it’s an island,” he finally says. “One of several off the coast. It’s not Nortan territory. Nothing to warrant a settlement or base, not even for defense. It’s just open ocean out there.”
A bit of the weight on my shoulders lifts. We’ll be safe for now. “Good, good.”
“Your brother, he’s like you.” It’s not a question. “Different.”
“He is.” What else is there to say?
“And he’s all right? I remember he was injured.”
Even without an army, Cal is still a general, caring for the soldiers and the wounded. “He’s fine, thank you. Took a few bullets for me, but he’s recovering well.”
At the mention of bullets, Cal’s eyes flicker over me, finally allowing himself to look at me fully. He lingers on my scraped face and the dried blood around my ears. “And you?”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Yes, we have.”
We lapse into silence, not daring to speak further. But we still continue to stare at each other. Suddenly his presence is difficult to stand. And yet I don’t want to go.
The mersive has other ideas.
Beneath my feet, the generator shudders, its pounding pulse changing rhythm. “We’re almost there,” I mutter, sensing electricity flow or ebb to different parts of the craft.
Cal doesn’t feel it yet, unable to, but he doesn’t question my instincts. He knows my abilities firsthand, better than anyone on the ship. Better than my own family. For now, at least. Mom, Dad, Gisa, the boys, they’re waiting for me on the island. I’ll see them soon. They’re here. They’re safe.
But how long I’ll be with them, I don’t know. I won’t be able to stay on the island, not if I want to do something for the newbloods. I’ll have to go back to Norta, use whatever and whoever Farley can give me, to try and find them. It already seems impossible. I don’t even want to think about it. And yet my mind buzzes, trying to form a plan.
An alarm sounds overhead, synchronizing with a yellow light that starts to flash over Cal’s door. “Amazing,” I hear him mutter, distracted for a moment by the great machine all around us. I don’t doubt he wanted to explore, but there’s no room for the inquisitive prince here. The boy who buried himself in manuals and built cycles from scratch has no place in this world. I killed him, just as I killed Mareena.
Despite Cal’s mechanically inclined mind and my own electrical sense, we have no idea what comes next. When the mersive angles, nosing up out of the depths of the ocean, the whole room tips. The surprise of it knocks us both off our feet. We collide with the wall and each other. Our wounds bang together, drawing pained hisses from us both. The feel of him hurts more than anything else, a deep stab of memory, and I scramble away quickly.
Wincing, I rub one of my many bruises. “Where’s Sara Skonos when you need her,” I grumble, wishing for the skin healer who could mend us both. She could chase away the aches with a single touch, returning us both to fighting form.
More pain crosses Cal’s face, but not from his injuries. Well done, Mare. Wonderful job, bringing up the woman who knew his mother was murdered by the queen. The woman no one believed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”
He waves me off and finds his feet, one arm pressed against the wall for balance. “It’s fine. She’s—” The words are thick, stilted. “I chose not to listen to her. I didn’t want to listen. That was my fault.”
I met Sara Skonos only once, when Evangeline almost exposed me to our entire training session. Julian summoned her—Julian, who loved her—and watched as she mended my bloody face and bruised back. Her eyes were sad, her cheeks hollow, her tongue missing entirely. Taken for words spoken against the queen, for a truth no one believed. Elara killed Cal’s mother, Coriane the Singer Queen. Julian’s own sister, Sara’s best friend. And no one seemed to mind. It was so much easier to look away.
Maven was there too, hating Sara with every breath. I know now that was a crack in his shield, revealing who he truly was beneath practiced words and gentle smiles. Like Cal, I didn’t see what was right in front of me.
Like Julian, she is probably dead already.
Suddenly the metal walls and the noise and the popping of my ears are too much.
“I need to get off this thing.”
Despite the strange angle of the room and the persistent ringing in my head, my feet know what to do. They have not forgotten the mud of the Stilts, the nights spent in alleys, or the obstacle courses of Training. I wrench the door open, gasping for breath like a girl drowned. But the stale, filtered air of the mersive offers me no respite. I need the smell of trees, water, spring rains, even summer heat or winter snow. Something to remind me of the world beyond this suffocating tin can.
Cal gives me a head start before following, his footsteps heavy and slow behind me. He’s not trying to catch up, b
ut give me space. If only Kilorn could do the same.
He approaches from farther down the corridor, using handholds and wheel locks to ease himself down the angled craft. His smile fades at the sight of Cal, replaced not by a scowl but by cold indifference. I suppose he thinks ignoring the prince will anger him more than outright hostility. Or perhaps Kilorn doesn’t want to test a human flamethrower in such close quarters.
“We’re surfacing,” he says, reaching my side.
I tighten my grip on a nearby grate, using it to steady myself. “You don’t say?”
Kilorn grins, leaning against the wall in front of me. He plants his feet on either side of mine, a challenge if there ever was one. I feel Cal’s heat behind me, but the prince seems to be taking the indifferent path as well, and says nothing.
I won’t be a piece in whatever game they’re playing. I’ve done that enough for a lifetime. “How’s what’s-her-name? Lena?”
The name hits Kilorn like a slap. His grin slackens, one side of his mouth drooping. “She’s fine, I guess.”
“That’s good, Kilorn.” I give him a friendly, if condescending, pat on the shoulder. The deflection works perfectly. “We should be making friends.”
The mersive levels out beneath us, but no one stumbles. Not even Cal, who has nowhere near my balance or Kilorn’s sea legs, hard earned on a fishing boat. He’s taut as a wire, waiting for me to take the lead. It should make me laugh, the thought of a prince deferring to me, but I’m too cold and worn to do much of anything but carry on.
So I do. Down the corridor, with Cal and Kilorn in tow, to the throng of Guardsmen waiting by the ladder that brought us down here in the first place. The wounded go first, tied onto makeshift stretchers and hoisted up into the open night. Farley supervises, her shift even bloodier than before. She makes for a grim sight, tightening bandages, with a syringe between her teeth. A few of the worse off get shots as they pass, medication to help with the pain of being moved up the narrow tube. Shade is the last of the injured, leaning heavily on the two Guardsmen who teased Kilorn about the nurse. I would push through to him, but the crowd is too tight, and I don’t want any more attention today. Still too weak to teleport, he has to fumble on one leg and blushes furiously when Farley straps him onto a stretcher. I can’t hear what she says to him, but it calms him somewhat. He even waves off her syringe, instead gritting his teeth against the jarring pain of being hoisted up the ladder. Once Shade is safely carried up, the process goes much faster. One after the other, Guardsmen follow one another up the ladder, slowly clearing the corridor. Many of them are nurses, men and women marked by white shifts with varying degrees of bloodstains.
I don’t waste time waving others ahead, faking politeness like a lady should. We’re all going to the same place. So when the crowd clears a little, the ladder opening to me, I hurry forward. Cal follows, and his presence combined with mine parts the Guardsmen like a knife. They step back quickly, some even stumbling, to give us our space. Only Farley stands firm, one hand around the ladder. To my surprise, she offers Cal and me a nod. Both of us.
That should’ve been my first warning.
The steps on the ladder burn in my muscles, still strained from Naercey, the arena, and my capture. I can hear a strange howling up above, but it doesn’t deter me in the slightest. I need to get out of the mersive, as fast as possible.
My last glimpse of the mersive, looking back over my shoulder, is strange, angling over Farley and into the medical station. There are wounded still in there, motionless beneath their blankets. No, not wounded, I realize as I pull myself up. Dead.
Higher up the ladder, the wind sounds, and a bit of water drips down. Nothing to bother with, I assume, until I reach the top and the open circle of darkness. A storm howls so strongly that the rain pelts sideways, missing most of the tube and ladder. It stings against my scraped face, drenching me in seconds. Autumn storms. Though I cannot recall a storm so brutal as this. It blows through me, filling my mouth with rain and biting, salty spray. Luckily, the mersive is tightly anchored to a dock I can barely see, and it holds firm against the roiling gray waves below.
“This way!” a familiar voice yells in my ear, guiding me off the ladder and onto the mersive hull slick with rain and seawater. Through the darkness, I can barely see the soldier leading me, but his massive bulk and his voice are easy to place.
“Bree!” I close my hand on his, feeling the calluses of my oldest brother’s grip. He walks like an anchor, heavy and slow, helping me off the mersive and onto the dock. It’s not much better, metal eaten with rust, but it leads to land and that’s all I care about. Land and warmth, a welcome respite after the cold depths of the ocean and my memories.
No one helps Cal down from the mersive, but he does fine on his own. Again, he’s careful to keep some distance, walking a few respectable paces behind us. I’m sure he hasn’t forgotten his first meeting with Bree back in the Stilts, when my brother was anything but polite. In truth, none of the Barrows cared for Cal, except Mom and maybe Gisa. But they didn’t know who he was then. Should be an interesting reunion.
The storm makes Tuck difficult to see, but I can tell the island is small, covered in dunes and tall grass as tumultuous as the waves. A crack of lightning out on the water illuminates the night for a moment, showing the path in front of us. Now out in the open, without the cramped walls of the mersive or the Undertrain, I can see we number less than thirty, including the wounded. They head for two flat, concrete buildings where the dock meets land. A few structures stand out on the gentle hill above us, looking like bunkers or barracks. But what lies beyond them, I can’t say. The next bolt of lightning, closer this time, shivers delightfully in my nerves. Bree mistakes it for cold, and draws me closer, draping one heavy arm across my shoulders. His weight makes it hard to walk, but I endure.
The end of the dock cannot come fast enough. Soon I’ll be inside, dry, on solid ground, and reunited with the Barrows after far too long. The prospect is enough to get me through the bustle of wet activity. Nurses load the wounded onto an old transport, its storage bed covered in waterproof canvas. It was certainly stolen, as was everything else. The two buildings on land are hangars, their doors ajar enough to reveal more transports waiting inside. There’s even a few boats anchored to the dock, bobbing in the gray waves as they ride out the storm. Everything is mismatched—outdated transports in varying sizes, sleek new boats, some painted silver, black, one green. Stolen or hijacked or both. I even recognize the clouded gray and blue, the Nortan navy colors, on one boat. Tuck is like a much larger version of Will Whistle’s old wagon, packed with bits and pieces of trade and thievery.
The medical transport putters off before we reach it, fighting through the rain and up the sandy road. Only Bree’s nonchalance keeps me from quickening my pace. He isn’t worried about Shade, or what lies at the top of the hill, so I try not to be too.
Cal doesn’t share my sentiment and finally speeds up so he can walk next to me. It’s the storm or the darkness, or maybe simply his silver blood making him look so pale and afraid. “This can’t last,” he mutters, low enough so only I can hear.
“What’s that, Prince?” Bree says, his voice a dull roar. I nudge him in the ribs, but it doesn’t do much more than bruise my elbow. “No matter, we’ll know soon enough.”
His tone is worse than his words. Cold, brutal, so unlike the laughing brother I used to know. The Guard has changed him too. “Bree, what are you talking about?”
Cal already knows and stops in his tracks, his eyes on me. The wind musses his hair, pasting it to his forehead. His bronze eyes darken with fear, and my stomach churns at the sight. Not again, I plead. Tell me I haven’t walked into another trap.
One of the hangars looms behind him, its doors opening wide on strangely quiet hinges. Too many soldiers to count step forward in unison, as regimented as any legion, their guns ready and eyes bright in the rain. Their leader might as well be a shiver, with almost white-blond hair and an icy d
isposition. But he’s red-blooded as I am—one of his eyes is clouded crimson, bleeding beneath the lens.
“Bree, what is this?!” I yell, rounding on my brother with a visceral snarl. Instead, he takes my hands in his, and not gently. He holds me firm, using his superior strength to keep me from pulling away. If he were anyone else, I would shock him good. But this is my brother. I can’t do that to him, I won’t.
“Bree, let me go!”
“We won’t hurt him,” he says, repeating it over and over. “We’re not going to hurt him, I promise you.”
So this isn’t my cage. But that doesn’t calm me at all. If anything, it makes me more angry and desperate.
When I look back, Cal’s fists are aflame, his arms stretched wide to face the blood-eyed man. “Well?” he growls in challenge, sounding more like an animal than a man. A cornered animal.
Too many guns, even for Cal. They’ll shoot him if they must. It might even be what they want. An excuse to kill the fallen prince. Part of me, most of me, knows they would be justified in this. Cal was a hunter of the Scarlet Guard, essentially guaranteeing Tristan’s death, Walsh’s suicide, and Farley’s torture. Soldiers killed at his orders, wiping out most of Farley’s rebel force. And who knows how many he’s sent to die on the war front, trading Red soldiers for a few measly miles of the Lakelands. He owes no allegiance to the cause. He is a danger to the Scarlet Guard.
But he is a weapon as well as I am, one we can use in the days to come. For the newbloods, against Maven, a torch to help lift the darkness.
“He can’t fight out of this, Mare.” That’s Kilorn, choosing the worst of moments to sidle back. He whispers in my ear, acting like his closeness can influence me. “He’ll die if he tries.”
His logic is hard to ignore.
“On your knees, Tiberias,” the blood-eyed man says, taking bold steps toward the flaming prince. Steam rises from his fire, as if the storm is trying to stamp him out. “Hands behind your head.”
Cal does neither, and he flinches at the mention of his birth name. He stands firm, strong, proud, though he knows the battle is lost. Once he might have surrendered, trying to save his own skin. Now he believes that skin worthless. Only I seem to think otherwise.