Chapter 60
Jane
“Stay close,” Caradoc whispered, as if Jane had any intention of being anywhere else.
There were gates and alarms blinking in the wall and the gleam of glass windows. There were more servants and scientists in this section of the hypogeum, so close to the labs. “To the left,” Jane told him. “There are stairs leading up to the courtyard.”
She plucked the gold leaves from her hair before they caught the light and gave her away. She couldn’t do anything about the chiton, it was too obvious. She’d have to hope they didn’t recognize her, that they saw just another Oracle. She rubbed the back of her neck. Her tattoo felt bruised. A crow, red dust. Her numen was petering out, showing her the red dust of an attack that had already happened.
They darted up the stairs, peering into the bright courtyard. Soldiers milled about, more interested in the cheers coming from the open archways. A Cerberus in a cage snarled. They slipped into the shadow of a row of storage sheds for weapons, tools, and water barrels. Several yards away were four Green Jacks in a painted carnival cart. It was festooned with ribbons, but the bars were iron and the lock closed tight. Jane grabbed Caradoc’s arm. “Duck when you hear the crow.”
“Stay here.” Caradoc climbed onto the roof of one of the sheds lined against the wall. He walked the line, staying crouched low. She slipped inside the nearest shed. His footsteps sounded on the roof above her. Her muscles tightened like bowstrings. She wanted to do so much more but she’d lost the connection, her numen finally sputtering out.
A crow landed on the cart’s roof, cawing loudly. The nearest soldier glanced back. Caradoc was already slipping beneath it, clinging to the underside. One of the Green Jacks slapped the bars. He had shoulders like a bull. His companions were thin as saplings. “Oi, can I get some water?”
It distracted away from Caradoc but only to turn the attention on her. The soldier sighed and turned to the water barrels. Jane didn’t have time to move. She could only duck deeper into the spider-thick darkness, wedging herself between two barrels inside her shed. Light fell like an arrow, touching the hem of her chiton. She held her breath. The soldier filled a pitcher, muttering to himself. When he turned away, Jane sagged, finally inhaling.
Caradoc had already lowered himself to the ground, and he wriggled out, grinning up at the Jack. “Ready to get out of here?”
“Born ready, mate.”
One of the Jacks pressed against of the cart. “I have to stay. I volunteered for this to protect my family.”
The others leapt out, following Caradoc to the storage sheds against the wall. Jane met them there, adrenaline making her feel both electrified and ill. A blond soldier blocked their way. Caradoc lifted his short sword. She only tapped a button on her cuff, showing the faint lines scratched there. They could have been marks of wear, weren’t. “Use the door under the eaves there. I’ve just left my post.” She turned away, raising her voice. “Need help at the western gate!” she called out, breaking into a run that pulled soldiers after her.
“You have a lot of secret supporters,” Jane said.
“Cartimandua’s not the only one who knows how to use sleeper agents. But that soldier will die,” he added tightly as they slipped out the gate. “And she knew it. Anyone manning the gates will be executed once Cartimandua realizes we escaped and took three Jacks with us.”
They’d finally made it out of the amphitheatre but Caradoc didn’t relax. “There’s something else going on,” he muttered as they turned into an alley. “She has a plan.”
“More than breeding programs and arena fights?” Jane asked.
“Much more,” he said grimly. “Everything today was pageantry. And she uses everything like a weapon. So what is she distracting us from?”
Jane didn’t have an answer, especially not when they turned a corner to find Saffron lying on the ground, too pale. Roarke and Killian were fighting, yelling in low savage voices. Kiri watched uncertainly. Livia wiped blood off her face. If she’d tried to stop them she wasn’t going to try again. Roarke shoved Killian hard. He hit the wall, his pack falling off his shoulder. “You sold us out.”
Saffron eyes fluttered as she lost consciousness. “Um, guys?” Jane asked, kneeling beside her.
“I saved your life,” Killian said.
“You gave us up to the Directorate.” Roarke shoved again. “To Cartimandua.”
Killian dodged, this time shoving back. “I was on watch when it happened. So I played along.”
Saffron’s eyes were closed, coppery skin too pale. Jane remembered her vision. She chafed Saffron’s hand but nothing happened.
“Played along for what?” Roarke insisted. Violence boiled between them.
“Little boys,” Jane snapped loudly, her voice like a whip. “Shut the hell up. She’s dying.”
“For this,” Killian answered Roarke, even as he tossed his bag to Jane. “The leaf mask,” he explained.
The leaf mask was as brittle as Saffron was limp, crumbling to dust at the edges. An ivy tendril draped itself around Jane’s wrist. “Saffron,” she urged, placing the leaf mask over her friend’s face. “Wake up. Wake up.”
“You’re letting the Directorate win,” Roarke added. “Time to wake up and kick some ass.”
Killian took Saffron’s other hand, leaning to whisper in her ear. “You can’t leave your Oona alone.”
Saffron twitched. Jane pressed the leaf mask harder onto Saffron’s face. “It’s not working.”
She called up her numen, feeling it travel up her spine and tried to force it down her arms instead of up to her skull to show her images of things that would break her heart. Her fingertips went numb. She curled them into the leaf mask, willing it to get stronger, to heal her friend. The professors at the Collegium would have told her this wasn’t how numen worked, but they didn’t know Jane had been conceived by a Green Jack, and they didn’t know Saffron. She held onto that hope, channelling so much numen. Sweat dampened her forehead. The oak tree beside them pelted them with acorns. Slowly, so slowly, the leaf mask began to respond.
Jane tasted green things as the edges of the leaves curled instead of crumbled. The dusty goldenrod shook itself and the dandelions turned into little suns. She trembled with the effort of forcing her numen into parts of herself she hadn’t realized it could travel. She was an overgrown road, a faded map.
The ivy moved from her wrist, curling around and around her arm, creeping into up her hair. It changed to mint leaves and white tea roses and glossy blackberries. The inside of her skull was traced with green lightning. The leaf mask was abandoning Saffron, clinging to Jane instead. Saffron would fall apart into dark fertile earth. “No.”
She lifted a hand to rip it off her head. The ivy tightened, until her fingers turned blue and cold, even as they burned from within with the power of her numen.
But it was still ivy. It was still a leaf from Saffron’s mask.
Jane tore roses and peppermint off her living crown. She tucked and braided them into the faded leaves still draped over Saffron’s brow. “I need iron.”
Caradoc passed her a knife from his belt and she pressed it to the ivy vine above her elbow. The lighting in her head intensified, until she had to blink green sparks out of her vision. Encouraged, she cut through the vine, tangling it immediately into Saffron’s mask. She hoped to confuse it, force it to latch back onto Saffron to save itself and therefore Saffron as well.
“In the old stories, green magic is broken by iron,” she explained to the others. “Like they use in the tag tattoos.” Caradoc had told her that. “Kiri, convince the mask to stay with Saffron.”
“How the jacking hell am I supposed to do that?”
“It’s kind of like a seed,” Jane said desperately. “Or at least a strawberry plant sending off runners. Try.”
Kiri knelt beside Jane, placing her fingertips on the mask and pressing it against Saffron’s skin. She closed her eyes, singing a soft song like a lull
aby. She smelled like wet earth suddenly, like dark loam and rain. Already exhausted from Cartimandua’s beating, blood dripped from her nose.
The ivy unfurled, touching Saffron’s braided hair, and the blood on her lip from where she’d bitten through it. Jane scooted back out of its reach. The perfume of mint and rose petals wafted around her. “It’s working,” she whispered.
Kiri kept singing, insistent but still soft.
Saffron shifted slightly, so slightly they all froze, staring at her. She finally cracked one eye open. “Ow.”
Jane made a strange sound, somewhere between a sob and a laugh. Roarke stared at her. “I’ve never seen that before. What did you do? Can you do it again?”
She smiled wanly. “I have no idea.” She steadied Kiri when her friend slumped. They clung to each other. “You did it, Kiri.”
“I’m awesome,” she mumbled, not opening her eyes.
“You really are,” Saffron croaked. She looked at Roarke and Killian. “Um, guys?”
“What do you need?
“Are you in pain?”
“Yes, in fact. You’ve got my hands clamped tighter than Protectorate cuffs.”
They released her so abruptly her knuckles bounced lightly on the ground. She smirked at Roarke. “I told you Killian didn’t betray us.” She turned to Killian. “And you’re a dumbass, by the way.”
She pushed up on her elbows. Roarke and Killian hovered beside her, hands extended uncertainly. She slapped them both away.
“I thought I’d feel worse after dropping dead.”