Unraveled

  We’re released into it in our groups, one surging after the other, like great waves. The leader of our group guides the bodkin via remote control as we enter the loophole. Its hoops orbit in a whirring blaze of motion, cycling continuously to create a clean tunnel for us to pass through.

  At first it’s hard to keep my balance. A swirling kaleidoscope of colors spins, creating a sense of vertigo. Cormac curses as he stumbles, but I stay upright. When I stop looking at him and concentrate on the brilliant colors of the tunnel, walking becomes second nature. If I wanted I could touch the weave, change it. But that might cause the temporary passage to collapse. There’s enough clearance for us to pass through without skimming the surface.

  I wonder if I slipped off my boots whether my feet would feel the tingle of electricity present in the warped strands.

  This is the universe in its full glory. As we make our way through, the coarse, colorful strands grow finer and begin to blur to pure light and I know the Arras rivet isn’t far off. When I arrive at the rivet, it occurs to me what I’m about to do. I’m going back to Arras. I left devastation in my wake when I escaped this world. I’m not safe here. I hesitate in the mouth of the rivet, trying to absorb what lies on the other side.

  A crippling darkness gathers and spreads along the sky, tainting the metro with gloom. It’s unnatural, like everything in this world, but I know this isn’t the work of a Spinster’s hands on the loom.

  It’s the lack of them.

  THREE

  THE BLACKNESS YAWNS ACROSS THE SKY, extending like a floating abyss above us. I thought I knew darkness on Earth, but this is all-encompassing. Allia, the capital of the Eastern Sector, is rendered skeletal in the glow of emergency lights. It’s a sketch of a metro that can’t be real. If I reached out now to touch it, I’m sure my hands would meet with paper. Only the flicker of emergency lanterns gives the metro depth and dimension. I stop in the rivet, hesitant to enter this place, but Cormac grabs my arm and pulls me through.

  “The power grids are offline, sir,” an officer informs Cormac as he hands him a pair of goggles. “These are night optical devices that will allow you to see as we travel. They are equipped with infrared technology and will display heat signatures in orange.”

  “Heat signatures?” a young officer pipes up.

  “Humans. Animals. Anything that’s alive,” his superior explains.

  I take a deep breath, wondering what we’ll find in the streets. The officer passes out goggles to each of us. I’m fastening mine over my forehead when Hannox snatches them off me.

  “Sir,” he barks at Cormac. “I think Miss Lewys should stay behind with the guard.”

  “I should come along,” I butt in, even though I’m not sure why I’m arguing. I’m not exactly eager to explore the dark corridors of the Eastern Sector. Maybe it’s that I don’t like being told what to do.

  “That sounds like an excellent idea,” Hannox mocks. He moves toward me and jabs a finger at my chest. “Let’s take the rebel Creweler in to meet the rebel Spinsters.”

  “I didn’t bring my rebel handbook to distribute, so I think it will be okay.” I cross my arms over my chest, and we both turn to Cormac for his opinion on the matter.

  “She won’t be running around unsupervised,” Cormac says, and I smirk at Hannox. He might have known Cormac for two hundred years, but I’m the one Cormac wants to keep happy.

  “It’s a precarious enough situation without dragging her into it,” Hannox reminds him.

  “Then veil her,” Cormac orders. Hannox opens his mouth, but Cormac holds up his hand. “I’m not interested in debating this. The looms in the Eastern Sector have been disabled, but if you think her presence in the weave is a threat and you want to veil her, do it. Otherwise, get her in tactical gear.”

  “I’m not much of a shot,” I tell him. In truth, I hate guns.

  “I don’t want you in tactical gear to use you as a sniper,” Cormac says with a huff. “I only thought it would be nice if you survived until our wedding day.”

  Hannox mutters something under his breath.

  Part of me wants to flash him my ring. The part of me that’s feeling smug about winning out over the bossy Hannox. But since my engagement to Cormac is something I’m neither proud of nor looking forward to, I keep my fingers to myself.

  “And her hands?” Hannox asks.

  “Gages won’t be necessary. Will they, Adelice?” Cormac says. “We’ve come to an arrangement.”

  The weight of the ring is heavy on my left hand as he says it. I’ve agreed to this, which means small mercies like unbound hands and trips into rioting sectors. I’m not sure if I’m coming out on the better end of this bargain.

  “It’s a bad idea,” Hannox says one final time, but Cormac’s angry look silences him.

  When Cormac walks away, Hannox hands me tactical gear without offering to help me put it on. I struggle into the thick black vest and scratchy nylon pants, hooking and strapping while officers rush around me. The goggles pinch my nose, so I leave them perched on my forehead. It isn’t long before the tactical teams in the sector meet us at the mouth of the rivet. Cormac speaks to them in a hushed voice, and I can’t hear the explanation of what’s going on within the sector.

  When we finally set out to view the area, the streets are empty. Given the near panic of the ship’s crew during our flight, I expected looting or mobs of angry people. But the capital is as still as death.

  “I thought you said there was rioting,” I say to Cormac as we ride through in a large motocade. I see no one, even though our van shines floodlights onto our path.

  “There will be rioting soon,” Cormac says.

  “How do you know that?” I ask him.

  “Experience.” His mouth twists into a rueful smile.

  “Oh.” Had there been other riots? How had they started? What had he done in those metros? I want to ask him these questions, but I keep quiet, listening to the terse conversations between the officers in the truck and paying attention to Cormac’s reaction to the empty streets.

  A blackout happened once in Romen when I was a little girl. There was no warning. No way to anticipate what was about to happen. Amie was only a toddler, and we were both outside playing in the yard while our mother finished the dinner dishes. I picked blades of grass and held them to my lips, blowing a stream of air across them to create a high-pitched whistle. Amie laughed and clapped her hands while our mother watched us from the kitchen window. And then there was no sky.

  It was as simple as that. In one moment I sat under the rose-tinged hues of sunset, entertaining my sister, and in the next, the world was black, blanketed in a sudden and absolute night. I remember the sounds of screaming, the wails of terror echoing through the darkness, but it wasn’t until my mother lifted me onto her hip, Amie perched on the other side of her, that she shushed me with a gentle: “Quiet now. It will be okay, darlings.”

  I’d lost my screams in the dark, unaware that the sounds I heard came from my own throat. Dad met us at the stairs, and mercifully, there was still power in the house. But none of us could tear our eyes from the missing sky. It was the absence of it—how half of our reality had vanished—that made it hard to swallow. Dad ushered us into the basement and headed back upstairs as we huddled in our mother’s arms against the wall. I ran my fingers along the bricks behind her back. They were solid. They were real. They wouldn’t disappear.

  I had never touched the sky. It was too far from the ground, even on my tiptoes, even when the programmed clouds floated so close that they seemed within reach.

  “Are the clouds real?” I asked my mother.

  She blinked at the question. “Of course, Ad.”

  “But we can’t touch them,” I pointed out. I could touch this wall. I could touch her and Amie. I knew they were flesh and blood and stone, but I didn’t know what a cloud was or why the sky was sometimes brilliant blue and other times dull gray.

  Now I realize my mother could have explained mor
e about the looms and why this was happening. Instead she simply said, “No, we cannot.”

  It wasn’t an answer, even then. It was a clue. It was a different way to look at my world. We could not, according to my mother, but someone else could. It was the answer that stilled my breath as a girl. It stills my breath now.

  Right now, in this metro, families wait behind drawn curtains or in cramped basements, and parents offer words of reassurance. But they repeat the practiced lies of generations: This is normal. It will pass quickly. Don’t be afraid. And I know they say those things not merely to calm their children and stop the onslaught of innocent questions, but also to calm themselves. The population of the Eastern Sector has every right to believe this is a blip, a temporary issue that will resolve itself soon. But it’s been hours since we received the news of the blackout and soon must feel like a lie even to those saying it now.

  “Halt!” an officer yells, and the van squeals to a stop. In the middle of the road stands a man. He doesn’t blink as our bright lights wash over him. It’s as though he’s daring us to drive forward and crush him.

  A group of officers scramble out of the transport with their weapons drawn.

  “PC!” an officer orders, but the man doesn’t reach for anything.

  “What’s happening?” the man calls out instead.

  “We need to see your privilege card,” the officer says, ignoring the man’s question.

  The man steps forward, trying to see into the transport, but he’s stopped with the butt of a rifle.

  “My wife and children are scared. The sky has been dark for hours,” he says.

  “Return to your home,” the officer says.

  I catch my breath, silently willing the man to listen.

  To stop asking questions.

  “Your job is to protect us,” the man says, shoving a finger in the officer’s face. “I want answers.”

  “Sir, step back.” His warning is ripe with violence.

  “My daughter is four years old,” the man says. “She wants to know where the sky has gone.”

  Nothing about the man seems dangerous. He’s young but starting to bald and a sheen of nervous sweat glimmers on his skin. His questions come from a place of confusion, not rebellion. He’s simply scared, and I can’t blame him.

  Cormac steps in front of the van, and I blink. He’d been beside me a moment ago.

  “Tell her the sky will return soon,” Cormac says. His back is to me, but I can imagine his practiced smile.

  “Prime Minister,” the man says, and I hear the shock in his voice.

  “Go home,” the officer next to the man orders again. The command is more insistent, almost nervous.

  “No!” he refuses, and my pulse jumps up a notch. More rifles train on the man.

  Go home, I beg him silently.

  “I’m a citizen of Arras and I deserve to know what’s going on,” the man says.

  A burst of laughter slices through the air, but it doesn’t break the tense mood. Cormac is laughing. He finds this funny. A warning bell goes off in my mind.

  “I’m not sure what’s funny,” the man says, but it’s not confusion coloring his voice anymore. Now he’s angry.

  “I deserve to know what’s going on,” Cormac repeats mockingly. He strides up to the man and places his hands on his shoulders. “You really want to know?”

  I don’t hear the man say yes, but I dread where this is going. Before I realize it, I’m out of the van and moving toward them. An officer grabs me by the waist and my hands lash out toward his strands, but I pull them back before I hurt him.

  “Your entire world is a lie,” Cormac tells the man. “The Spinsters have abandoned you, and you’re all going to die.”

  The man steps back and stares at him and so do I. Doesn’t he know his men will talk about this?

  Before I can process Cormac’s reckless indifference, the man lunges toward Cormac, who sidesteps him. A split second later a shot shatters the air, hitting the man squarely in the chest.

  “No!” I scream, pulling loose from the officer’s arms and running toward the man.

  He stumbles back, a fleeting look of surprise crossing his face. By the time I reach him, there’s a pool of blood under his body. I press my hands to the wound and he covers them with his own.

  “My daughter.” His words are punctuated by gasps as airy as oxygen leaking from a balloon.

  “I’ll protect her,” I promise him, but he doesn’t hear me. He stares at me with unseeing eyes, glassy as the still ocean.

  “Get rid of that,” Cormac orders as he heads back toward the motocade. “I want us at the capitol building in five minutes.”

  He doesn’t look at me when I follow him, but he waits for me to climb into the transport. Instead I stand in front of the van and plant my hands on my hips.

  “That was unnecessary,” I say. My voice is shaky, betraying my rage.

  “You have blood on your hands,” he says, gesturing for someone to bring me a rag.

  “Someone should have blood on their hands tonight,” I say in a low voice. “It should be you.”

  “That’s what I do to traitors,” Cormac says. “You’d do well to remember that.”

  “Then do it to me,” I dare him, smacking my chest with my fist so he knows where to aim. “Because that man asked a question, and you killed him. I ripped apart your world, Cormac. It’s only fair.”

  “Don’t tempt me,” he snarls. But it’s an empty threat. Instead he pushes me aside and climbs into the transport. Cormac needs me to cooperate with his wedding plan to distract Arras and prevent future episodes like this in the other sectors. Of course, he’s after more than a bride. He’s hoping for a powerful ally. But it will take more than threats to control me.

  I don’t follow him. Instead I watch as they drag the man’s body to the side of the street. They don’t bother to bag him like they did my father. In a few hours, his wife will come looking for him. She’ll bring their daughter, because no mother would leave her young child alone in a blackout. Maybe she’ll find him dead in the street, with no clue what happened to him. And then she’ll turn to the Guild for security and hope. Never knowing it was they who betrayed her.

  I’ve seen my father’s blood pooling on the floor. I dream of it. The sticky blood, black like tar, that can’t ever be erased. I’ll live the rest of my life with that memory—burned into my mind at sixteen.

  His daughter will live with death, too. She won’t even have a childhood.

  But as we move through the Eastern Sector another thought sends a chill down my spine.

  The girl probably won’t have to live with the memory for long.

  FOUR

  A TALL IRON FENCE WRAPS AROUND THE Eastern Ministry, the complex that contains the sector’s offices. A guard steps out and clears us for entrance while two more men open the gate and then secure it behind us. Despite the lack of power for operating the gate, the capitol offices must have some type of generator because a few electric lights blink in the windows. To an ordinary citizen they probably look like beacons of hope. To me they’re warning signals.

  I have no idea what to expect once we’re inside. Cormac was tight-lipped after our altercation in the street. The grounds of the Ministry are lush and wild in the dark. It’s impossible to tell whether people and animals are moving through the gardens or whether it’s the blackness playing tricks on my mind.

  We pile out of the transport and Cormac taps my goggles. I pull them over my eyes and the world is red. Despite the total darkness, I can now see everything in front of me. Cormac glows like an ember.

  “We’ll check the perimeter,” Hannox says.

  “For what?” I ask.

  “Bombs, armed rebels—”

  “Cosmetic-less women!” I cry in mock horror.

  “This isn’t a joke.” Hannox’s eyes narrow. “If you can’t get your priorities straight—”

  “You have a blackout,” I say, moving toward him. “The citizens ar
e in their homes scared. You killed a man in the street. All because some women refused to do what you told them to? Get your priorities straight!”

  “We have no idea what to expect in there. It’s standard policy to check out a building and its surroundings before the prime minister enters it, even when there isn’t an active rebellion in the immediate vicinity,” Hannox explains through gritted teeth. I’m pretty sure he’s visualizing strangling me.

  “There’s no rebellion here.”

  “What do you call this?” Hannox says, waving his hands at the blank sky.

  “A few Spinsters taking a break?”

  “Adelice.” Cormac’s invocation of my name is a warning, but I don’t stop.

  “Believe me, there’s no armed revolution waiting for you in there,” I say. It’s as though they can’t comprehend that someone chose not to obey, as though dissent could only be violent. I’m certain if a group had planned a full-blown revolution the streets would not be empty now.

  “As if I would trust your insight,” Hannox says. “May I please finish my job, sir?”

  “It’s a necessary evil,” Cormac says to me, waving Hannox off to finish his work.

  “Everything with you is a necessary evil,” I say angrily.

  “I’m not interested in continuing this petty fight.”

  I’m too furious to find the words to tell him that my being angry that he killed an innocent man is not a petty misunderstanding. Instead my hands ball into fists, but I force them to stay at my sides.

  “That’s better,” Cormac says, grinning at my attempt to control myself. “I’m glad you’ve finally learned your place.”

  A wall of guards surrounds us, and Cormac paces the small space until the all-clear is given. Somehow I manage to bite back the told-you-so trying to escape my lips. A group of ministers wait as we enter. Circles ring their eyes and their suits are wrinkled. Cormac strides past most of them without even a glance. He only stops to shake hands with the man at the head of the line.

  “Grady, what happened?” he says as the man falls into step beside him.