“We don’t know.”
“How long was she gone?”
“Over an hour. When she returned, she was like this.”
Fierce anger surges through me. I can’t speak or I might release it on those who don’t deserve it. Instead, I turn back to Rachel. I’m in over my head here. I can’t fix this. Can’t understand where to begin making it right if I don’t have all the information. And she can’t bear to tell me. She might tell Oliver, but he’s already in the Wasteland.
“It’s going to be okay,” I whisper so no one else can hear me. “You can talk about it with Oliver soon. He can help.”
She rocks faster, banging her head against the wall behind her. I lunge for her, wrap my arms around her, and pull her against me. Pressing my mouth against her ear, I whisper promises I don’t know how to keep. She quiets into an unnatural stillness that scares me more than the rocking did.
“He left this for her when he dropped her off,” Mrs. Angeles says, and hands me a parcel wrapped with blue ribbon.
I accept the parcel and help Rachel to her feet.
“She hasn’t spoken since she returned,” Sylph says.
I meet her tear-filled eyes and make another promise I don’t know if I can keep. “I’ll get her to speak to me. She just needs to go home now.”
Tightening my arm around Rachel, I guide her from the shop and into weak afternoon sunlight shining through a haze of mist that makes visibility sketchy after twenty yards or so.
I almost hope someone tries attacking us. The rage within me begs for a target.
The fact that the real target is the most well-protected man in the city makes no difference to me. He’s mine now. I don’t know how I’ll do it, but before my life is over, I’ll end his.
“I’m taking you home,” I say to her, though I don’t expect a response. “Will it be too difficult to walk?”
She doesn’t respond to that, either, so I watch her gait carefully. If she’s been violated, she’ll have trouble walking.
If she’s been violated … I can’t bear to think of it.
She walks with wooden steps, her eyes on the ground. Despite the evidence that physically she can handle the journey, I can’t bear to put her through it. Instead, I decide to use what little coin I still have on me to purchase a wagon ride home.
I guide her to a stop in Center Square. She stands still, looking at our feet, and I whistle for a driver. She jerks away from me at the sound, and trembles.
My heart hurts as I gather her to me again and say, “It’s okay, Rachel.”
She leans into me, closes her eyes, and breathes deeply. I press my lips to the crown of her head, and watch the driver ease his wagon to a stop in front of us.
I give my address to the driver and try to tug her toward the back of the wagon.
She digs her heels in and pulls against my arm.
“You don’t need to walk. We’ll take a ride home. It’ll be easier on you this way,” I say, and something within her breaks loose.
She twists free of my arm and takes off.
I race after her as she cuts through Center Square and flies into South Edge. I’m a fool. Of course he picked her up in a wagon. He wasn’t going to hurt her on the streets where anyone could see and begin questioning why the Commander feels himself so far above the standard he sets for every other man in the city.
She turns a corner and slides into an alley. I follow just in time to see her stumble and fall toward the cobblestones. Lunging forward, I catch her, twisting my body so that I land on the street beneath her.
Her breath scrapes my ear in harsh pants, and she’s shaking from head to toe. I gather her to my chest and say, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” My voice breaks, and I have to swallow hard to get the next words out. “I didn’t know he had you in a wagon. I was trying to spare you the long walk home. I’m sorry.”
She feels unbelievably fragile in my arms. I don’t know how to get us home without hurting her further, but my options are limited.
A trio of men, swords drawn, block the mouth of the alley. The middle one smiles wide enough to show gaps where his teeth should be, and says, “Give us yer money and no one gets hurt.”
For one brief, blazing second, I imagine honing the rage blistering through me into something I can use to obliterate the sorry excuses for human beings who dare to threaten us now. It wouldn’t be hard. They’re drunkards. Already shaking with withdrawal. Desperate to have just enough money for their next jug.
As tempting as the idea is, the confrontation isn’t worth it. I can toss a small handful of coin away from us and walk out of the alley as they scramble across the filthy cobblestones to snatch it.
Or I could if I didn’t have to worry about getting Rachel home.
Looking up, she sees the men and freezes. I’m about to coach her on my exit strategy when she sucks in a raspy breath, and her expression goes from blank to feral in a heartbeat. She pushes against my chest and leaps to her feet. I stand as well, reaching out a cautionary hand to her.
“They just want money. I’ll take care of it.”
She isn’t listening. Shoving my hand away from her, she curls her lip into a fierce snarl. Before I can stop her, she whips her knife out of its sheath, raises it above her head, and rushes toward the men.
“Rachel, no!” I grab for my sword as the men brace themselves for her attack. I race for her, but I’m too late.
Aiming for the man in the middle, she ducks beneath his raised sword arm and launches herself into him. They both slam into the street, but I don’t have time to see if she’s okay. The other two are attacking me.
I block, parry, thrust, and slice, but I can barely focus. Rachel is screaming, harsh bursts of sound that flay the air. I slam the butt of my sword into the man closest to me, whirl to block a blow from the other. Rachel rises from the inert body of the first man, her eyes desperate and wild, and races to jump on the back of the man I’ve just hit. She drives the tip of her knife into the soft tissue beneath his throat, and he raises his arm and drops his sword in surrender.
The man I’m fighting glances at them, and I take advantage of his distraction to lower my shoulder and body-slam him into the filthy brick wall beside us. I turn back to see the other man punch Rachel’s knife hand away from his throat. The tip gouges his skin as it goes and a stream of blood arcs through the air. Rachel watches it and comes undone.
The man throws her to the ground, but she kicks his legs out from beneath him, and scrabbles across him, that terrible scream still ripping its way out of her throat as she punches, kicks, and tries to stab him with her knife.
I yell her name until my throat is hoarse, but she can’t hear me, and the two of them are too tangled up for me to intervene without injuring her. I ready myself for the first available opportunity, and watch in horror. She takes his blows like they’re nothing. Digging her nails into his skin as if it’s a wall she has to climb, she claws her way up his body. She slams her knife hilt into his forehead, rendering him nearly senseless, and then flips her weapon around and drives the blade toward his throat.
I knock her off him from the side before the blade finds skin, and she sprawls on the cobblestones, her knife skittering across the alley.
She pushes herself up to her hands and knees and crawls toward it.
Leaping ahead of her, I reach it first. Grasping it, I turn and approach her carefully. Her eyes are that of a panicked animal cornered and fighting for her life. Her voice is nearly gone from screaming. She reaches for her knife, but I hold it away from her.
“Rachel.” I breathe her name in a voice full of pain.
She looks at me, eyes still glassy from shock, and reaches for the knife again.
“They just wanted money,” I say softly. “Just money. You don’t need your knife.”
She shakes her head and whimpers. I slowly extend the hand that doesn’t hold her knife.
“I’m sorry.” It’s a hollow offering in the face of what she’s been
through, and I don’t intend for it to be the best I can do. But for now, I just need to get her home. I can make a plan from there.
She doesn’t respond.
“I don’t know what he did to you, but killing someone else isn’t going to make it better. I’m going to help you up. That’s all I’m doing. Can I touch you?”
She looks down at herself and starts shaking again. I pull her to her feet, though I’m not sure she can stand on her own now. She’s trembling uncontrollably, and I want to rip the Commander into tiny little pieces and light each of them on fire. I tuck her knife in my belt and scoop up the parcel Mrs. Angeles gave me.
“I’m taking you home,” I say, though I no longer hope for a reply. “I’ll figure out what to do once we get there.”
And I will. I have to.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
RACHEL
My throat is raw from the screaming I unleashed at the men in the alley, and I can’t stop shaking. I don’t know what’s happened to me, and I don’t want to talk about it. Not yet. Logan doesn’t seem inclined to talk either, or maybe he’s realized I’m not going to answer. We walk side by side through Country Low while a breeze plucks at newborn leaves and tangles in my hair, and the shadow of the Wall slowly stretches east.
When we reach his cottage, I leave him standing in the living area while I lock myself in the bathroom, ignite the pitch-coated logs beneath the water pump, and strip out of my garments.
I don’t light a lantern, though there’s no window in this room. The glow from the logs is enough to for me to find my way around. I don’t want to see.
The pump whistles softly to tell me the water is warm enough, and I release the handle to drain its contents into the carved stone tub resting in the center of the room. I slide into the bath and sink beneath its skin. It’s quiet here, the outside noise muffled and distorted by the water around me. I pretend I’m in a cocoon, asleep, the world passing me by, and when I wake, all of this will have been a very bad dream.
The water is cooling when I finally decide to shampoo my hair and attack my skin with soap. I scrub until it hurts, but I’m still convinced the crimson stains me deep within where no soap will ever reach.
The memory of Oliver, holding my hand with icy fingers while his life spilled from his chest, is more than I can bear.
I comb through my water-heavy hair and it hangs down my back, sticking to my skin in damp strands. Pulling on a long yellow tunic and a pair of leggings to match, I open the door just in time to see Logan crumple up a thick piece of paper and throw it down. He slams his fist onto the kitchen table and swears viciously.
I cross my arms over my chest and move to curl up at the end of the couch. He meets my gaze with misery and fury in his eyes.
“Do you need anything?” he asks, and I know he’s asking about more than food and water.
I shake my head, but he stands and brings me a cup of water and a plate of goat cheese, dried apple slices, and a hunk of oat bread as if I never responded. I take a bite of apple to please him, but I can’t taste it.
He eases himself onto the couch, closer to me than to the other end, but still keeping a careful distance between us. He’s moving slowly, as if afraid he’ll spook me at any moment.
I want to tell him about Oliver. I want to open my mouth, let it all come gushing out, and find solace in weeping. But the words I need to rip Logan’s world to pieces won’t come. Instead, I take a tiny bite of cheese and concentrate on chewing.
“I need to talk to you. It’s okay if you don’t want to respond, but I need to know you’re listening,” he says quietly, and waits.
I swallow the cheese, take a sip of water, and set it all on the floor at my feet. I owe him this.
I owed Oliver too.
The thought draws blood, and my eyes slowly fill with tears. I’m tired. So tired. I ache, inside and out, and nothing seems simple anymore. Nothing seems right.
“The Commander put you into the Claiming ceremony tomorrow,” Logan says, waving his hand toward the crumpled up paper. His voice is hard. “You don’t need to worry, Rachel. I’m going to Claim you. I won’t leave your side. He’ll never get a chance to touch you again.”
His expression is haunted, and I know he blames himself for today. I don’t know how to comfort him when nothing soft and conciliatory lives inside me anymore.
Something catches my eye, and I turn to see a deep-blue silk dress encrusted with glittering diamonds hanging beside the fireplace. Logan follows my gaze.
“Along with a letter demanding your presence on the Claiming stage tomorrow, he sent a dress. They were both in the parcel Mrs. Angeles gave me.” His fingers curl into a fist.
Beneath my grief, uncushioned by my shock, a hard kernel of anger takes root and burrows in. I failed Oliver today, yes. But I don’t have to fail him again. A debt is owed for his life, and I intend to pay it.
I glance around the cottage and find my knife, cleaned and polished, lying on the kitchen table, inches from the paper announcing my new status as a participant in the Claiming. I want to hold the weapon, to feel like I have some way to keep the promises I’ve made to myself, but I don’t know how Logan feels about giving it to me.
“You can’t attack everyone who pulls a weapon,” he says when he sees me gazing at my knife.
He’s wrong. If you don’t attack first, you lose everything.
Everything.
“You scared me today,” he says softly, and I look away from the knife. “They’d already demanded our money. The swords were just to intimidate us into giving them a way to buy their next drink. It was a situation you could’ve talked your way out of with your eyes shut. Instead, you tried to kill them.”
I can’t look away from the worry on his face, even though I want to tell him I’ve learned my lesson. The lesson he tried to teach me when he made me promise to strike down the Commander if he ever threatened me. It’s branded deep into the fibers of my being now, and I don’t plan to act like it isn’t.
“How can I trust you to carry your weapons if you don’t know who deserves a death sentence and who doesn’t?” he asks, and slides closer to me, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me against his chest. “Rachel. I should’ve been with you today. I’m so sorry.”
It’s not his fault.
I should’ve killed the Commander.
I should’ve entered the wagon and attacked without hesitation.
I should’ve kept my promise to Logan. If I had, Oliver would still be alive.
A small whimper escapes me, and tears spill down my cheeks. I try to tell him. To make the words come, but sobs choke me instead. My fingers are icy, trembling, as Logan pulls me down beside him on the couch. I stare out his window, watching the sky darken as tiny stars tear holes in its velvet surface until I cry myself to sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
RACHEL
I wake lying next to Logan on the couch beneath his heavy wool blanket. His arm is still wrapped around my waist, his cheek pressed against the crown of my head. I keep still, letting the warmth and the solidness of his body imprint itself to mine. I want to memorize this moment, a tiny piece of what I once wanted, to hold with me while I face what comes next.
“Are you awake?” His voice is a low rumble against my ear.
I nod, though I don’t want to.
“I’ve been thinking. About yesterday.”
Oliver. I have to tell him. Now.
I struggle to sit up, but his arm tightens. “Please. Just listen for a minute.”
I stop struggling, but tension coils within me.
“I don’t know what happened. But I need to tell you, to convince you, that if he … if there was anything … if he hurt you in the way a man can hurt a woman, it wouldn’t change how I see you. He can’t break us, Rachel, unless we let him.”
“I also want to make a promise to you. Will you look at me?”
I roll over, the leather squeaking in protest beneath me, and tilt my head bac
k to stare into his dark blue eyes. He raises his hand and strokes the side of my face. His touch is far gentler than his words.
“I’m going to make the Commander pay for what he did, Rachel. I swear it. And if he dares lay hands on you today, I won’t stop until he’s dead.”
This kind of response will ruin everything. All the Commander needs is one tiny excuse to take Logan from me forever. And I’m about to tell him something that will make his anger so much worse.
Suddenly I realize this is what the Commander is banking on. Logan will try to Claim me to protect me from the Commander’s machinations, and I’ll blindside him with the Commander’s plan. The only one who benefits is the Commander.
Unless Logan knows.
The shadows of grief and loss can’t obscure the startling clarity of this thought. I feel like I’ve emerged from a long slumber, awake and ready to act.
I’d be a fool to take the Commander at his word. I have to protect Logan, and the only way to do it is to trust him the way I promised I would. Logan won’t lose it at the Claiming ceremony and give the Commander an excuse to hurt him if he’s prepared to have me turn him down.
And he won’t try to exact unthinking, furious revenge for Oliver if he has a chance to grieve and then formulate a plan.
My voice is still hoarse from the screaming I did yesterday as I look Logan in the eye and say, “I already knew about the Claiming ceremony. He told me when he—”
My throat closes as the memories hit. Being inside the wagon. Oliver. Crimson everywhere.
Logan reaches up to cup my face with his palm, and I smell him—ink, fresh paper, and musk. “Listen to me, Rachel. You can take this one piece at a time. I’m in no hurry. Tell me about the Claiming ceremony. We’ll start there.”
“He says you’ll try to Claim me.”
“I will.”
“But that’s what he wants. What he expects.”
Logan frowns, and I can almost hear the gears of his mind working, analyzing, and plotting.
“He wants me to turn you down.”