Setting out at a brisk pace toward the prosperous North Hub section of the city, where Rachel is spending the day with her best friend, Sylph, learning how to properly host a dinner party, I try to shake off the lingering image of my mother dying beneath the bite of the Commander’s whip. I’ve had years of practice, and the picture fades before I’ve gone fifteen yards. The small spark of sedition ignited within me at the dingy tavern takes much longer to dissolve.
CHAPTER SEVEN
RACHEL
There shouldn’t be guards this far west in Lower Market, but I don’t doubt the warning whistle in the least. My pulse kicks up, pounding relentlessly against my ears, and I clench my fists to keep my hands steady. I refuse to be caught. Stopping beside the man who gave the warning, I turn and pretend to examine a sack of pearly-white onions while I sweep the area.
Men on their own or women with their Protectors continue to drift from stall to stall, but there’s a jerkiness to their movements now. A prey’s instinctive awareness of a predator.
My eyes scrape over canvas tents anchored to the ground with iron pegs, linger in the shadows between the rough-hewn stalls, and finally catch a diamond-bright shard of sunlight kissing the silver of a sword.
The guard is wedged in the narrow space between Madame Illiard’s display of silk Claiming dresses and the painted green stall of Parsington’s Herbal Remedies.
He isn’t alone—they never are—but his partners aren’t as easy to spot. It takes a minute before I see them. Cloaked. Carrying sacks and baskets. Trying to look like they’re just another group of citizens.
As if citizens ever spit-shine their boots and need enough space beneath their cloaks to accommodate a scabbard.
My heart is pounding so hard I worry the man beside me will hear it. I need a plan. One that keeps me out of the dungeon but still gets me to my destination in time.
The first guard raises his hand, and I spot the gleaming black oval Identidisc a split second before the green light flashes, sending a sonic pulse across a seventy-yard radius, scanning the unique wristmark every citizen has tattooed onto their left forearm at birth. My fingers want to creep to my wrist to worry the magnetic bracelet Logan insists I wear to block the disc’s ability to read my wristmark, but I clench my fist and remain still.
As soon as the guard drops his gaze to the Identidisc’s data, I move.
Sliding past the wagon, I duck into a tent half filled with sturdy cast-iron pots and watch for my opportunity. It doesn’t take long. The citizens know better than to stand around staring at the guards. Crowds begin sluggishly moving along the street again, though conversations are muted, and most look like they want nothing more than to leave the Market behind.
I couldn’t agree more. My heart is pounding like it wants out of my chest, and it’s a struggle to force myself to think clearly, but I must. I have to plan. To find a solution that doesn’t end with me trapped between two guards, trying to talk my way out of the kind of flogging that long ago cost Logan his mother.
Logan.
What would Logan do?
Logan wouldn’t be in this position in the first place because he’d already have everything mapped out with the kind of meticulous precision he applies to everything—a trait that usually irritates me, but now suddenly seems more attractive. Not that I’d ever admit it to him. Still, thinking like Logan gives me an idea, and I start searching for what I need.
Before long, I see my way out. A man—single, older, stoop-shouldered—walks slowly by my hiding place. I step out, match his pace, and lower my eyes as though I’ve been taught to respect my betters.
The man doesn’t seem to notice my presence, which saves me the trouble of trying to come up with a plausible explanation for pretending he’s my Protector. When he stops to browse for new boots, I seamlessly transfer to the next single man walking west.
This one casts a quick glance in my direction, frowns, and whispers, “What are you doing? Where is your Protector?”
I widen my eyes and do my best to look surprised. “I’m sorry. From the back, you look so similar. I thought …” I gesture, a tiny fluttering of my hands that conveys both helplessness and distress. “He said to wait while he went to Oliver’s, but there are guards, and I got scared.” My voice trembles just a bit.
His frown deepens, and he steps closer. “He should know better than to leave you alone at all.” He glances around the street. “There’s something going on today.”
I wring my hands together and consider producing a few tears. That seems to bring most men to their knees. Except for Logan, curse his stubborn soul. Not that I wanted Logan on his knees. Not anymore.
The man nods once, as if resolving some internal debate. “I’ll take you to Oliver’s. Stick close and keep your eyes down as is proper.”
I nearly bite my tongue in half to keep from telling him, in great detail, where he can put his ideas of what’s proper. Instead, I look carefully at my feet and follow my borrowed Protector as he slices through the rapidly dwindling crowds on his way to Oliver’s.
Two left turns later, we’re at the western edge of the Market. I sidestep a woman wrestling a plucked turkey into the woven basket strapped to her back, and approach Oliver’s stall. The yeasty aroma of braided raisin loaves pierced by the sharp sweetness of orange buns wraps around me, and my stomach reminds me I haven’t bothered to eat since early morning. Oliver stands alone amid wooden tables draped in crumb-coated white cotton and covered with trays holding the last of Oliver’s baked goods.
Turning to me, my escort asks, “Where is your Protector, young lady?”
Oliver shakes his head, sending his chins swinging, and plucks a sticky bun from the stash he always keeps for the children who visit. He knows they’re my favorite. “It’s a bad day for you to be at Market, Rachel-girl.”
“Rachel?” The man asks.
I shrug, and my hood slips a bit. The man catches a glimpse of my red hair and swears with admirable proficiency.
“Jared Adams’s daughter?”
I nod, and snatch the sticky bun Oliver tosses in my direction.
“You lied to me.” He doesn’t make it sound like a compliment.
I tear off a chunk of bread. “I’m sorry about that. I needed to reach Oliver’s without getting hassled by a guard.”
“Hassled by a guard? Hassled?” The man’s face turns red. “Didn’t you see their uniforms? Double gold bars on the left shoulder with a talon patch directly below.”
The warm, gooey sweetness of the sticky bun turns to sawdust in my mouth. Not just guards. Commander Chase’s personal Brute Squad. A flogging would’ve been the least of my worries if I’d been caught.
Which I wasn’t. Because I can think on my feet.
Turning away, I ignore Oliver’s quiet thanks to him as the man takes his leave. I don’t meet Oliver’s soft brown eyes as I slip my bracelet from my wristmark and lean forward to slide the mark across his scanner.
He grabs my arm, the rich mahogany of his skin a startling contrast against the paleness of mine, and says softly, “Not today, Rachel-girl.”
“How else can I pay you for the bun?”
“Put the bracelet on and leave it there. You’re practically my own granddaughter. The bun was a gift.”
I slide the bracelet back in place and lean into Oliver’s massive chest as he opens his arms to me. The warm scent of his baking clings to him and fills me with memories of happier times when I could crawl into his lap, listen to his deep voice tell me a fairy tale, and feel my world settle back into near-perfect lines again.
“Why did you come here today?”
I shrug and wrap my arms around him. I want one last moment with him before I face the dangers of the Wasteland alone.
He hugs me back and says, “Is this about you and Logan? I’m sure it must be an … adjustment.”
My laugh sounds more like a sob, and I choke it back. Two years ago, I would’ve jumped at the chance to have more time with Logan. My che
st still burns whenever I let myself remember inviting him over for birthday cake, and then making sure I got him alone on the back porch so I could tell him I thought he was different. Special. A man like my father.
The kind of man I wanted to marry.
My humiliation at his exquisitely logical rejection is now coated with anger at his refusal to help me look for Dad, and every time I see him, I want to hurt him.
I give Oliver a tiny smile as I pull away. “It’s fine. I’m fine, but thank you.”
“If you’re fine, why take the risk of coming here?” His smile is gentle, but beneath it is the unyielding expectation that I will tell him the truth.
And because he’s the closest thing to family I have left, I give him as much of the truth as I can without making him an accomplice.
“I need to say good-bye.”
“To Jared?” He glances in the direction of the Wall, and I let him assume I’ve come to the edge of Baalboden to feel close to Dad one last time.
“Your dad wouldn’t want you taking such risks.” He raises a hand to my cheek, and love glows in his eyes, filling me with bittersweet warmth.
“My dad is the one who taught me how.” I stand on tiptoes and press a kiss against his weathered cheek. I already ache with missing him, but I ache with missing Dad more. Moving away from Oliver, I circle behind a table and head toward the back tent flap, fumbling with my cloak fastenings so I won’t have to look at him.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Oliver asks. There’s a bite of apprehension in his voice now.
“I’m going to the Wall.”
“I can’t allow this.” He starts toward me.
“I’m going.” I edge to the back of the tent.
“What am I supposed to tell Logan if I let you put yourself in danger?” Oliver asks, still moving toward me, though we both know he can’t catch up.
That I’m sorry? That I no longer meant any of the things I’d said two years ago? That he brought this on us both by not listening to me and helping me search for Dad? I square my shoulders, flick my hood over my hair again, and pat the sheath strapped to my waist.
“Tell him he’s too late,” I say, stepping out of Oliver’s tent and into the shadow of the Wall.
CHAPTER EIGHT
LOGAN
“I’m here to pick up Rachel,” I say when Maria Angeles opens her front door. “I hope the girls enjoyed learning how to host a dinner party.”
Actually, I’m hoping Rachel didn’t shock the Angeles family by expressing her strong distaste for setting a table with more than one fork per person unless you were expecting to use the second fork as a weapon. My lips quirk, and I suppress a grin before I have to explain to the formidable figure of Mrs. Angeles what I find so amusing.
She opens her mouth, snaps it shut, and stares at me. “Rachel?” she asks, as if uncertain. As if I might be at her doorstep to pick up someone else.
Dread pools in my stomach, and a lick of anger chases it up my spine. “I dropped her off here two hours ago. She said … never mind what she said. Is she here?”
Mrs. Angeles shakes her head, turns, and calls over her shoulder, “Sylphia, come to the door, please.”
Sylph obeys immediately, but when she sees me, she flinches and her steps falter. Mrs. Angeles’s voice cracks like a whip. “Where is Rachel?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice trembles. She’s a terrible liar. I’m grateful.
“Sylph, please. If Rachel gets caught—” The unbidden image of my mother lying broken and bloody on the cobblestone streets while a crowd of citizens slowly back away fills my head. The air is suddenly too thick to breathe.
Sylph looks at the floor. “She just wanted to spend the afternoon at Oliver’s.”
“I would have taken her there.” My tone is harsher than Sylph deserves. She isn’t the mastermind. Fear drives the anger that pounds through me now with every heartbeat. I couldn’t protect my mother from the Commander’s ruthless punishments. But I can protect Rachel. I have to. I can’t bear the thought of adding that failure to my list.
“She wanted to spend time there without …” Sylph doesn’t continue, but I can fill in the blanks on my own. Rachel wanted to see Oliver without having to worry about me looking over her shoulder, listening in, telling her when to leave and what road to take on our journey home.
I can’t blame her for chafing at the restrictions placed on her by Baalboden law, but the proof that she’d rather risk a public flogging than spend time with me hurts more than I want to admit. Barely pausing to say good-bye to Sylph and her mother, I hurry through North Hub.
As I rush through Lower Market, I note the unusual number of guards present. A flash of double gold bars above a talon on one of the guard’s uniforms catches my eye.
Brute Squad.
Suddenly panic claws at me, threatening to fill my head with useless noise, and I beat it back. Rachel is okay. She has to be. I’m going to get to her before the Brute Squad notices a girl walking without her Protector. And then I’m going to lock her in my loft for as long as it takes to finish working out my plan to go looking for Jared.
I reach Oliver’s stall in record time, burst through the tent flap, and say, “Where is she?”
Oliver waves his hand impatiently at the back flap. “There you are! Took long enough. She left me in the dust fifteen minutes ago. She knows I can’t keep up with her.” He gestures at his considerable bulk, and then snaps, “Why are you still standing there? Brute Squad is out there!”
“Where did she go?”
“To the Wall.”
I stride forward and yank the back flap of the tent aside. I should’ve known that in the face of my refusal to make a plan to escape Baalboden with her, she’d leap headfirst into a plan of her own.
The alley behind Oliver’s tent cuts through the remaining stalls on the western edge of Lower Market before merging with one of the last paved streets on this side of the city. I keep to the side, head down, looking like I’m doing nothing more than hurrying home.
Dark clouds cover the sky, and a chilly breeze is blowing, carrying hints of the storm to come. I calculate no more than ten minutes before a fierce round of early spring rain hits, reducing visibility to nothing.
I pick up my pace. I can track her through the rain if I have to, but that isn’t what worries me. A glance around the streets shows the number of guards has increased in just the last few minutes. I don’t believe in coincidences, which means somehow Rachel tipped them off to her intentions. She’s smart, resourceful, and knows her way around weapons, but she’s no match for the Brute Squad.
I’d rather not be a match for the Brute Squad either, but I’m not about to fail her.
I exit the alley, turn right, and stride along the street, my cloak wrapped close, my expression neutral. There’s a guard in the doorway of the feed merchant, another pair outside Jocey’s Mug & Ale, and I’m certain I caught the glint of a sword on the roof above me as I make the left into the alley between the armory and an abandoned warehouse. Under the pretense of adjusting my cloak, I scan the street.
No one seems to be following me. That doesn’t reassure me about the guard on the roof, but I have quick reflexes.
The alley twists away from the street and ends abruptly at the edge of an expanse of waist-high yellow grass about fifty yards wide. Beyond the field of grass, the Wall looms. Immense steel ribs joined by tons of concrete as thick as twelve men standing shoulder to shoulder wrap around the city, holding the Wasteland at bay and the citizens beneath the Commander’s thumb. Every one hundred twenty yards, a turret rises. Guards assigned to the Wall spend most of their shift in their assigned turrets. But three times a day—at dawn, at noon, and at sunset—they turn off the motion detectors and leave their turret to do a detailed sweep of their section of the Wall.
I reach the edge of the field just as the first drops of rain slam into the ground, the sun sinks below the Wall, and the low hum of the motion detector stutters into sil
ence. The guards in the turret closest to me step into the steady downpour, swords in hand, NightSeer masks in place, and walk north with measured precision.
Rachel rises from the center of the field. The panic I’ve kept at bay flares to life as she stays low to the ground and races across the field in spurts—sprint, drop, roll into a crouch, and repeat. Beneath the curtain of rain, aided by the swiftly falling darkness, she’s nothing but a shadow.
If I can see her, so can the guard above me. In seconds, I hear the soft whoosh of a body plummeting to the ground and brace myself. He lands slightly to the right of me, all of his attention on Rachel. I leap forward, slam my fist into the side of his head, and drag his unconscious body back under the lip of the roof. A quick scan of the area confirms that no other guards are pursuing Rachel. If I can get to Rachel before she’s seen by the turret guards, maybe I can avert disaster completely. I take off after her at a dead run.
She reaches the Wall before the faint glow of the guards’ NightSeer masks has completely disappeared in the distance. I estimate just under ten minutes before the guards return. Just under ten minutes to capture her, subdue her inevitable argument, and get her back into the relative safety of the city before she puts both of us on the Commander’s execution list.
The driving sheets of rain make it hard to be certain, but I’m pretty sure she just dropped her skirt to the ground and started up the ladder in a pair of skintight pants. Fury overtakes my panic and fuels me. If a guard sees her dressed like that, he won’t hesitate to take what he thinks she’s freely offering, and then I’ll have to kill him.
She makes it to the top before I reach the base. The rain pounds into me, but I barely feel it. The rungs are slippery, so I wrap my hands in my leather cloak, grasp the metal, and climb as quickly as I can.
Best Case Scenario: She’s foolishly setting herself up for a covert trip down the side of the Wall and into the Wasteland, and I get the unenviable task of standing in her way, but she hasn’t been noticed by any guards.
Worst Case Scenario 1: The turret guards return early, and I talk our way out of it.