فصل ششم

SIX

Most of the food is bland, gray porridge and lukewarm water. Only the fish is good, cod taken straight from the sea. It bites of salt and ocean, just like the air. Kilorn marvels at the fish, idly wondering what kind of nets the Guard uses. We’re in a net, you idiot, I want to shout, but the mess is no place for such words. There are Lakelanders in here as well, stoic in their dark blue. While the red-uniformed Guardsmen eat with the rest of the refugees, the Lakelanders never sit, constantly on the prowl. They remind me of Security officers, and I feel a familiar chill. Tuck is not so different from Archeon. Different factions vie for control, with me right in the middle. And Kilorn, my friend, my oldest friend, might not believe this is dangerous. Or worse, he could understand—and not care.

My silence persists, broken only by steady bites of fish. They’re watching me closely, as instructed. Mom, Dad, Kilorn, Gisa, all pretending not to stare, and failing. The boys are gone, still at Shade’s bedside. Like me, they thought him dead, and are making up for lost time.

“So how did you get here?” The words stick in my mouth, but I force them out. Better I ask the questions before they start in on me.

“Boat,” Dad says gruffly around a slurp of porridge. He chuckles at his joke, pleased with himself. I smile a little, for his sake.

Mom nudges him, clucking her tongue in exasperation. “You know what she means, Daniel.”

“I’m not stupid.” He grumbles, shoveling back another spoonful. “Two days ago, round midnight, Shade popped up on the porch. I mean actually popped.” He gestures with his hands, snapping his fingers. “You know about that, don’t you?” “I do.”

“Near gave us all a heart attack, what with the popping and him being, well, alive.”

“I can imagine,” I murmur, remembering my own reaction to seeing Shade again. I thought us both dead, in some place far beyond this madness. But like me, Shade had merely become someone—something—else to survive.

Dad continues, on a roll now, literally. His chair rocks back and forth on squeaky wheels, moving with his wild gestures. “Well, after your mom stopped crying over him, he got down to it. Started throwing stuff in a bag, useless stuff. The porch flag, the pictures, your letter box. Didn’t make no sense, really, but it’s hard to ask anything of a son come back to life. When he said we had to leave, now, right now, I could tell he wasn’t joking. So we did.” “What about the curfew?” The Measures are still sharp in my head, nails in my skin. How could I forget them, when I was forced to announce them myself? “You could’ve been killed!” “We had Shade and his . . . his . . .” Dad struggles for the right word, gesturing again.

Gisa rolls her eyes, bored with our father’s antics. “He calls it jumping, remember?”

“That’s it.” He nods. “Shade jumped us past the patrols and into the woods. From there, we went to the river and a boat. Cargo’s still allowed to travel at night, you see, so we ended up sitting in a crate of apples for who knows how long.” Mom cringes at the memory. “Rotten apples,” she adds. Gisa giggles a little. Dad almost smiles. For a moment, the gray porridge is Mom’s bad stew, the concrete walls become rough-hewn wood, and it’s the Barrows at dinner. It’s home again, and I’m just Mare.

I let the seconds tick by, listening and smiling. Mom jabbers about nothing so I don’t have to speak, letting me eat in quiet peace. She even chases away the stares of the mess hall, meeting every eye that swings my way with a vicious glare I know firsthand. Gisa plays her part too, distracting Kilorn with news of the Stilts. He listens intently, and she bites her lip, pleased by his attention. I guess her little crush hasn’t gone away just yet. That leaves only Dad, glopping through his second bowl of porridge with abandon. He stares at me over the rim of his bowl, and I glimpse the man he was. Tall, strong, a proud soldier, a person I barely remember, so far from what he is now. But like me, like Shade, like the Guard, Dad is not the ruined, foolish thing he seems. Despite the chair, the missing leg, and the clicking contraption in his chest, he’s still seen more battles and survived longer than most. He lost the leg and lung only three months before a full discharge, after near twenty years of conscription. How many make it that far?

We seem weak because we want to. Perhaps those are not Shade’s words at all, but our father’s. Though I’ve only just come into my own strength, he’s been hiding his since he came home. I remember what he said last night, half-hidden in dreams. I know what it is to kill someone. I certainly don’t doubt it.

Strange, it’s the food that reminds me of Maven. Not the taste, but the act of eating itself. My last meal was at his side, in his father’s palace. We drank from crystal glasses and my fork had a pearl handle. We were surrounded by servants, but still very much alone. We couldn’t talk about the night to come, but I kept stealing glances at him, hoping I wouldn’t lose my nerve. He gave me such strength in that moment.

I believed he had chosen me, and my revolution. I believed Maven was my savior, a blessing. I believed in what he could help us do.

His eyes were so blue, full of a different kind of fire. A hungry flame, sharp and strangely cold, tinged with fear. I thought we were afraid together, for our cause, for each other. I was so wrong.

Slowly, I push the plate of fish away, scraping the table. Enough.

The noise draws Kilorn’s eye like an alarm, and he swings back around to face me.

“All done?” he asks, glancing at my half-eaten breakfast.

In response, I stand up, and he jumps to his feet along with me. Like a dog following commands. But not mine. “Can we go to the infirmary?” Can, we. The words are carefully chosen, a smoke screen to make him forget who and what I am now.

He nods, grinning. “Shade’s doing better by the second. Well, Barrows, care for a trip?” he adds with a glance toward the closest thing he has to a family.

My eyes widen. I need to speak to Shade, to find out where Cal is and what the Colonel plans for him. As much as I missed my family, they’ll only get in the way. Luckily, Dad understands. His hand moves swiftly beneath the table, stopping Mom before she can speak, communicating without words. She shifts, adopting an apologetic smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “We’ll come along later, I think,” she says, meaning much more than those few words. “About time for a battery change, isn’t it?” “Bugger,” Dad grumbles loudly, tossing his spoon into his bowl of muck.

Gisa’s eyes flicker to mine, reading what I need. Time, space, an opportunity to start untangling this mess. “I’ve got more banners to sort out,” she sighs. “You lot go through them pretty fast.” Kilorn shrugs off the good-natured jab with a laugh and a crooked smile, like he’s done a thousand times. “Suit yourselves. It’s this way, Mare.” Condescending as it may be, I let him lead me through the mess. I’m careful to make a show of it, playing up a limp, keeping my eyes downcast. I fight the urge to stare back at everyone watching, the Guardsmen, the Lakelanders, even the refugees. My time in the dead king’s court serves me just as well on a military base, where once again I must hide who I am. Then I pretended to be Silver, unflinching, unafraid, a pillar of strength and power called Mareena. But that girl would be right next to Cal, confined in the missing Barracks 1. So I must be Red again, a girl named Mare Barrow, a girl no one should fear or suspect, reliant on a Red boy and not herself.

Dad and Shade’s warning has never been so clear.

“Leg still bothering you?”

I’m so focused on faking the limp, I barely hear Kilorn’s concern. “It’s nothing,” I finally respond, pressing my lips into a thin line of forced pain. “I’ve had worse.” “Jumping off Ernie Wick’s porch comes to mind.” His eyes glitter at the memory.

I broke my leg that day, and spent months in a plaster cast that cost both of us half our savings. “That wasn’t my fault.” “I believe you chose to do it.”

“I was dared.”

“Now who would’ve done such a thing?”

He laughs outright, pushing us both through a set of double doors. The hallway on the other side is obviously a new addition. The paint still looks wet in places. And overhead, the lights flicker. Bad wiring, I know instantly, feeling the places where the electricity frays and splits. But one cord of power remains unbroken, flowing down the passage to the left. To my chagrin, Kilorn takes us right.

“What’s that?” I ask, gesturing the opposite way.

He doesn’t lie. “I don’t know.”

The Tuck infirmary isn’t so grim as the medical station on the mersive. The high, narrow windows are thrown open, flooding the chamber with fresh air and sunlight. White shifts shuttle back and forth between patients, their bandages blissfully clean of red blood. Soft conversation, a few dry coughs, even a sneeze fill the room. Not a single yelp of pain or crack of bone interrupts the gentle noise. No one is dying here. Or they have simply died already.

Shade isn’t hard to find, and this time, he isn’t pretending to sleep. His leg is still elevated, held up by a more professional sling, and his shoulder bandage is fresh. He angles to the right, facing the bed next to him with a stoic expression. Who he’s addressing, I can’t tell yet. A curtain surrounds the bed on two sides, hiding the occupant from the rest of the infirmary. As we approach, Shade’s mouth moves quickly, whispering words I can’t decipher.

He stops short at the sight of me, and it feels like a betrayal.

“You just missed the brutes,” he calls out, adjusting himself so there’s room for me on the bed. A nurse moves to help, but Shade waves him off with a bruised hand.

The brutes, his old nickname for our brothers. Shade grew up small, and was often Bree’s punching bag. Tramy was kinder, but always followed in Bree’s lumbering footsteps. Eventually Shade grew smart and quick enough to evade them both, and taught me to do the same. I don’t doubt he sent them from his bedside, allowing him enough privacy to talk with me—and whoever it is behind the curtain.

“Good, they’re on my nerves already,” I reply with a good-natured smile.

To outsiders, we look like jawing siblings. But Shade knows better, his eyes darkening as I reach the foot of his bed. He notes my forced limp and nods infinitesimally. I mirror the action. I got your message, Shade, loud and clear.

Before I can even hint at asking him about Cal, another voice cuts me off. I grit my teeth at the sound of her, willing myself to keep calm.

“How do you like Tuck, lightning girl?” Farley says from the secluded bed next to Shade. She swings her legs over the side, facing me fully, with both hands clenched in her bedsheets. Pain streaks across her pretty face ruined by a scar.

The question is easy to dodge. “I’m still deciding.”

“And the Colonel? How do you like him?” she continues, dropping her voice. Her eyes are guarded, unreadable. There’s no telling what she wants to hear. So I shrug, busying myself with arranging Shade’s blankets instead.

Something like a smile twists her lips. “He makes quite a first impression. Needs to prove he’s in control with every breath, especially next to people like you two.” I round Shade’s bed in an instant, planting myself between Farley and my brother. In my desperation, I forget to limp. “Is that why he took Cal away?” The words come sharp and fast. “Can’t have a warrior like him running around, making him look bad?” She lowers her eyes, as if ashamed. “No,” she murmurs. It sounds like an apology, but for what, I don’t know yet. “That’s not why he took the prince.” Fear blossoms in my chest. “Then why? What has he done?”

She doesn’t get the chance to tell me.

A strange quiet descends on the infirmary, the nurses, my heart, and Farley’s words. Her curtains hide the door from us, but I hear the stomp of boots marching in quick time. No one speaks, though a few soldiers salute from their beds as the boots close in. I can see them through the gap between the curtain and floor. Black leather, caked in wet sand, and getting closer by the second. Even Farley shivers at the sight, digging her nails into the bed. Kilorn draws closer, half concealing me with his bulk, while Shade does his best to sit up.

Though this is a medical ward filled with Red wounded and my so-called allies, a little piece of me calls to the lightning. Electricity flares in my blood, close enough to reach for if I need it.

The Colonel rounds the curtain, his red eye fixed in a constant glare. To my surprise, it lands on Farley, forsaking me for the moment. His escorts, Lakelanders by their uniforms, look like pale, grim versions of my brother Bree. Hewn of muscle, tall as trees, and obedient. They flank the Colonel in practiced motion, taking up positions at the end of Shade’s and Farley’s beds. The Colonel himself stands in between, boxing in Kilorn and me. Proving he’s in control.

“Hiding, Captain?” the Colonel says, fingering the curtain around Farley’s bed. She bristles at the name and the insinuation. When he tsks aloud, she visibly cringes. “You’re smart enough to know an audience won’t protect you.” “I tried to do all you’ve asked, the difficult and the impossible,” she fires back. Her hands quiver in the blankets, but with rage, not fear. “You left me a hundred soldiers to overthrow Norta, an entire country. What did you expect, Colonel?” “I expected you to return with more than twenty-six of them.” The retort lands hard. “I expected you to be smarter than a seventeen-year-old princeling. I expected you to protect your soldiers, not throw them to a den of Silver wolves. I expected much and more from you, Diana, much and more than what you gave.” Diana. The name is his killing blow. Her real name.

Her shivers of rage turn to shame, reducing Farley to a hollow shell. She stares at her feet, fixating on the floor below. I know her look well, the look of a shattered soul. If you speak, if you move, you’ll collapse. Already, she’s starting to crumble, leveled by the Colonel, his words, and her own name.

“I convinced her, Colonel.”

Part of me wishes my voice would shake, to make this man think I fear him. But I’ve faced worse than a soldier with a bloody eye and a bad temper. Much, much worse.

Gently, I push Kilorn to the side, moving forward.

“I vouched for Maven and his plan. If not for me, your men and women would be alive. Their blood is on my hands, not hers.” To my surprise, the Colonel only chuckles at my outburst. “Not everything revolves around you, Miss Barrow. The world does not rise and fall at your command.” That’s not what I meant. It sounds foolish, even in my own head.

“These mistakes are her own and no one else’s,” he continues, turning back to face Farley. “I strip you of your command, Diana. Do you challenge this?” For a brief, simmering moment, it looks like she might. But she drops her head and her gaze, retreating inward. “I do not, sir.” “Your best choice in weeks,” he snaps, turning to go.

But she isn’t finished. She looks up once more. “What of my mission?”

“Mission? What mission?” The Colonel seems more intrigued than angry, his one good eye darting in its socket. “I was not made aware of any new orders.” Farley turns her gaze back to me and I feel an odd kinship to her. Even defeated, she’s still fighting. “Miss Barrow had an interesting proposition, one I plan to pursue. I believe Command will agree.” I almost grin at Farley, emboldened by her declaration in the face of such an opponent.

“What proposition is this?” the Colonel says, squaring his shoulders to me. From this close, I see the distinct swirls of blood in his eye, moving slowly, clouds on the wind.

“I was given a list of names. Of Reds like my brother and me, born with the mutation that enables our own . . . abilities.” I must convince him, I must. “They can be found, protected, trained. Red like us but strong as Silvers, able to fight them in the open. Maybe even powerful enough to win the war.” A shaky breath rattles in my chest, quivering with thoughts of Maven. “The king knows about the list, and will surely kill them all if we don’t find them first. He won’t let so strong a weapon go.” The Colonel is silent for a moment, his jaw working as he thinks. He even fidgets, playing with a fine chain necklace hidden in his collar. I glimpse links of gold between his fingers, revealing a fine prize no soldier should carry. I wonder who he stole it from.

“And who gave you these names?” he finally asks, his voice level and hard to read. For a brute, he’s surprisingly good at hiding his thoughts.

“Julian Jacos.” Tears well in my eyes at the name, but I will not let them fall.

“A Silver.” The Colonel sneers.

“A sympathizer,” I fire back, bristling at his tone. “He was arrested for rescuing Captain Farley, Kilorn Warren, and Ann Walsh. He helped the Scarlet Guard, he sided with us. And he’s probably dead for it.” The Colonel settles back on his heels, still scowling. “Oh, your Julian is alive.”

“Alive? Still?” I gasp, shocked. “But Maven said he would kill him—”

“Strange, isn’t it? For King Maven to leave such a traitor still breathing?” He revels in my surprise. “The way I see it, your Julian was never with you at all. He gave you the list to pass on to us, to send the Guard on a goose chase ending in another trap.” Anyone can betray anyone. But I refuse to believe that about Julian. I understand enough of him to know where his true loyalties lie—with me, Sara, and anyone who would oppose the queen who killed his sister.

“And even if, if, the list is true, and the names do lead to other”—he searches for the word, not bothering to be gentle—“things like you, then what? Do we dodge the worst agents of the kingdom, hunters better and faster than us, to find them? Do we attempt a mass exodus of the ones we can save? Do we found the Barrow School for Freaks, and spend years training them to fight? Do we ignore everything else, all the suffering, the child soldiers, the executions, for them?” He shakes his head, making the thick muscles on his neck strain. “This war will be over and our bodies cold before we gain a single bit of ground with your proposition.” He glances at Farley, heated. “The rest of Command will say the same, Diana, so unless you wish to play the fool yet again, I suggest you keep quiet about this.” Each point feels like the blow from a hammer, smashing me down to size. He’s right about some things. Maven will send his best to hunt down and kill the list. He’ll try to keep it secret, which will slow him down, but not by much. We’ll certainly have our work cut out for us. But if there’s even a chance for another soldier like me, like Shade, isn’t it worth the cost?

I open my mouth to tell him just that, but he holds up a hand. “I will hear no more of it, Miss Barrow. And before you make a snide comment about me trying to stop you, remember your oath. You swore to the Scarlet Guard, not your own selfish motives.” He gestures to the room of injured soldiers, all harmed fighting for me. “And if their faces are not enough to keep you in line, then remember your friend and his own position here.” Cal. “You wouldn’t dare hurt him.”

His bloody eye darkens, swirling with deep crimson the color of rage.

“To protect my own, I certainly would.” The corners of his eyes lift, betraying a smirk. “Just as you did. Make no mistake, Miss Barrow, you have hurt people to serve your own ends, the prince most of all.” For a moment, it’s like my own eyes have clouded with blood. All I see is red, a livid anger. Sparks rush to my fingertips, dancing just beneath my skin, but I clench my fists, holding them back. When my vision clears, the lights flicker overhead, the only indication of my fury. And the Colonel is gone, having left us to simmer alone.

“Easy there, lightning girl,” Farley murmurs, her voice softer than I’ve ever heard it. “It’s not all bad.” “Isn’t it?” I bite out through gritted teeth. I want nothing more than to explode, to let my true self out and show these weak men exactly who they’re dealing with. But that would get me a cell at best, a bullet at worst. And I would have to die with the knowledge that the Colonel is correct. I’ve done so much damage already, and always to the people closest to me. For what I thought was right, I tell myself. For the better.

Instead of commiserating, Farley straightens her spine and sits back, watching me seethe. The shamed child she was disappears with shocking ease. Another mask. Her hand strays to her neck, pulling out a gold chain to match the Colonel’s. I don’t have time to wonder about the connection—because something dangles from the necklace. A spiky iron key. I don’t need to ask where the corresponding lock is. Barracks 1.

She tosses it to me blithely, a lazy smile on her face.

“You’ll find I’m remarkably good at giving orders, and particularly awful at following them.”