Her scoff grates low in her throat. “They can sleep where we land. The next runway is hidden like the last.”
“She won’t. Not with newbloods on the line. She’ll march until she drops, and we can’t let her do that.”
A long pause. He must be staring, convincing her with eyes instead of words. I know firsthand how persuasive his eyes can be.
“And when do you sleep, Cal?”
His voice lowers, not in volume, but mood. “I don’t. Not anymore.”
I want to open my eyes. To tell him to turn around, to make as much haste as he can. We’re wasting time out on the ocean, burning precious seconds that could spell life or death for the newbloods of Norta. But my anger is tempered by exhaustion. And cold. Even next to Cal, a walking furnace, I feel the familiar creep of ice in my flesh. I don’t know where it comes from, only that it arrives in moments of quiet, when I’m still, when I think. When I remember all I’ve done, and what has been done to me. The ice sits where my heart should be, threatening to split me open. My arms curl around my chest, trying to stop the pain. It works a little, letting warmth back into me. But where the ice melts, it leaves only emptiness. An abyss. And I don’t know how to fill it back up.
But I will heal. I must.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, almost too low to hear. Still enough to keep me from drifting away. But his words aren’t meant for me.
Something jostles my arm. Farley, as she moves closer to hear him.
“For what I did to you. Before. In the Hall of the Sun.” His voice almost breaks—Cal carries ice of his own. The memory of frozen blood, of Farley’s torture in the cells of the palace. She refused to betray her own, and Cal made her scream for it. “I don’t expect you to accept any kind of apology, and you shouldn’t—”
“I accept,” she says, curt but sincere. “I made mistakes that night as well. We all did.”
Even though my eyes are closed, I know she’s looking at me. I can feel her gaze, painted with regret—and resolve.
The bump of wheels against concrete jerks me awake, bouncing me in my seat. I open my eyes, only to squeeze them shut again, turning away from the bright stab of sunlight pouring through the cockpit windows. The others are wide awake, talking quietly, and I look over my shoulder to face them. Even though we’re tearing across the runway, slowing down but still moving, Kilorn lurches to my side. I guess his river legs are good for something, because the motion of the jet doesn’t seem to affect him at all.
“Mare Barrow, if I catch you dozing one more time, I’ll report you to the outpost.” He mimics our old teacher, the one we shared until he turned seven and left to apprentice with a fisherman.
I look up at him, grinning at the memory. “Then I’ll sleep in the stocks, Miss Vandark,” I reply, sending him into a bout of chuckles.
As I wake more fully, I realize I’m covered in something. Soft, worn fabric, dark in color. Kilorn’s jacket. He pulls it away before I can protest, leaving me cold without its warmth.
“Thanks,” I mutter, watching him pull it back on.
He just shrugs. “You were shivering.”
“It’s going to be a haul into the Bay.” Cal’s voice is loud over the roaring engines, still spooling down from the flight. He never takes his eyes off the runway and guides the jet to a halt. Like Nine-Five Field, this so-called ruin is surrounded by forest and totally deserted. “Ten miles through forest and outskirts,” he adds, angling his head toward Farley. “Unless you have something else up your sleeve?”
She laughs to herself, unbuckling her belts. “Learning, are you?” With a snap, she lays the Colonel’s map across her knees. “We can cut it to six if we take the old tunnels. And avoid the outskirts altogether.”
“Another Undertrain?” The thought fills me with a combination of hope and dread. “Is that safe?”
“What’s an Undertrain?” Nix grumbles, his voice faraway. I won’t waste my time explaining the rattling metal tube we left behind in Naercey.
Farley ignores him too. “There aren’t any stationed in the Bay, not yet, but the tunnel itself runs right under the Port Road. That is, if it hasn’t been closed up?”
She glances at Cal, but he shakes his head. “Not enough time to. Four days ago, we thought the tunnels were collapsed and abandoned. They aren’t even mapped. Even with every strongarm at his disposal, Maven couldn’t possibly have blocked them all by now.” His voice falters, heavy with thought. I know what he’s remembering.
It was only four days ago. Four days since Cal and Ptolemus found Walsh in the train tunnels beneath Archeon. Four days since we watched her kill herself to protect the secrets of the Scarlet Guard.
To distract myself from the memory of Walsh’s glassy, dead eyes, I stretch out of my seat, bend and flex my muscles. “Let’s get moving,” I say, and it sounds more like a command than I would like.
I’ve memorized the next batch of names. Ada Wallace. Born 6/1/290 in Harbor Bay, Beacon, Regent State, Norta. Current residence: Same as birth. And the other, also listed in Harbor Bay—Wolliver Galt. Born 1/20/302. He shares a birthday with Kilorn, identical down to the year. But he is not Kilorn. He is a newblood, another Red-and-Silver mutation for Kilorn to envy.
Strange then that Kilorn shows no animosity toward Nix. In fact, he seems friendlier than usual, hovering around the older man like an underfoot puppy. They talk quietly, bonding over the shared experience of growing up poor, Red, and hopeless. When Nix brings up nets and knots, a dull topic Kilorn adores, I turn my focus toward getting everything else situated. Part of me wishes I could join them, to debate the value of a good double-bone loop rather than the best infiltration strategy. It would make me feel normal. Because no matter what Shade says, we are anything but.
Farley is already on the move, pulling a dark brown jacket over her shoulders. She tucks her red scarf into it, hiding the color, and starts packing up rations from our stores. They aren’t low yet, but I make a mental note to lift anything I can during our journey, if I get the chance. Guns are another matter—we only have six total, and stealing more will be no easy feat. Three rifles, three pistols. Farley already has one of each, the long-barreled rifle across her shoulder and the pistol at her hip. She slept with them attached to her, like they were limbs. So it comes as a surprise when she unlatches them both, returning the guns to the storage locker on the wall.
“You’re going in unarmed?” Cal balks, his own rifle in hand.
In response, she pulls up a pant leg, revealing a long knife tucked into her boot. “The Bay’s a big city. We’ll need the day to find Mare’s people, and maybe the whole night to get them out. I won’t risk that carrying an unregistered firearm. An officer would execute me on the spot. I’ll take my chances with villages, where there’s less enforcement, but not the Bay,” she adds, hiding the knife again. “Surprised you don’t know your own laws, Cal.”
He flushes silver, the tips of his ears turning bone white in embarrassment. Try as he might, Cal never had a head for laws and politics. That was Maven’s domain, always Maven’s.
“And anyways,” Farley continues, her eyes slicing at us both, “I consider you and the lightning girl much better weapons than guns.”