Glass Sword (15 page)

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.”

I can almost hear Cal’s teeth grinding together, in anger and frustration. “I told you, we can’t—” he begins, and I don’t have to listen to his muttered words to know his arguments.
We’re the most wanted people in the kingdom, we’re dangerous to everyone, we’ll jeopardize everything
. And while my first instinct is to listen to Cal, my second, my constant, is not to trust him. Because sneaking is not his specialty—it’s
mine.
While he debates with Farley, I quietly prepare myself for the tunnels and
Harbor Bay. I remember it from Julian’s books, and slide the map away from Farley. She doesn’t notice the smooth action, still busy badgering Cal. Shade joins, intervening on her behalf, and the jabbering three leave me to sit silently and plan.

The Colonel’s map of Harbor Bay is newer than the one Julian showed me, and more detailed. Just as Archeon was built around the massive bridge the Scarlet Guard destroyed, Harbor Bay, naturally, centers on its famous, bowl-like harbor. Most of it is artificially built, forming a too-perfect curve of ocean against land. Both greenwardens and nymphs helped build the city and the harbor, alternately burying and flooding the ruins of what once stood here. And dividing the ocean circle, jutting straight out into the water, is a straight roadway full of gates, army patrols, and choke points. It separates the civilian Aquarian Port from the aptly named War Port, and leads to Fort Patriot, perched on a flat square of walled land in the middle of the harbor. The fort is considered the most valuable in the country, the only base that services all three branches of the military. Patriot is home to the soldiers of the Beacon Legion, as well as squadrons of the Air Fleet. The water of the War Port itself is deep enough for even the largest of ships, creating an essential dock for the Nortan navy. Even on the map, the fort looks intimidating—hopefully Ada and Wolliver will be found
outside
its walls.

The city itself spreads around the harbor, crowding between the docks. Harbor Bay is older than Archeon, incorporating the ruins of the city that once stood here. The roads twist and split unpredictably. Next to the neat grid of the capital, the Bay looks like a tangle of knotted wire. Perfect for rogues like us. Some of the streets even dip underground, linking up with the tunnel network Farley seems to know so well. While extracting two newbloods from Harbor Bay won’t be easy,
it doesn’t seem so impossible. Especially if a few power outages happen to roll through the city at just the right moment.

“You’re welcome to stay here, Cal,” I say, lifting my head from the map. “But I’m not sitting this one out.”

He stops midsentence, turning to face me. For a moment, I feel like a pile of kindling about to be set ablaze. “Then I hope you’re ready to do what you have to.”

Ready to kill everyone who recognizes me.
Anyone
who recognizes me.

“I am.”

I’m very good at lying.

I
t’s easy to convince
Nix to stay behind. Even with his invulnerability, he’s still a village crabber who’s never gone farther than the salt marshes of his home. A rescue mission inside a walled city is no place for him, and he knows it. Kilorn is not so easily swayed. He agrees to stay on the jet only after I remind him that someone needs to keep an eye on Nix.

When he hugs me tightly, saying good-bye for the moment, I expect to hear a whispered warning, some advice maybe. Instead, I get encouragement, and it’s more comforting than it should be. “You’re going to save them,” he murmurs. “I know you are.”

Save them.
The words echo in my head, following me down the jet ramp and into the sunlit forest.
I will
, I tell myself, repeating until I believe in myself as much as Kilorn does.
I will, I will, I will.

The woods here are thinner, forcing us to be on constant guard. In the daylight, Cal doesn’t have to worry about flame, and keeps his fire ready, each fingertip burning like the wick of a candle. Shade is off the ground entirely, jumping himself from tree to tree. He searches the forest with a soldier’s precision, his hawk-like gaze sweeping in every
direction before he’s satisfied. I keep my own senses open, feeling for any burst of electricity that might be a transport or low-flying airship. There’s a dull hum to the southeast, toward Harbor Bay, but that’s to be expected, just like the ebb and flow of traffic along the Port Road. We’re well out of earshot of the byway, but my inner compass tells me we’re getting closer with every step.

I feel them before I see them. It’s small, the slightest pressure against my open mind. The tiny battery bleeds electricity, probably powering a watch or radio.

“From the east,” I murmur, pointing toward the approaching energy source.

Farley whips toward the direction, not bothering to crouch. But I certainly do, dropping to a knee in the foliage, letting the first colors of autumn camouflage my dark red shirt and brown hair. Cal is right beside me, flames close to his skin, controlled so that they don’t set the forest on fire. His breathing is even, steady, practiced, as his eyes search through the trees.

I extend a finger, pointing toward the battery. A single spark runs down my hand and disappears, calling out to the electricity drawing near.

“Farley, get down,” Cal growls, his voice almost lost among the rustling leaves.

Instead of obeying, she backs against a tree, melting into the shadows of the trunk. Sunlight through the leaves above dapples her skin, and her stillness makes her look like part of the forest. But she is not quiet. Her lips part, and a low birdcall echoes through the branches. The same one she used outside Coraunt, to communicate to Kilorn.
A signal.

The Scarlet Guard.

“Farley,” I hiss through gritted teeth. “What’s going on?”

But she isn’t paying attention to me and watches the trees instead. Waiting. Listening. A moment later, someone hoots out a trilling reply, similar but not the same. When Shade responds from the tree above us, adding his own call to the strange song, a bit of my fear lifts away. Farley could lead me into a trap, but Shade wouldn’t.
I hope.

“Captain, thought you were stuck on that blasted island,” a coarse voice says, filtering out of a thick grove of elms. The accent, hard vowels and missing
r
’s, is thick and distinct—Harbor Bay.

Farley smiles at the sounds, pushing off her tree trunk smoothly. “Crance,” she says, beckoning to the figure picking through the underbrush. “Where’s Melody? I was supposed to meet her. Since when are you Egan’s errand boy?”

When he steps out from the foliage, I do my best to size him up, taking in the little details I taught myself to notice long ago. He leans, compensating for something heavy left behind. A rifle perhaps, or maybe a club.
Errand boy indeed.
He has the look of a dockworker or a brawler, with massive arms and a barrel chest hiding beneath the bulk of worn cotton and a quilted vest. It’s heavily patched, creating a motley plaid of discarded fabric, all red in hue. Strange that his vest is so battered, but his leather boots look new, polished to a high sheen. Stolen, probably.
My kind of man.

Crance shrugs at Farley, a twitch tugging at his dark face. “She’s got business on the docks. And I prefer
right-hand man
, if you don’t mind.” He turns the twitch into a grin, then bows in a smooth, exaggerated motion. “Of course, Boss Egan bids you welcome, Captain.”

“It’s not Captain anymore,” Farley mutters, frowning as she clasps his forearm in some version of a handshake. “I’m sure you’ve heard.”

He merely shakes his head. “You’ll find few here who’ll go along
with that. The Mariners answer to Egan, not your Colonel.”

Mariners?
Another division within the Scarlet Guard, I suppose.

“Are your friends going to keep hiding in the bushes?” he adds, angling a glance at me. His blue eyes are electrifying, made even sharper by his umber skin. But they aren’t enough to distract me from the more pressing issue—I still feel the pulsing watch battery, and Crance isn’t wearing a watch.

“What about
your
friends?” I ask him, standing up from the forest floor.

Cal moves in time with me, and I can tell he’s scrutinizing Crance, sizing him up. The other man does the same, one kind of soldier to another. Then he grins, teeth gleaming.

“So this is why the Colonel’s making such a fuss.” He chuckles, taking one daring step forward.

Neither of us flinches, despite his size. We’re more dangerous than he is.

He lets out a low whistle, turning his gaze back to me. “The exiled prince and the lightning girl. And where’s the Rabbit? I knew I heard him.”

Rabbit?

Shade’s form appears behind Crance, one arm on his crutch, the other around Crance’s neck. But he’s smiling,
laughing
. “I told you not to call me that,” he chides, shaking Crance’s shoulders.

“If the shoe fits,” Crance replies, shrugging out of Shade’s grasp. He makes a hopping motion with his hand, laughing as he does so. But his grin fades a little at the sight of the crutch and bandages. “You fall down a flight of stairs or something?” Crance keeps his tone light, but darkness clouds his bright eyes.

Shade waves off his concern and grips one broad shoulder. “It’s good
to see you, Crance. And I guess I should introduce you to my sister—”

“No introductions necessary,” Crance says, shoving an open hand my way. I take it willingly, letting him squeeze my own forearm in a hand twice the size of my own. “Good to meet you, Mare Barrow, but I have to say, you look better on the wanted posters. Didn’t know that was possible.”

The others grimace, just as frightened as I am of the thought of my face plastered in every door and window.
We should’ve expected this.

“Sorry to disappoint,” I force out, letting my hand drop out of his. Exhaustion and worry have not been kind to me. I can feel the dirt on my skin, not to mention the tangles in my hair. “I’ve been a little too busy to look in the mirror.”

Crance takes the jibe in stride, grinning wider. “You really do have spark,” he murmurs, and I don’t miss his eyes straying to my fingers. I fight the urge to show him exactly how much spark he’s dealing with, and dig my nails into the flesh of my palms.

The touch of a battery is still there, a firm reminder. “So are you going to keep pretending you don’t have us surrounded?” I press, gesturing to the trees crowding in from every angle. “Or are we going to have a problem?”

“No problem at all,” he says, raising his hands in mock surrender. Then he whistles again, this one high and keen, like a falcon on the hunt. Though Crance does his best to keep smiling, to seem relaxed, I don’t miss the suspicion in his eyes. I expect him to keep close watch of Cal, but it’s me he doesn’t trust.
Or doesn’t understand.

The crunch of leaves announces the appearance of Crance’s friends, also dressed in a combination of rags and stolen finery. It’s a uniform of sorts, so mismatched they begin to look alike. Two women and a man, the one with a battered but ticking watch, all seemingly unarmed.
They salute Farley, smile at Shade, and don’t know how to look at Cal and me. It’s better that way, I suppose. I don’t need more friends to lose.

“Well, Rabbit, let’s see if you can keep up,” Crance needles, falling into step.

In response, Shade jumps to a nearby tree, his bad leg dangling and a smile on his lips. But when his eyes meet mine, something shifts. And then he’s behind me for a split second, moving so quickly I barely see him.

I hear what he whispers all the same.

“Trust no one.”

The tunnels are damp, the curved walls tangled with moss and deep roots, but the floor is clear of rock and debris. For Undertrains, I suspect, if any need to slip into Harbor Bay. But there’s no screech of metal on metal, no blinding pound of a train battery screaming toward us. All I feel is the flashlight in Crance’s hand, the other man’s watch, and the steady pattern of traffic on the Port Road thirty feet above our heads. The heavier transports are the worst, their wires and instruments whining in the back of my skull. I cringe as each one passes overhead, and I quickly lose count of how many rush toward Naercey. If they were clustered together, I would suspect a royal convoy carrying Maven himself, but the machines come and go seemingly at random.
This is normal,
I tell myself, calming my nerves so I don’t short out the flashlight and plunge us all into darkness.

Crance’s followers bring up the rear, which should put me on edge, but I don’t mind. My sparks are only a heartbeat away, and I have Cal at my side if someone makes a bad decision. He’s more intimidating than I am, one hand ablaze with red and dancing fire. It casts flickering shadows that morph and change, painting the tunnel in swirls of red
and black.
His colors, once. But they’re lost to him now, just like everything else.

Everything but me.

It’s no use whispering down here. Every sound carries, so Cal keeps his mouth firmly shut. But I can still read his face. He’s uncomfortable, fighting against every instinct as a soldier, a prince, and a Silver. Here he is, following his enemy into the unknown—and for what? To help me? To hurt Maven? Whatever the reasons, one day they won’t be good enough to keep going. One day, he’s going to stop following me and I need to prepare myself for it. I need to decide what my heart will allow—and what loneliness I can bear. But not yet. His warmth is with me still, and I can’t help but keep it close.

The tunnels aren’t on our map—or on any map I’ve seen—but the Port Road is, and I suspect we’re right below it. It leads straight into the heart of the Bay, through Pike Gate, curving around the harbor itself before heading north to the salt marshes, Coraunt, and the frozen borderlands far away. More important than the Port Road is the Security Center, the administrative hub for the entire city, where we can find records and, most important, addresses for Ada and Wolliver. The third name, the young girl in the slums of New Town, might be there as well.

Cameron Cole
, I remember, though the rest of her information escapes me at the moment. I don’t dare pull out Julian’s list to double-check, not with so many unfamiliar faces around. The less who know about the newbloods, the better. Their names are death sentences, and I have not forgotten Shade’s warning.

With any luck, we’ll have everything we need by nightfall, and be back to the Blackrun by breakfast, with three more newbloods in tow. Kilorn will grumble, angry at us for being gone so long, but that’s the least of my worries. In fact, I look forward to his flushed face and
petulant whining. Despite the Guard and his newfound rage, the boy I grew up with still glimmers beneath, and he is just as comforting as Cal’s fire or my brother’s embrace.

Shade talks to fill the silence, joking with Crance and his followers. “This man’s the reason I got out of the Choke alive,” my brother explains, gesturing to Crance with his crutch. “Executioners couldn’t get me, but starvation almost did.”

“You stole a head of cabbage. I just let you eat it,” Crance replies with a shake of his head, but his flush betrays his pride.

Shade doesn’t let him off so easily. He pastes on a grin that could light the tunnels, but there’s no light in his eyes. “A smuggler with a heart of gold.”

I watch their back-and-forth with narrowed eyes and open ears, following the conversation like a game. One compliments the other, recalling their journey back from the Choke, eluding Security and the legions alike. And while they might have formed a friendship in those weeks, it doesn’t seem to exist anymore. Now, they’re just men sharing memories and forced smiles, each one trying to figure out exactly what the other wants. I do the same, coming to my own conclusions.

Crance is a glorified thief, a profession I know well enough. The best part about thieves is you can trust them—to do their worst. If our positions were reversed, and I was my old self escorting a fugitive into the Stilts, would I turn them over for a few tetrarchs? For a few weeks of food or electricity rations? I remember hard winters well enough, cold and hungry days that seemed to have no end. Sicknesses with easy cures, but no money to buy the medicine. Even the bitter ache of simple want, to take something beautiful or useful simply
because.
I have done horrible things in such moments, stealing from people as desperate as I was.
To survive.
To keep us all alive.
It’s the justification I used back in the
Stilts, when I took coins from families with starving children.

I don’t doubt that Crance would turn me over to Boss Egan if he could, because it’s what I would do. Sell me to Maven for an exorbitant price. But luckily, Crance is hopelessly outgunned. He knows it, so he must maintain his smile.
For now.

The tunnel curves downward and the Undertrain tracks end suddenly, where the space grows too narrow for a train to pass through. It feels cooler the deeper we go, and the air presses in. I try not to think about the weight of the earth above us. Eventually, the walls become cracked and decrepit, and would probably collapse if not for the newly added supports. Naked wooden beams march into the darkness, each one holding up the tunnel ceiling, keeping us from being buried alive.