Stitching Snow (31 page)

I walked briskly, with purpose, resisting the urge to run.

Dane kept to his habitual position one step behind me. The servants we passed dipped into curtsies and bows before ducking out of the way. I didn’t worry about them. I worried about the guards.

We left the residential wing, took a shortcut past the kitchens, and arrived at a nondescript door near the strategy rooms where Father usually met with the governors and military leaders. No guard. I wasn’t sure if that was usual—maybe it was just because of the late hour—but I wouldn’t complain.

The door had an electronic lock, but nothing complicated.

Just a numeric keypad. Dane kept an eye on things while I fi shed a slate and multitool out of my kit. I easily tied into the lock, tracked the connections, and stitched around the code. The door opened, revealing a simple lift. There were no controls inside—

only one destination.

The lift took us down for what felt like at least two links.

When it fi nally stopped, the door opened again.

A Golden Sword guard stood facing us. He looked as startled as I felt. Dane didn’t hesitate. After a fll urry of motion—and some disturbingly loud shouts—the guard lay unconscious on the ground. Dane pulled him into the lift and left him there.

“Another reason to hurry,” he said. “No telling when someone will expect him to check in. You know the way?” I looked at the corridor before us—sterile white walls with no identifying marks anywhere. The map came back to me, as clear as ever. The underground was a maze—intentionally so—

and if we got lost, we were tanked.

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“Straight ahead a quarter link, left past some labs, right past the bio-storage facility, then down a long corridor to the security hub. It branches off to some vaults, but we just have to go straight through to get to the command terminal.”

“Got it. Let’s move.”

The fi rst turn went smoothly, but the labs were lined with windows. Computers and equipment like I’d never seen covered every surface, and along the back, cages to hold test animals.

And night-shift lab technicians at their stations.

When they looked at us in surprise, I glared sternly, like I had every right to be there and how dare they think otherwise.

Most turned back to their work. A few glanced at each other. I didn’t know if they worked for loyalty or some other reason, but we couldn’t chance it.

“Someone’s going to alert the guards,” I muttered to Dane.

“We just have to get through the security hub before lockdown. Keep moving.”

I did, but when we turned the next corner, I stopped short.

It was a dead end.

Impossible. I
knew
I had the right path. Every stroke of the map burned in my mind. I looked again.

The wall facing us refl ected a brighter white than the others. Newer.

Of course. The map in my head was several years old. Things had changed.

“Think, Essie. There has to be another way around.” Dane’s voice drew me back from blind panic. I traced the corridors in my mind like a circuit schematic.

“There is. It’s a lot longer, back past the labs.” We returned to the main corridor, ignoring the technicians, 297

S T I T C H I N G S N O W

and found a pair of guards coming straight for us. One look at their eyes said it was too late to weave a nice story for them. The man going at Dane was ready for a fi ght. The one coming my way seemed like he just expected to grab me.

Idiot.

I kept it simple, slamming my fi st into his gut. As he doubled over, I kicked one of his knees, hyperextending it, and shoved him headfi rst into the wall. Dane took a second longer, but still managed to take his guard down.

Without saying so, we knew there was no use in subtlety at that point, so we ran.

We went farther down the main corridor before turning left, following that branch through an odd set of turns. Another pair of guards greeted us when we rounded the last corner, giving me a harder time than the other had. I got knocked around a little before Dane hauled the man away from me.

Yet another left turn took us down a corridor with a dead end after the last intersection. We’d made it to the other side of the barrier. The right side of the intersection would take us to the security hub.

That side was exactly where a pair of guards emerged before we got there.

“I’ve got them,” Dane said. “You go.” Splitting up sounded like a bad idea. “What?”

“I’ll catch up.”

I knew what he was saying. The guards slowed us down, and lockdown might be sounded any minute. At least one of us had to get through the hub before then, and I was the one with the data-chip.

Every part of me hated it.
Do what needs doing. . . .

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I aimed for the guard on the right, running full-out and going to my knees at the last second, sliding past him on the smooth fll oor.

Blazes, I’ll feel that later.

The guard tried to follow, but from the sound of things, Dane kept them both busy. I ran down a long, seamless corridor with an open door at the end. As I got closer, I saw another guard standing on the far side of the circular room. Just one. The news of our intrusion must’ve cleared out all the others. One guard between me and the corridor leading to the command terminal.

Just one, but his black-and-gray uniform loomed like a wall.

Every guard so far had been Golden Sword, my father’s men.

With my father dead, they might shift their loyalty to me. Some might be good men . . . some might be like Theo. But this man was Midnight Blade, loyal to Olivia to the death.

I didn’t slow down, running straight at him, hoping to take him by surprise.

No such luck.

He dodged me, grabbed hold, and spun around, throwing me back the way I’d come. I slammed into the ground, pain jolt-ing through me, but forced myself to roll to my feet and face him.

The guard had a throwing dagger in one hand and too much space for me to stop him. Instead of running at him again, I twisted to one side as the knife fll ew past. I felt it split the air.

Then I watched it plunge into Dane as he ran up the corridor.

My heart stopped.

His momentum carried him forward, tumbling to the ground. Mine carried me back around to the guard.

The guard whose knife was buried in Dane’s gut.

He smiled.

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Just like in the cage back on Thanda, instinct guided my body, rage fueling it. Only this time, I had everything Dane taught me. No wasted movement, every action living only in its own moment.

Pain sparked through me and I added it to the fi re consum-ing my body. I attacked. When the guard blocked, I hit harder.

When he dodged, I moved faster. My vision blurred, but that didn’t slow me down.

Soon another knife stuck out of the guard’s chest. My knife.

I couldn’t remember how it had gotten there. It didn’t matter. I had to help Dane.

A siren blasted my ears, echoing off the smooth walls. Lockdown. If we got trapped in that chamber, it was over.

I turned, and my eyes found Dane’s. He was still with me.

He looked right at me and took a breath.

“GO!”

And I did. I ran to the far side of the hub and slid into a new corridor before the security door slammed down.

I didn’t turn back until I heard Dane’s mufflled cry.

The picture of the room seconds before fll ashed in my mind.

He’d collapsed right on the threshold. If he hadn’t pulled himself all the way in before the door . . .

“Dane!” I screamed, pounding my fi st against the steel.

A control panel blinked on the wall, and I ripped the cover off, jamming a link from it to my slate. My eyes scanned the encryption and security protocols, fi guring how it was put together. Fifteen minutes. That was how long it would take me to stitch a patch to open the door despite the lockdown. ’Gig could’ve done it in ten.

We didn’t have fi fteen minutes.

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My mother’s voice vibrated in my bones.
Windsong needs you
to give them better than they have.

Echoes of Dane’s voice in my mind, yelling at me to go, shat-tered the ice I kept around my heart.

He might already be dead on the other side of the door. If he wasn’t, he would be soon.

The siren kept reminding me:
No time, no time, no time.

I bit my knuckle until it bled, staring at the door as if I could go back and change the last few minutes.

I couldn’t. Every action lived in its own moment.

“I’m sorry, Dane. I’m so sorry.”

And I ran again.

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28

THE COMMAND TERMINAL

held more tech than I’d ever seen

in one place in my life. When I thought about all the different things the massive computer system controlled, my hands snapped to my sides, afraid to touch anything. I’d never been afraid to touch a computer in my life.

Shut it, Essie, you’ll have to touch it to stitch it.

The blaring screech of the lockdown siren tempted me to fi nd its controls and turn that off fi rst, but everything else was too important. I unloaded several gadgets from my kit, all stitched during spare moments, none guaranteed to help. At the least, I’d have to do plenty of on-the-spot modifi cation now that I knew what I was dealing with.

This was a lot bigger than cracking MineNet just to see if I could.

Step one was to crack a single layer of access so I could burrow my way in and get access to
everything
. A dummy lockpick program distracted the security systems while I opened up a R.C. ll E WI S

panel to see if I could stitch my way around. First try hit a dead end, but the second weaseled through.

Display screens along the wall scrolled mountains of information. Too many systems, too many subroutines. Chaos. I hated chaos. I had to get my bearings, fi nd order amidst the badly organized madness.

Everything had a category, whether it was marked or not.

Water treatment—I cut my way in and looked at the code to see what it did. I found no routines for sanitization checks or purifying cycles or anything else water might actually need.

Just for “targeted additives.” Another look confi rmed it handled releasing the various poisons in different provinces, down to individual houses.

I shut it down completely.

Orbital defense grid. That got shut down, too, clearing a path for the Candaran fll eet.

Next, broadcasting. I didn’t want to be delicate and selective.

I wanted the broadcast frequencies open—all of them.

The communication system seemed to like its privacy, but I’d been dealing with the drones for years. They were more stubborn than this bloated computer would ever be. I got down underneath a console and ripped off another panel.

My hands shook. The right still bled where I’d bitten it.

Dane . . .

A plume of black hopelessness rose up in my core, fll ooding out to my trembling fi ngertips. Now I really understood the sound he’d made that day in the mountains in a way I couldn’t before. The day his world ended.

The same sound fought its way through my lungs.

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I slammed my hand onto the marble fll oor, focusing on the sting. “Not. Now. Essie,” I muttered.

Solve the puzzle.

My fi rst stitch nearly tripped a lockout, but I cut it off with a second. A third convinced the communication system I was the best friend it could ever have.

For the first time in years—my lifetime, at least—

communication on Windsong was free and open. I doubted anyone knew it yet. That was about to change.

I got back to my feet and entered several commands on the console, locking in the frequency I’d memorized for the Candaran fll eet and opening a channel on the off-planet network.

“This is Snow,” I said. “You lot had better be where you’re supposed to be.”

“Ready and waiting.” Kip’s voice. The black ache inside swelled again. “What’s the situation?” I swallowed hard so I could get the words out. “Matthias is dead, the defense grid is down, and I’m about to make the broadcast. Start moving in.”

I cut off the transmission before he could ask about Dane.

A little more digging revealed a section for outland operations with two subsystems nested inside. The networks each side used to communicate and coordinate their forces. I double-checked which was for the so-called Exiles and killed it. Then I fll agged several fi les, adding to my collection of evidence, skimming the contents as I did.

The operational overviews revealed how my father had kept the deception so secret. The “Exile” army was relatively tiny. Most of the attacks were automated, like the one on Saddlewood. Just enough troops to stage occasional man-to-man 304

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battles. Enough to convince the world. Few enough to be sure of their loyalty.

A lot of blood on those few hands.

Something else in those networks made my brain itch. I looked closer. All the “Exile” operations had Olivia’s clearance code tagged on, while the militia’s had Father’s. Every single one, no exceptions. The networks had been fully isolated from each other until I opened up the whole system. Had Father and Olivia worked as a team, keeping things separate for clarity, or had Olivia been behind the fake war all along, duping Father as much as everyone else?

Had I made a mistake?

Too much oxygen and not enough. Another panic attack. I couldn’t focus.

I thought of his expression when he talked about the Exiles and violence in the outlands. He’d lied to me too many times. I didn’t know what sincerity looked like on his face.

If he hadn’t known . . . if he’d thought the war was real . . . had he still deserved to die?

I thought of my bedroom, what Dane had kept from happening. What no one else had ever stopped. Was that enough reason for Father to be dead?

It was for me.

And Dane . . .

My knees half buckled before I caught myself on the console.