The Disappearance of Ember Crow (11 page)

Half an hour later, and Connor and I were hurtling through the air above the trees. Questions tumbled through my mind as we rocketed towards the grasslands. Who was the Illegal? A friend of Ember’s, maybe?
Or … not a friend
. But he must know her somehow. And what was the message? Did she need help?
Is she coming home?

It seemed to take forever before the two of us began to drop back down to earth. Only we were descending into the Firstwood, not over the grass. The moment my feet hit dirt, I spun to face Connor.

“What’s wrong?” I demanded.

“Nothing,” he answered. “We were about to be in sight of the fork in the river, and we don’t know who this Illegal is. Better that he has no idea what any of us can do.”

That was smart.
In fact
… I glanced around. “Let’s go past the ridge. We should be able to spot them from there, get a look at this guy before we meet him.”

The two of us hurried on through the forest, following the curve of the Traveller’s banks until we neared a long, rocky outcrop of rocks. I scrambled up to the top, Connor right behind me. He and I lay flat, gazing out through the trees and across the grasses beyond to where the river broke in two. Pepper was there, dressed in the same yellowy colour Jaz had been wearing, her dark pigtails bouncing as she skipped along the water’s edge. Behind her, stalking back and forth, was a huge black saur.
Wanders-too-Far
. And then the stranger.

He was standing with his hands in his pockets and a large backpack at his feet, and he didn’t look much older than me. Other than that, all I could tell from here was that he was brown haired, broad shouldered, and wearing a mix of colours – Jet-City-black pants, Cloud-City-white shirt, and Fern-City-green jacket.

“Have you ever seen him before?” Connor asked.

I stared hard at the distant stranger. “I don’t think so. And certainly not dressed like that.” It was unusual to see anyone combining different coloured clothes. Generally, everyone wore the shade that belonged to the place where they lived; the only people I’d ever seen mix colours were the ones who moved between the cities on a regular basis, like traders. “Do you think he travels around a lot?”

“Maybe. Or maybe he wants us to think he does.”

We exchanged glances. I wasn’t prepared to assume anything was as it seemed, given what Ember was involved in. This guy could be dangerous.

“I’ll ask him questions,” I said. “You watch his reactions. And look intimidating and scary.”

His lips twitched. “I think I can manage that.”

As we emerged from the trees, a voice spoke in my head. Not Pepper.
Wanders-too-Far
.

Makes-the-Lightning and I have caught someone
.

“Makes-the-Lightning” was Pepper’s saur name – appropriate enough, since she was a Skychanger.
I know, Wanders. Good job
.

Tramples-my-Enemies said to watch the white building. But nothing was happening there. So Makes-the-Lightning and I went exploring instead
.

It sounded as if Pepper and Wanders hadn’t been obeying orders, which wasn’t a surprise. Wanders had always been a bit of a maverick, and while Pepper adored her big brother Jaz, she did tend to act first and ask permission later.
It’s good you found him, Wanders, but you know, it’s really important that you keep up the patrols of the centre
.

The others are patrolling. None of
them
found anyone
.

I suppressed a smile. We were getting close to where everybody was, and I didn’t want to look friendly in front of the stranger. Pepper ran over, giving me a cheerful wave before bouncing to a halt in front of Connor. “Hi Connor.”

He pulled one of her pigtails. She giggled, and I had to bite back another smile, imagining her fury if anyone else had tried that. Pepper adored Connor, mostly because he occasionally used his ability to make her fly.

She jerked her head back at the stranger. “This is Jules. He says he has a message from Ember. But,” she sniffed, “I dunno.”

The new Illegal grinned a crooked grin at her. “What, you don’t trust me, short stuff?”

She turned to scowl at him. “I told you, don’t call me short stuff.”

I could tell from the tone of her voice that she wasn’t really mad, which was … interesting. She seemed to like this guy and, in general, Pepper only liked people outside of the Saur Tribe if they’d managed to earn her respect. I examined Jules, trying to work out what she’d seen in him.

Close up, he looked – well, kind of disreputable. His clothing and hair were rumpled; there was the shadow of a beard on his face; and he gazed out at the world with an air of mocking nonchalance. Everything about him seemed to shout out that he didn’t follow the rules, which was weird, given that most Illegals did their very best to appear to be law-abiding Citizens.

Jules folded his arms, studying me in return. “So you’re the great Ashala Wolf.” He nodded to Connor. “What are you, the boyfriend or the bodyguard? Or both?”

Connor gave him an icy stare. It was his enforcer stare, the one that said
I know what you’ve done, and you will never get away with it
. I hadn’t seen him use it in a while, not since we’d fled Detention Centre 3, but it certainly had an effect on Jules. The impudent gleam in his hazel eyes faded a little, and he shifted on his feet. He wasn’t scared, exactly, but he was a little warier than he’d been before.

Good
.

“Where’s Ember?” I demanded.

He held up his hands. “Whoa, hold up, wolfgirl! I don’t know where she is. Got a message from her, though.”

Was that a tattoo on his wrist?
I grabbed his arm, pushing back the sleeve of his jacket to reveal the mark of a seagull in a circle. A Gull City Citizenship mark. “I thought you were an Illegal!”

He pulled free of my grip. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of an Illegal getting past an Assessment.”

Pepper rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t have brought him if he didn’t have an ability. Show her what you can do, Jules!”

The air surrounding Jules started to shimmer. I took a hasty step back, and Connor flung himself between Jules and me.

“He’s not going to hurt her,” Pepper told him. “Watch.”

Jules’s entire body seemed to ripple. Then he solidified. Only he wasn’t Jules, anymore.

He was me. A perfect copy, right down to the clothes I was wearing.

Connor made a choking noise. My jaw dropped, and I stepped out from behind him to examine – well, myself. It was positively spooky, staring at me that wasn’t me.

Pepper’s voice spoke in my head.
Awesome, isn’t it? He calls himself an Impersonator
. She added, out loud this time, “He does the voice as well. Say something to her, Jules.”

He smiled –
my
smile – and turned in a circle, saying in
my
voice, “How do I look?”

This was just disturbing. “Stop that! Quit Impersonating me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!”

He shimmered again, blurring into a mess of colours, and then into himself. “Impressed, darling?”

“No,” I replied. But I was, and I was pretty sure he knew it.

If you don’t want him for your Tribe, Ash, can we have him for ours?
Pepper asked.

No! He knows something about Ember, and besides, he might be dangerous
.

The Saur Tribe is way more dangerous than he is
.

Wanders chimed in,
If he causes any trouble, I will eat him. Or Tramples-my-Enemies will. Or Gnaws-the-Bones. Or–

“Tell me, Jules,” Connor said, “exactly how is it that you know Ember?”

He’d spoken to cover the quiet, I realised. I called out to Pepper and Wanders,
No more mindspeaking!
It was distracting, and I didn’t want Jules noticing anything weird, especially not when the saurs’ telepathic powers were a closely guarded secret.

“Ember and I met about a month and a half ago,” Jules answered, with a grin. “And spent a memorable couple of weeks together.”

I didn’t like that knowing smile, I didn’t like his ability, I didn’t like him. Then my brain caught up with my emotions.
A month and a half
. And Ember had been gone close on seven weeks now. If Jules was telling the truth, she’d run into him soon after she’d left the Firstwood. And she’d sent him back here.

“What’s the message?” I asked.

He reached into his jacket pocket to produce a folded piece of paper. I snatched it from him, but didn’t open it up; I wasn’t going to read Ember’s message in front of Jules.

Only he wasn’t finished. He took out something else – a grey river stone, hung on a cord. He dangled it in the air, and drawled, “You’ll find the password for this rock in the note.”

Connor drew in a sharp breath. I stopped breathing for a second. Then I gasped and grabbed for the river stone, my mind whirling.
Jules knows what Em can do
. How desperate must she have been to send this guy here, to trust him with knowledge about her ability? Most of the Tribe didn’t even know the full extent of her memory manipulation power. She didn’t like the way people reacted if they knew she could mess with their minds.

Pepper tugged at my arm. “I don’t understand! What password? And what’s so special about some rock?”

“This is Tribe business, Pepper,” I answered, keeping my gaze on Jules. “My Tribe, not yours.”

She muttered something, but didn’t argue. Tribe business meant she had to stay out of it, just as I asked no questions if Jaz told me something was Saur Tribe business.

Who was Jules to Em?
The only possible reliable source of answers I had to that – and to all my other questions – was the river stone. I glanced around, spotting a nearby hill. I’d be out of sight once I was on the other side of it.
Good enough
.

I glared at Jules. “I’m going to leave for a while. You stay right here. And,” I added, baring my teeth, “in case you haven’t understood how things work, the only reason you’re safe on the grasslands is because you’re with us. If you try to run, if you hurt Pepper, if you so much as twitch – that saur over there is going to eat you.”

Never one to miss a cue, Wanders tipped back his head and let out a long, bloodcurdling wail.

Jules paled. “I get it. I’m not going anywhere.”

I nodded, and stomped off through the grass, Connor following behind me. The moment we’d circled behind the hill I stopped, kicked at the dirt, and hissed, “Em gave a memory stone to that guy? What was she thinking?”

“I don’t know. Is there anything in the note?”

I opened it up, staring down at Ember’s familiar handwriting.

Ash
,

If you’re reading this, then Jules made it to the Firstwood with the memory stone. You might not like him at first. Try not to judge him until you’ve seen him through my eyes
.

There’re a lot of memories on the stone this time. I’ve put them together like a story. It’s the story of where I’ve been since I left the Firstwood, and why I went. By now you’ll know there’re things I haven’t told you. Whatever you think of me, please believe I’ve done all this to keep you safe
.

The password is the name of the boy made of wood
.

Love you

Em

I read it again, checking if I’d missed something. Then I held it out to Connor. He scanned the contents and reached the same conclusion I had. “It doesn’t tell us anything.”

“No it doesn’t.” Which meant there was only one way to get some answers. I stalked over to sit at the base of the hill, cupping the stone in my hands. But I didn’t speak the word I needed to activate it, not yet. I needed some time to prepare. Experiencing a bunch of memories would be overwhelming, so I really had to calm down a little before I did it. I breathed, slow and deep, trying to let go of my emotions – my irritation at Jules, my anger at Em for hiding things and my fear for her safety, and my dread at what I would see in the stone. The “not nice things” that she hadn’t been able to tell me in person.

When I was ready, I held the stone up to my mouth.
The boy made of wood
. Another one of Ember’s stories. An old world tale about a puppet who’d wanted to be a real child.

“Pinocchio,” I whispered.

Electricity rushed into my arms and then my head, and I was dragged into someone else’s memories, someone else’s life. I was not Ashala, not anymore.

I was Ember.

THE RALLY

There are a thousand ways to disappear.

Eight days ago, I’d disappeared from the Firstwood, and I’d done it without anyone knowing that it might be a very long time before I returned. Tonight, I had disappeared into the crowd. I was standing on the beach, surrounded by the gentle rush of the waves and the salt tang of the air, and like everyone else I carried a small lamp in my hand. Between us all, we had turned the shore into a constellation of lights, mirroring the stars above.
Ash would love this
. But I couldn’t bear to think about what I’d left behind, so instead I studied what was happening around me.

We were gathered in front of a makeshift stage, which was lit up by spotlights. It was empty at present, except for a few people stationed around the edge. They were presumably there to make sure nobody overran the speakers in excitement, although from the relaxed way they were standing it didn’t seem as if they were really expecting trouble. Nor was there any reason why they should. After Belle Willis had been elected Prime the enforcer presence at these rallies had ceased, and no one else was likely to cause a problem. People were respectful of each other, and of boundaries; a lesson learned from the excesses of the old world, where there had been no rule that someone had not been willing to break in pursuit of their own ends.

I was pleased to see that a lot of the crowd were displaying red question marks; some wore it on badges, and others had it painted onto their faces. The Question was a tool of the reform movement, and it was simply this:
are people with abilities part of the Balance?
It was designed to make people query the justification for the Citizenship Accords, and it was working. Change was inevitable. It was flowing in like the tide. I only wished that meant no one would try to stop it.