Thorns (20 page)

But when I climbed the steps to my bedroom later, an uncomfortable feeling gnawed at me.

Just friends.

Was it true?

~

Jonn threw himself into the search, and the light was still glowing under the door of our parents’ room when I rose to do the morning chores. I knocked softly and found him sitting on the floor with stacks of journals and maps surrounding him.

“Any luck?”

“I found something,” he said. “A mention, not a location.”

“Well, that means we might be on the right track,” I said. “A mention means they know about it. Can I see?”

He held the paper out wordlessly, and I scanned my father’s scrawl. “We have hidden the PLD,” I read, and inhaled sharply. I looked from the page to my brother’s exhausted face. “Does he say where?”

“No,” he muttered. “I’ve looked through everything. He doesn’t mention it again.”

“I’ll tell Adam. He’ll want to know. And Jonn…”

He rubbed his face with his knuckles. “Yes?”

“Get some sleep before Ivy wakes up.”

~

Adam found me in the barn.

“Lia Weaver,” he said quietly from beside my elbow.

I almost dropped the bucket of feed I’d been filling. “
Adam
. You have to stop doing that.”

“Sorry.” A smile hovered around his mouth and sparkled in his eyes, a rare show of humor for him. “Maybe you should learn to listen better.”

“I can’t help it if you walk like a ghost.” I pushed past him to get to the horses, irritable but only a little bit. I was mostly teasing. “And you enjoy startling me. Don’t think I don’t know it.”

He followed, and I heard him chuckle under his breath. “I see you made it home safely?”

“Yes. I ran the whole way. Thank you for your cloak, by the way. Did you freeze?”

“I found another,” he said lightly, brushing my concern away.

“I have something to tell you.”

Adam raised both eyebrows and leaned back against the stall door, watching me without comment.

“I…told Jonn about the PLD.”

He gazed at me steadily and didn’t speak.

“I thought it was a good idea,” I continued, rushing on. “He already knew about the Thorns, and my parents were a team, and we’ve found some things of theirs that mentioned the device…”

“What? You found mention of it?”

“Yes—wait—you aren’t mad about me involving Jonn?”

“Jonn is intelligent and determined. He’ll make a great addition, and I’ve always expected he’d someday be incorporated,” Adam said quickly. “Now tell me more about this mention.”

I told him what I knew, which wasn’t much. “Do you think they hid it somewhere in Echlos, or somewhere else?” I glanced around the barn. “Here?”

“Maybe,” he said. “And you’re sure there was nothing else? Not even a hint?”

“Nothing. Jonn’s been reading through my da’s journals all night. But there’s still more to look through.” I hesitated, looking around the room. “We should search the secret room, maybe. Look through all the boxes.”

“Good idea.”

A puff of musty air wafted up from the darkness when I opened the trap door. Adam grabbed a lantern from the hook by the horse stalls and joined me. We descended the steep staircase into the gloom, and the scent of old papers and crumbling dirt enveloped me.

When we reached the bottom, he grabbed a stack of boxes from the top shelf, which Jonn and Ivy hadn’t touched. We settled on the floor and started shuffling through them. I stole a few glances at him, trying to see what he might be thinking about this new development. But his expression was unreadable as usual.

Silence enveloped us.

I cast about for something else to say. “Do you think the Watchers have been creeping around the town at night regularly now?”

“Maybe. Traveling through the Frost has become even more perilous, as you saw the last time I showed up on your doorstep.”

“Everything’s become more perilous,” I muttered. “The forest is full of Watchers and the village is full of Farthers, and both of them are breathing down our necks.” I remembered something I’d heard the previous night. “Last night Korr threatened Raine with ramifications from the Aeralian Emperor if he didn’t stop the attacks. Could he actually do something about what’s going on in our village?”

Adam shook his head. “The only ones with power are the ones with the guns. Don’t be fooled into thinking otherwise.”

I bent over the box in front of me with renewed purpose as I considered his perspective on Aeralian political power. “If you’re not Aeralian, then why are you with the Thorns?”

That question earned me another faint smile. “Why are you?”

“Because somebody had to do something.”

He nudged my shoulder gently. “Well, we aren’t so different, you and I.”

I AVOIDED THE village for days while Jonn and I searched our parents’ archives for more mentions of the PLD. Ivy begged to take the quota, and I let her. She was restless, and we needed to keep her occupied while we worked.

We were running out of time.

On the fourth day after the explosion, I finally took a break from searching to check the traps in the forest. Tramping through the frozen wasteland seemed to clear my head, and it made me feel unexpectedly close to my father. I stood very still in the middle of the white wilderness, listening to the quiet sounds of melting snow and bluewing calls that echoed through the trees.

“Where is it, Da?” I whispered aloud.

The wind fanned my face, and I sighed. I checked the traps. We’d caught nothing. Dejected, I turned for home. I stopped by the barn to check the animals, and all was dark and quiet and safe. Before going into the house, I scanned the tree line, an old habit, although I didn’t know if I was looking for Farthers, Watchers, or Blackcoats anymore.

Life had become a muddle of danger and disappointment.

My bones ached at the thought of another sleepless night, but we were no closer to finding the PLD than before, and Adam was growing increasingly anxious. He’d promised to come by the house and help us after Ivy was asleep, and so I’d agreed.

I knocked the snow from my boots and went inside. The fire crackled in the silence. The room was empty except for my brother, who sat in his chair with quota in his lap.

“Where’s Ivy?”

Jonn looked up from the yarn. “I thought she was in the barn with you.”

“No…” I covered my face with my hands and sighed. “Why can that girl not stay put for five seconds? Could she be upstairs?”

We listened together, and I heard no sign of movement overhead, but sometimes she fell asleep on her bed in the middle of the day. I climbed the staircase and counted the steps I took to calm my temper.

“Ivy?”

Shifting light and shadows poured through the window and pooled on the quilt of her bed. The room was empty.

A spiral of quiet panic twisted in my stomach, but I forced it down. I wasn’t going to let myself be frightened, not yet. It was probably nothing. She was probably behind the house, talking to a baby bluewing and coaxing it out with berries.

It was fine. She was just outside. I repeated it to myself and some of the tension slipped from my shoulders.

As I turned to go, the glint of something caught my eye. I stopped.

What was that beneath her bed?

I crossed the room to her bed and crouched down. I reached under the bedframe, and my fingers brushed cold metal.
Just a lantern
. The squeeze in my chest eased, and I sat back on my heels as irritation took the place of panic. Was she trying to burn down the house by reading late at night again? Last time she’d fallen asleep and almost set her sheets on fire.

When I pulled the lantern out from under the bed it snagged on a piece of fabric. I reached back under and pulled out a black shirt. One of my father’s shirts.

What…?

I got down on my hands and knees and yanked out everything crammed beneath the bed frame. A pair of black trousers. A pair of boots. A small black cloak.

I lifted them to the light with numb fingers. My hands shook. My stomach twisted. My mouth formed the word as fury filled me like fire, incinerating every single thought in my mind except the horrible, heavy knowledge of what this meant.

Blackcoats
.

~

When I got to the village proper, I immediately knew something was amiss. The air felt heavy, clotted. Villagers hurried by with their heads lowered and their cloaks pulled tight. A few people stood in a knot around the Assembly Hall.

My heart jumped into my throat. Another death from Watchers? I pushed my way to the front and grabbed the arm of the person closest to me. “What’s happened?” I demanded.

He glanced down. “Haven’t you heard? Three young people have been arrested.”

“Arrested?” My voice was breathless, shrill. I stepped back. “Why?”

“For setting fire to the Mayor’s house. They’ve been detained as part of the investigation.” He lowered his voice. “If they are found guilty, they’ll be sent to Aeralian detention camps.”

My head was spinning. I staggered back and leaned against the wall. Aeralian detention camps? It wasn’t a hanging, but it was still a death sentence.

“W-who was arrested?” I asked, before the man could move on.

He shook his head. “I don’t know the names, but they’re being held at the consulate.”

I ran.

Her name was a mindless chant in my mind—IvyIvyIvyIvyIvy—and I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think beyond the churning sense of foreboding building in my veins. My cloak flowed behind me as I fled down the street and turned the corner. The consulate gleamed ahead of me, cruel and cold in the sunlight. I ran faster.

I could see figures in the yard, beyond the pointed metal fence that separated the consulate from the street. The workers had finished it days ago. The ground around the building was broken and churned up, as if it had burrowed itself into the earth like a mole.

In front of the consulate building were three prisoners, their hands in chains.

I came to an abrupt stop, my heart racing and my breath coming in painful gasps. I scanned the figures.

My sister was not among them.

I staggered with relief.

The unhappy trio lifted their heads at my approach, and I inhaled sharply as the light fell on their faces. The first two were blond-haired boys who I didn’t know, but…Kirth Elder?

“You,” I said, astonished. “You are with the Blackcoats?”

He glared at me, defiant, and didn’t answer.

He’d been at the Mayor’s house the night of the explosion. Had he planted the bomb in the study?

It didn’t matter. Right now, nothing mattered but my sister’s safety.

I returned to the village square. If Ivy wasn’t among the detainees, then where was she?

I searched the village for hours, and finally, I headed back home.

~

When Ivy came back, Jonn and I were waiting by the fire. The door slammed, and we looked at each other. I took a deep breath and faced my sister.

“Where have you been, Ivory Augusta Weaver?” I asked. My voice was tight and quiet, but she flinched as if I’d yelled.

“In the village.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and hunched her shoulders up around her neck.

“It isn’t quota day. It isn’t Assembly day.”

She didn’t say anything. I reached behind my back and pulled out the black shirt I’d found.

“What is this?”

Her face crumpled, but she lifted her chin. “Why were you going through my things?”

“Tell me this isn’t what I think it is,” I said. My previous rage had burned away everything in me but stony resolve. My voice was soft as ashes, and just as cold.

“Why were you going through my things?”

“Ivy,” Jonn said. He spoke quietly, but it broke her. She began to cry. The sight of her tears ignited me again, and I rose to my feet.

“The threatening note in the barn?” I demanded. “Did you leave it?”

She pressed her lips together. Her eyes were shiny with tears. “I’m fighting back against the Farthers just like you.”

“You’re being stupid!” I shouted it. Fury licked at my insides like freshly stoked fire. My hands trembled.

Jonn put a hand on my arm, quieting me. “Ivy. You can’t be part of the Blackcoats.”

“Ma and Da—” she began.

“Ma and Da would never have let you get involved in anything like this,” I snapped. “The Blackcoats are reckless. They hate people like Ann, and they would have loathed Gabe on the spot and wanted him killed. Not to mention the fact that their methods are stupid and reckless. Three of them were arrested today.”

Her eyes widened at the word
arrested
, but she pressed on. “They’re trying to do good, and they need me,” she protested hotly. “You’re both helping with the Thorns now, don’t pretend you’re not. You cut me out, but I wanted to help, too. So I am. In my own way.”

Jonn and I exchanged glances.

“Didn’t you hear me? People were arrested. They might be deported.” I said.

“I’ve barely done anything!” she exploded. “Only left a stupid note and carried a few messages.”

“Good. And that’s all you’re doing.”

“But—”

“This discussion is over,” I said.

Shaking her head, she ran past us for the stairs.

I pressed a hand over my eyes.

At least she was safe.

We started work on the yarn, and I made stew in the pot over the fire. By the time the sky outside had turned dark and the scent of the stew began to fill the house, Ivy made her way down the stairs, her feet dragging and her eyes rimmed with red. She didn’t speak when she reached us, but she plopped down by the hearth and grabbed a snarl of yarn from Jonn’s feet to wind into a ball.

I tried not to stare, but I couldn’t hide my astonishment that she’d made an appearance.

“Quota’s due,” she muttered when she noticed my incredulousness. “I’m not a child anymore, Lia, in case you haven’t noticed. I pay attention to these things now. I’m going to pull my weight around here just like everybody else.”

Jonn and I blinked at each other. “Good,” I said, too surprised to say much else, and resumed my work. I was afraid to say too much and mess it up.