Frozen

29

WITH THE SAILS IN PLACE, THE TRIP moved in small, quick bursts, gaining speed and putting miles behind them, or none at all, as the ship moved at the mercy of the wind. Wes was on deck, in the crow’s nest at the top of the mast. He squinted. A small light emerged from the fog. It grew brighter and closer, and Wes could hear voices from the craft.

A ship!

Rescue!

Wes was not the type to believe in miracles but, against his better nature, he began to hope. If it was a mercenary ship, he might be able to make some sort of a trade—he just hoped it wasn’t a naval boat or a slaver. Then they were sunk. But if it was a fellow merc . . . Wes believed there was honor among thieves, among traders and vets and runners like him who worked on the fringes. Sure, they were scavengers and sellouts, losers and gamblers, but they had to work together, or they would be picked off one by one by the RSA, who would either throw them all in the pen or shoot them on sight, or by the slavers, who were far more dangerous and answered to no authority but their own.

He hadn’t told Shakes that Nat had told him about the stone, that she had confirmed it to be what they had suspected all along, and had even offered it to him. Why had he turned it down? He was supposed to take it—steal it from her—it was just a game to see who would win, who would give in first. Could he trick her into trusting him? He had won at last. So why did he feel as if he had lost?

She trusted him, so why was he so melancholy? Because Shakes would be disappointed, and didn’t he owe the guy his life? And more? Nah. It wasn’t that. Because if he’d accepted the stone and sold it to Bradley, they would be set up, rewarded, hailed as kings of New Vegas? Nah. It wasn’t that, either. Bradley could jump off a cliff as far as Wes was concerned, and as far as riches went, all he needed was a decent meal and a place to sleep and he was happy. He was in a bad mood because now they were closer to their destination than ever before. Only ten days away, and once they arrived there, he would never see her again.

That was what was bothering him.

There was nothing he could do to change that, nothing he could do to make her stay. He hadn’t planned on feeling this way, but there it was. Oh well, maybe he could make it up to Shakes somehow. Maybe today was their lucky day. There was a ship on the horizon.

“You see it?” he asked, climbing down to where Shakes was already at the rails with binoculars.

“Yeah. A boat.”

“What kind?”

“Hard to say.” Shakes handed over the binoculars and scratched the scruff on his chin. “Take a look.”

Wes did and his heart sank. It was a mercenary ship all right, but it was much worse off than theirs, without motor or sail. Just another unlucky crew like his, maybe even unluckier. The hull had a huge hole in it, but unlike their boat, it wasn’t patched, and the deck was quickly filling with dark water. It was sinking and was likely going to capsize at any moment. It was the ship’s luck to run into them, not the other way around.

He zeroed in on the crowd huddled on the deck. Through the green lenses, he could see a family with small children. They were waving frantically. Wes handed the binoculars back to Shakes, calculating the risks, the odds. Five more mouths to feed, he counted. Two of them children. They had so little already, they couldn’t possibly stretch their supplies any more; the soldiers were already eating bark. What could he offer this family?

His boys were massed on the deck, awaiting orders. The broken ship had drifted nearer, and now all of them could see who was on board and what was at stake. Wes knew how the Slaine brothers would vote, and Farouk would probably agree, although the adventure he had expected wasn’t turning out quite as he had hoped. They were all cold, hungry, and lost. But Shakes was ready with the rope, and Nat looked at him expectantly.

“We can’t just stand here and do nothing,” she said, almost daring him to argue with her.

“When you save someone’s life, you’re responsible for it.” Wes sighed. But even with his misgivings, he took the rope and threw it overboard, and someone on the other boat caught it. Better to let them drown, he thought; it was probably more merciful. But if he were that kind of guy, they would be heading to Bradley with Anaximander’s Map in hand and Nat in the brig.

With Shakes’s help, they pulled the sinking boat closer, and one by one the soldiers helped the family climb up on deck. The first to board was a young woman, draped in heavy black robes, her entire body and face covered in the black fabric so that only her eyes were visible.

“Thank you,” she croaked, taking Shakes’s outstretched hand. “We thought no one would ever find us out here.” Then she noticed his fatigues and shuddered. “Oh god . . .”

“Relax, we’re just a bunch of vets,” Shakes assured her.

Following behind her were a mother, father, and two children. The group of them huddled in a blanket. The parents were deathly ill, with pale and gaunt faces, profoundly malnourished, and Wes guessed they had been out here for several weeks with little water or food, and whatever there was to eat or drink had been given to the children.

“Where’s the captain?” he asked, taking the rope. The girl and the family must have been cargo; they looked like pilgrims searching for the Blue. This had to be a mercenary ship, but where was the crew?

He took the rope and climbed down to the sinking ship. Since he’d opted to do the right thing, he had to see it all through.

“Don’t—” the girl in black warned. “It’s—”

But it was too late, Wes was already on board and had headed down to the lower decks to see if he could find the crew. Down below, the empty cabins were filled waist high with water. He walked back up to the upper deck to the bridge, and there he found the answer to his question. Two deckhands, both dead—shot in the head, it looked like. The captain was at the helm, slumped over, cold and dead, another bullet in the middle of his forehead. The bridge was enclosed in glass on all sides. Wes could see the holes where the shots had entered and exited. The bullets had come from another vessel, and the clean shots to the head told the rest of the story. If the ship had been attacked by slavers, the men would have seen them coming and hid from their fire. But the crew never saw these shots coming. Only a trained sniper could take out a mark from nearly a click. The dead men never even knew they were targets.

Whoever did this hadn’t even bothered to board the ship to look for passengers. With the crew dead and the hull leaking, the ocean would claim anyone left on the boat. Only the RSA would let its citizens drown and starve as punishment for crossing the forbidden ocean.

So, the naval carriers were out on patrol. They would have to be even more careful now, make sure none of the boys or Nat stayed up on deck during the daylight hours; the crew would hate it, no one liked being trapped down in the cabins, but if the snipers were out there . . .

The ship lurched to the side and Wes climbed quickly down the narrow stairs that led back to the deck. He nearly tripped on the last step. Something had changed, the walls were moving, the ship was taking on more water. The sinking ship had three open ports and maybe even a few blast holes that were allowing additional water to enter the craft, increasing her rate of descent as she sank quickly now into the sea. Wes reached the deck, but it was too late; one side of the craft had caught on the tip of a trashberg and the other was submerged below the water. The ship’s metal hull ripped and the ocean flooded in all around him.

Wes ran back to the bridge where the dead men rested. Their blank eyes stared at him from all sides. The black water was following him up the stairs. In a moment the ship would be entirely under water. He pulled the captain’s chair from its mount and rammed it through the broken glass. The shattered pane collapsed and the chair flew into the ocean. Wes climbed out, cutting himself as he struggled to reach the roof of the bridge.

He leapt from the wreckage toward the rope that was dangling from his ship, but the distance was too far, and he flailed, falling to the water.

He locked eyes with Daran—who held the rope, his eyes flat and cold. Where was Shakes? “THROW IT BACK!” Wes yelled. Daran remained impassive, and Wes knew what he was thinking. Without Wes, Daran would only have Shakes to deal with, and that wouldn’t be too hard; he would be able to take care of Shakes and Nat, throw them overboard with the stupid starving family as soon as Wes drowned, then take control of the ship and head back home.

“THROW IT BACK, I SAID!”

But Daran merely shrugged. He watched without remorse as the water rose.

Wes screamed as he plunged below the surface. He tried to close his eyes and mouth, but it all happened too fast. The black fluid burnt like alcohol in his mouth. He pressed his eyelids closed in an attempt to push back the black water. His arms flailed in the smooth alien liquid. But his legs kicked hard, and he was able to pull himself up, and break through, gasping for air. He squinted, looking around, but his blurred vision saw only gray sky and water. The rope was gone.

Nat . . . , he cried in his mind, can you hear me?

Cold waves crashed over his head. He closed his eyes as he sank below again. Something crashed into his spine. Maybe it was a rail from the ship or just some random piece of junk; either way, it stung, and he opened his mouth involuntarily. Black water filled his lungs. He was drowning. He would die.

But just as he took his last breath, he felt a warm, powerful force lift him up from the water and toward the rope, and he lunged out and grabbed it, as Shakes and Nat pulled him to safety. He fell onto the deck on all fours, and they helped him up, Nat putting her arms around him.

“All right, boss?” Shakes said, patting his back. “I’ll get you a Nutri, be right back.”

“Thank you,” he said, taking Nat’s hand. He felt the lovely warmth of her skin, so like the warmth that had saved him from sure death. He should have kissed her the other day. He wanted to kiss her now.

“Nat . . . look at me,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

She bowed her head.

“Don’t cry.”

“It’s nothing,” she said, pulling out of his grasp.

Wes let her go, feeling his emotions roil within him. She’d heard him call for her. There was something between them they couldn’t deny anymore. It scared her—and it scared him, too. But another part of him was happy, happier than he’d ever felt in his life. He wished she hadn’t run away like that. He felt a sudden emptiness, as if she had answered his question without him asking it, and the answer, alas, was no. This was not meant to be.

“What was that all about?” Farouk asked.

“She pulled him from the ocean,” Daran spat.

“How’d she do that?”

“She can do that sort of thing because she’s marked, dumb-ass. Or are you as blind as Shakes?”

“She’s marked . . . right . . . I forgot . . .”

“And she’s not the only one.” Zedric nodded, pointing to the girl draped in black.

30

NAT STUMBLED AS SHE WALKED AWAY from the group gathered around the rail. She had heard Wes call for her—had seen his distress so clearly—the black water around his face, his open mouth in a silent scream. Before she knew what she was doing, she had been able to focus her power like never before, to send her strength to save him. He unlocked something in her that she’d never been able to do before, and it frightened her. She could sense the voice in her head was silent, disapproving. Wes was falling for her, too, and it was wrong of her to encourage it. It had been a flirtation, nothing more, but now . . . now it was different. The way he looked at her! He couldn’t feel that way about her. He would only get hurt. She could only hurt him. That’s what she did. She hurt people.

Fire and pain.

Rage and ruin.

Daran with his bloody, burnt hand.

She would push him away, she decided. She would make him forget her. It was wrong of her to have led him on . . . to have made him think that he could ever be anything to her but a runner she had hired.

When she’d recovered, she looked back to see what the crew was staring at—the girl wearing long black robes, a cowl over her head, a scarf around her neck and mouth, long black gloves on her hands. Her bright violet eyes and golden hair glittered from the darkness of her hood.

“I know what you are,” Daran sneered, pointing his gun at her menacingly.

“Leave her alone,” Shakes warned, coming up next to him and unlocking his gun.

But Daran wouldn’t stop or he couldn’t help himself. He’d gone unhinged, Nat realized. He was on the edge before, but now he was well and truly lost. Nat feared for the girl. Daran had shown his hand—had revealed his tell—he’d already tried to hurt Nat and, just moments before, he’d even tried to get rid of Wes. He was dangerous, a powder keg ready to explode.

“What do you look like under that curtain you wear? Like a candy-colored corpse? Or a painted skeleton?”

Zedric backed away nervously.

“She’s a guest,” Wes warned, his tone commanding. “And this is still my boat. Put the gun down, Daran. I won’t ask you again.”

There was an ugly silence, and no one moved; Nat felt as if she had forgotten to breathe. Daran shifted, and Wes preempted his strike, but Daran had already cocked his gun. He was raving. “I don’t want no dirty sylph around—”

“PUT IT DOWN!” Wes yelled, holding up his own weapon. He fired, the bullet clipping Daran’s elbow, but it was too late.

Daran had fired, shooting the dark-robed girl point-blank.

“NO!” Nat screamed as Shakes dove in front of the hooded pilgrim. But there was no need. The bullet had disappeared. In an instant, the sky darkened and thunder rumbled. Then the clouds parted and the strange light that had appeared the night before returned.

From out of the darkness came the screech of the wailer. One moment Daran was standing on the deck, and in the next, he was torn from the ship by an unseen hand.

“WHAT HAPPENED? WHERE IS HE?” Zedric yelled, spinning around, pointing his gun every which way.

A cry echoed across the water, angry and victorious. It wanted blood and had gotten it. Nat felt its exultation as if it were part of her. It was furious and excited, just like in her dreams. Fire and pain, rage and ruin, a dark uncontrollable force, waiting to lash out—murderous with revenge and hatred, it had taken Daran in an instant, had swept him off the deck as if he were a toy. Nat stepped back, unsure of what had happened—had she done that? Had she made that thing—that wailer—do what she wanted to do? No. It couldn’t be. The wailer wasn’t real, was it? What happened to the voice—to the monster in her head? She couldn’t reach it. She couldn’t hear it. She began to panic. What was happening?

“There he is!” Farouk said excitedly. “In the water—over there!”

Wes came up to the rails with binoculars in hand. He saw the small figure of Daran bobbing above the waves, waving his arms. Whatever had taken Daran had thrown him half a mile away in a few seconds.

“Bring him back!” Zedric screamed, cocking a gun and aiming it at the girl. But he wouldn’t get a chance.

There was a blow, and Zedric fell to the ground unconscious. Shakes stood behind him, holding his rifle aloft, trembling a little, but with a smile on his face.

“Sorry about that. I need to teach the boys some manners,” he said.

The girl smiled. “I am Liannan of the White Mountain,” she said.

“Vincent Valez,” Shakes said, smiling bashfully.

“Can you bring him back?” Wes asked impatiently, motioning to where Daran was flailing. They could hear his screams of fury echoing across the water.

Liannan shook her head. “No. The drakon took him and only the drakon can decide his fate now.”

“Well—we’ll have to get him out—he’s a jackass, but he’s still part of my crew.” With Shakes’s and Farouk’s help, Wes moved to push a lifeboat into the water, but a powerful gust of wind knocked them back on the deck. The sickly wailing sound returned, and Wes felt something hot and sharp rake across his back, tearing through the layers he wore and ripping into his skin.

He turned around, but there was nothing. Shakes returned his confusion with a dazed look on his face.

“What was that?” Farouk asked anxiously, holding his head.

“The drakon does not suffer him to live,” Liannan said placidly. “Do not cross it or fear its wrath.”

“We’re risking our own lives to help that jerk,” Farouk argued. “C’mon, boss, let him drown.”

Wes shook his head. “No—help me get this boat in. I’m not leaving anyone behind.”

“He killed the messenger, he assaulted its familiar, and so the drakon demands a life for a life,” Liannan murmured. “I must advise you not to go against his wishes.”

They tried again, and this time the wind stopped them, so that the ship teetered wildly and tipped to the starboard edge.

“Hold on!” Wes screamed, as Nat tumbled forward, Wes catching her just in time. As everyone scrambled for purchase, Zedric slipped, rolling toward the edge, but Farouk caught him and he was able to hold on to the mast.

“Shakes!” Nat yelled, as they watched Shakes tumble into the dark water.

“Get him!” Wes yelled to Farouk, but it was no use.

“Pull me out!” Shakes sputtered, his head appearing above the waves, his arms waving wildly. “Help me!”

But the wind kept everyone back, kept them clinging to the rails, unable to help. Shakes would drown. They were going to lose him, Nat knew. Spare him. Please, she prayed, not knowing whom she was entreating with her cry. Not him. Not Shakes. He is my friend.

Nat looked up to find the dark-robed girl staring at her. Liannan’s eyes glowed in a rainbow of shockingly brilliant colors. She was staring at Nat, holding her gaze, studying her.

“SHAKES!” Wes tossed a rope to the castoff, but it snapped in the air, torn by an invisible force.

Please, let us save him. He’s just a boy, Nat begged. Somehow, she understood that thing out there was punishing them because Daran had killed the little white bird. That thing out there was angry, and its fury would not be abated.

Please.

“HELP ME!” Shakes screamed.

Liannan shed her robe. “Drakon! The boy saved me! Let him live!” She pulled her hood and mask from her face. Underneath the dark drapery she wore a long, slim white tunic. Her long hair was the color of sunlight from long ago, dazzling and golden. The cold night air began to soften, the temperature growing warm as a light pierced the night. The light was strong and powerful, and the darkness faded and the wailing subsided.

Nat clutched her forehead, trembling as a wave of frustration and anger washed over her. It felt as if someone—or something—was pushing her to do something, but what? What could she do? She was angry, so angry at Daran and confused that Shakes had fallen into the middle of the entire thing. She took calm, steady breaths. She could hear the sylph. The boy saved me. Let him live. The danger had passed. That’s what the sylph was trying to say, trying to make her understand.

The darkness dissipated as quickly as it came.

Wes grabbed the torn rope and lowered it to Shakes. With the crew’s help, everyone pulling together, they heaved the soldier back on deck.

Shakes appeared, frantically rubbing his eyes and spitting. His skin and face were red, raw, his eyes wild and confused. Farouk ran up and dumped a liter of Nutri on his head.

Shakes yelped.

Wes knelt down and grabbed his friend by the shoulders. “Shakes!”

The shivering boy paused. “What?”

“You’re fine! You’re not poisoned, you’re fine!”

Shakes looked down at himself, not quite sure what to look for. Then he smiled. “Right.” He turned to the ocean. “But what about Daran?”

Wes threw a life preserver overboard, knowing it was a waste. “There’s no wind, no way for us to reach him. At least this gives him a chance—it’s all we can do,” he said, not liking it, but not having a choice either.

Daran’s screams began to fade; soon they mixed with the familiar sound of the wailer’s mourning, and it became harder and harder to differentiate the two.

31

WHEN ZEDRIC AWOKE TO FIND HIS BROTHER still missing, he became violent. If they didn’t subdue him, he would hurt himself or the crew. They put him in the brig; it was cruel, but they had no other option. “Go on—I’ll take it from here,” Shakes told Nat, as he handcuffed the boy to the nearest pipe.

She walked out of the room and saw the sylph approaching. The girl had put her dark cloak back on, but her hood was down. Her eyes were pure violet, the color of asters and twilight. Her pale blond hair was fragile and delicate like cobwebs, like fairies’ wings. The mark on her cheek was a six-pointed star. She was lovely, far lovelier than Nat had expected, like an exotic, rare creature, like the extinct and legendary butterflies from the world that no longer was.

Liannan smiled at her. “You’ve seen my kind before, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“A prisoner, no doubt, or a token, a performing monkey.”

Nat thought of the golden-eyed girl with the orange hair, the Slob’s favorite pet, and understood now. “You spoke about something called the drakon—what is it?” Nat asked.

Liannan studied her before answering. “The drakons are protectors of Vallonis. They have been lost since the breaking, but now one has returned.” Her voice was like the sound of falling water, it had a lovely lilt, like a melody.

“Vallonis . . . do you mean the Blue . . . is that what you call it?”

“Yes.” Liannan nodded. “That is what I call my home.”

Farouk came stomping down the stairs into the hallway, and when he saw the two of them, his face blanched and he crossed himself as if to ward them away. It pained Nat to see him—she’d thought Farouk was a friend, like Shakes—but now the young boy was gaping at them, pressing himself against the wall so that no part of his body would come into contact with either of them.

Liannan laid a hand on his shoulder and he visibly flinched.

“You have nothing to fear from me. I am not infectious. I can no more turn you into one of us than I can turn into one of you,” she said.

Farouk did not look convinced and shook her hand off him. “Don’t touch me.”

There was the sound of footsteps on the stairs. “What’s going on here?” Wes asked, looking at the troubled faces in front of him.

“She touched my shoulder,” Farouk accused. “And she killed Daran.”

“I did no such thing,” Liannan said. “It was the drakon who decided his fate,” she said, turning to Nat.

“Leave her alone,” Shakes said, as he walked out of the room where they had imprisoned Zedric. “She didn’t do anything to him. He asked for it, he was looking for trouble. Things happen out here in the water—you haven’t been, you don’t know.”

“Or it could be nothing. Coincidence,” Wes said, his gaze falling on Nat as well.

“What brings you to this part of the world, Ryan Wesson?” Liannan asked.

“You know my name,” he said, and Nat felt a stab of jealousy to see him give Liannan the same smirk he’d given her the first time they’d met. She knew she had no claim to him, and that she had already decided to all but cut him loose, but somehow she couldn’t help but feel as if he were hers and hers alone.

Liannan cast her cool gaze upon him. “I know everyone on board this ship. Ryan Wesson, the mercenary. Vincent Valez, second in command, more commonly addressed as ‘Shakes.’ Farouk Jones, navigator. Daran Slaine, currently in the water. Zedric Slaine, his brother. And . . . Natasha Kestal.” Liannan turned to her and stared. “Who asked about the drakon . . .”

Wes raised an eyebrow and regarded Nat with a questioning gaze.

“You are marked,” Liannan said.

Nat nodded.

“So you are one of us.” The sylph nodded. “Do not worry,” she told the others. “Our powers are not malicious in nature, no matter what you have been led to believe. Do you know why they cast us out? Why we are hunted and killed, or confined to prisons? Why they spread lies about our people? Because their world is broken, their world is ending, and so they fear us, they fear what is coming. The world that is returning, that is growing in the ruins of this one. A drakon flies again, and we are renewed in its presence.” Liannan’s voice had grown lower, and her eyes were kaleidoscopes.

Farouk was shaking. “She’s . . . cursing us, I swear . . . stop her . . .”

Nat sucked in her breath, and Wes was frowning now. He turned to the golden-haired girl. “Okay, enough. You’re scaring my crew, and you’ve cost me a soldier,” he growled.

“And you have gained a guide. I believe our journeys are the same. You are ostensibly on your way to New Crete, yet in truth you seek the Blue. You are headed to the doorway at Arem. Natasha wears the Anaximander stone.”

“The stone!” Shakes said. “I knew it!”

Nat’s hand flew to her neck as she stared at the sylph. “How did you . . . ?”

For his part, Wes did not answer, but remained wary.

“I can help you reach your destination,” she said.

Wes sighed. “Listen, I hate to break it to you, but you’re no better off on my ship than you were on your own. We lost our engines to the same thing that took Daran. There’s been no wind for days, and we’re down to eating twigs. You want to join us? Be my guest.”

32

THE SYLPH HAD NO ANSWER TO THAT OTHER than a cold gratitude, and Wes went with Shakes to check on the sail—they could hear it flapping, which meant a wind had finally kicked up.

They circled back again to look for Daran, but there was no sign of him; either the water or that thing in the water had claimed him. With Zedric in the hold, Wes ordered the family placed in his cabin, which was more comfortable. He went to check on their progress and found the parents lying on the bed, covered with a thin woolen blanket. Nat was sitting by their bedside, next to the two little ones.

“How are they doing?” he asked.

She cast him a stricken look that told him everything. They were dead. There was a cry of pain from the younger boy, and his brother soothed him.

“I’m so sorry,” Nat whispered, and only when the child turned to her did Wes realize his mistake. He had been wrong about the new passengers. The little ones were not children. They only looked like they were. The boys were smallmen.

Wes faced the group, taking a knee.

“This is Brendon and this is Roark,” Nat said, introducing them. Brendon had curly red hair and tears in his eyes. Roark was dark and stocky. They were the size of toddlers—three feet tall, but proportioned and fully grown; Wes had never met any before, but they struck him as being about his age. The smallfolk were said to be wily and malicious; they could see in the blackest dark and hide where no hiding place could be found, giving rise to their reputations as thieves and assassins. But the two in front of him looked nothing like the sort. They had ordinary, pleasant faces, and their clothing was rough-hewn and handmade.

It was Brendon who spoke. “Thank you for taking us on board.”

“I’m sorry about your friends,” said Wes, shaking his hand.

Brendon nodded, blinking back tears; he looked as if he were about to collapse. “They sheltered us from the raids when we were separated from our families. With their help, we found Liannan and the boat. We would not be here without them.”

The smallmen told them their story. They were refugees from Upper Pangaea, where the RSA had just taken over. The smallkind had lived in the open there, along with a few tribes of sylphs. It was peaceful for a time, but things started to change. Many of them were suffering, dying from the rot, the strange plague on the marked and magical that no medicine could cure. As part of the cleansing, they had been rounded up with the rest of the marked and others like them, herded and made to live in confined areas until they were moved somewhere else. So Brendon and Roark had hidden with their friends on their farm and survived for a time, hiding in the attic, in the recesses of the walls, but it became too dangerous. The neighbors had become suspicious, so they looked for passage and decided to undertake the dangerous voyage to the Blue, where they heard there was a cure.

For a while they had been lucky; their captain was savvy and the ship was fast, and they had made good time. Then they had hit a trashberg, and their ship began taking in water, which slowed them down. Supplies began to run out, then they were ambushed and drifted for weeks, with nothing to eat . . . and being human, the young couple had taken the worst of it. They had died of starvation.

Roark put his face in his hands and sobbed. They were great, terrible sobs, and Wes felt helpless around such grief. He wondered at the depth of feeling and was envious of it, in a perverse way. He hadn’t cried like that since his parents died, since he and Eliza had been separated. Wes had seen so many of his soldiers die before him, and felt nothing but an abstract, removed sadness. Perhaps if Shakes had perished, he would feel it . . . Wes clapped Roark on the shoulder a bit awkwardly. He looked to Nat for help.

“We’ll honor their life,” Nat said. “I’ll ask Liannan to help me prepare them for burial at sea.”

Nat and Wes left the room together, Nat moving quickly and Wes following right behind. But he stopped, feeling a sharp tug on his sleeve. He looked down and saw Brendon. The smallman had a pinched, anxious look on his face and was wringing his hands in worry.

“Captain . . .”

“Just call me Wes,” he said. “We don’t go by formalities here.”

“Wes, then.” Brendon nodded. “There are more of us—more boats out there—filled with our people, headed to the same place. But during the ambush we were separated.”

Wes nodded. He knew as much from seeing the slaughter on board their ship. “The ships that attacked you, did they carry this flag?” he asked, showing the red stars of the RSA.

The smallman nodded.

Wes wiped his brow. It was just as he’d suspected: Sniper boats were circling. “Look, I’d love to help out every pilgrim in this ocean, but we’re running as tight as we can, and we can’t take any more. We don’t have enough supplies to feed ourselves, let alone you guys. We’ll be lucky if we make it to the Blue before the goop runs out.”

“Then they are lost,” Brendon whispered.

Wes sighed. “How many ships?”

“Five . . . at most. We were following them toward the Hellespont, which is when the attack happened, and then we were separated by the trashbergs. We haven’t seen them since, but we know they’re out there. Some of them must have survived. They’re lost and hungry and they don’t have anyone. Liannan was leading us. They were following our boat.”

This was why he never took these jobs anymore, Wes realized. It was too much—he couldn’t save everybody—he couldn’t even keep his soldiers alive, let alone in line. Daran was lost, and while the kid was a jerk and a lowlife, he had still entrusted his life to Wes and Wes had failed him. He couldn’t keep doing this, there were so many . . . and he was too young to watch so many kids die. Now he was being asked to save a few more . . . for what? So that he could watch them starve? Or fall victim to frostblight? He blinked; his vision had gone black again, as if to remind him.

“Please,” Brendon said. “Please . . . just give them a chance. That’s all we’re asking.”

Wes looked down at him. They were called smallmen . . . maybe they had small appetites? He wondered how they would feel about eating bark. “Look, I’ll see what I can do. We’ll do one loop around Hell Strait and if we see anyone we’ll pick them up, but that’s it. I can’t waste time circling this drain.”

“Thank you!” Brendon said, shaking his hand vigorously. “Thank you!”

Wes handed him and Roark a few fried chicken wafers he’d been saving for a dire emergency. “What is it?” Brendon asked, staring at the foil-wrapped object.

“It’s not the healthiest thing in the world, but it tastes good—share it with your brother.”

“He’s not my brother,” Brendon said excitedly, but he was already tearing off the silver wrapper and inhaling the scent.

Wes’s cheeks creased in a sad smile. So many promises he had made already. To take Nat to the Blue. Now to scour the oceans for more of the smallkind. He was soft, he’d always been too soft; it was his Achilles heel, his heart.

33

LIANNAN PREPARED THE BODIES FOR burial with the help of Brendon and Roark. Nat lent a hand as well, helping to wrap the white cloth around each one, folding and tucking the linen so the fabric did not bunch. The smallmen were somber, silent tears rolling down their cheeks as they accomplished the difficult task of caring for their dead.

“We’re ready,” Nat told Wes and Shakes, who were waiting by the doorway respectfully. Farouk had made it clear he wanted no part of this and remained on the bridge, watching. Together the boys lifted the body of the man first, then the woman, and laid them out on the deck. The small funeral party followed them upstairs.

“Would you like to say a few words?” Liannan asked the weeping friends.

“Yes.” Brendon nodded. He folded his hands together and took a moment to compose himself. Nat thought he would not be able to do it, but finally he spoke, and his voice was strong and clear. “We say good-bye today to our friends Owen and Mallory Brown. They lived simple, brave lives and were taken from us too soon. We will forever honor their memory and cherish their friendship. We give them to the sea. May they rest in the light.”

“May they rest in the light,” Roark repeated.

Nat looked at Shakes and Wes to prompt them and the three of them echoed the smallmen’s words. “May they rest in the light,” they murmured.

The group looked to Liannan.

She moved toward the still, shrouded bodies. “Owen and Mallory, may the wings of the drakon guide you to the Eternal Haven.”

The sylph nodded, and Wes and Shakes lifted the first shroud to the edge of the deck, then the next, and gently rolled them off the ship, giving the dead to the waves.

Three dead in one day, Nat thought. Daran was one of their team, but there had been no funeral for him. No words spoken on his behalf, no blessings, but then, perhaps he had not been worthy of any. The dead couple had given their lives for their friends, but Daran would only have brought death to his team.

Liannan, Brendon, and Roark stood at the railing for a long time, watching the sea.

Wes took Nat aside. “We’ll put them in the crew cabin.”

“Right.” Nat nodded, understanding the plan. Space had opened up with Zedric in the hold and his brother lost.

“I’m going to move back, too,” Nat said to Wes. “To the crew cabin, I mean.”

“Oh?” Wes said, taken aback.

It made sense, now that Daran was no longer a factor. “Is there a problem?” she asked, not meaning to sound brusque. But if she was going to nip this whole thing in the bud, she had to do it now, and quickly.

Wes shrugged. “Do what you want; it doesn’t matter to me.”

“Right,” she said, and couldn’t help feeling just a little hurt at his tone. Even if she wanted to push him away, she was irritated he had given up so easily. Just a few hours ago he had held her hand for a second too long when she’d saved him from the waters.

“I’ll go, then,” she said, her pride getting the best of her.

“Fine,” he said, distracted, and walked off to the bridge to join Shakes.

Nat leaned against the wall. Well, that’s done. She wrapped her arms around herself against an arctic draft, lonelier than ever.

She soon regretted the rash decision to move her belongings back to the crew cabin. She should never have decided to move. The captain’s quarters were cozier, warmer, with a real bed. Now she was back to sleeping on a blanket on cold metal mesh.

She got the lowest bunk on the port side, and above her, Brendon snored softly, while above him, Roark’s nose whistled like a high-pitched teakettle. At least Farouk, who talked in his sleep, was at the helm, on duty, or else there would be three of them in a nighttime symphony.

Liannan had taken the hammock on the other end of the room, next to Shakes, and Nat heard the two of them whispering quietly in the dark with a newfound intimacy. She missed Wes, missed knowing he was near. It wasn’t really the noise that bothered her, she realized; in fact, she liked it, after living alone, to feel the comfort of people around her. She just missed him, missed him even though he was only a few feet away. Did he miss her? she wondered. When she finally drifted off to sleep, she had no dreams.

The next morning she awoke to hear Shakes yelling. She ran up to the deck and found him kicking at the rail. Wes was holding his hands to his own head in frustration.

“What happened?”

“Zedric. Farouk,” said Wes, his cheeks red with anger.

“What did they do?” Nat asked, feeling a stab of fear.

“They’re gone,” Shakes said.

“Gone?”

“They abandoned us last night. Took one of the lifeboats and left. Farouk must have busted Zedric out,” Wes explained. He was disappointed in Farouk; he understood Zedric’s anger, but he thought the skinny kid was on his side, he’d thought he was loyal. It was difficult not being able to count on his crew, he thought. It wasn’t always like that, especially not during the war. He and Shakes were the only survivors of Delph company, but there had been others: Ragdoll, Huntin’ John, Sanjiv. All good men, all gone now.

“We’re lucky they didn’t kill us in our sleep,” Nat said.

Shakes pounded the nearest wall. “They took the rest of the supplies, left us with nothing. Not even a twig to chew on.”

“But why? They won’t survive for long out there; why would they take that risk?” asked Nat.

“Snipers took out the crew of the other ship. Somehow, one of them must have noticed, and figured that they’d rather take their chances with the RSA than with us,” said Wes.

“They’re probably eating navy rations now, while we’re going to starve,” Shakes said moodily, lifting each bin and finding it empty.

The rest of the group was gathered around the galley hopefully, but there was nothing to be found. Brendon removed a few crumbly wafers that Wes had given him from his pocket and shared them with the group.

“Thanks,” Nat said, smiling. Brendon was the same age as she, but with a wise man’s face, and Roark a little older. They weren’t brothers, but from the same tribe, it turned out. Distant cousins, maybe. The genealogy of the smallkind was too complicated for Nat to understand, although Brendon had tried to explain earlier. She bit into the cracker. “I haven’t had these since I was a kid.”

“I have never had one before,” Brendon said. “It is a very interesting flavor.”

“We’re surrounded by water, and there’s nothing to eat. Where we’re from, we cut through the ice and fish,” Roark said.

“Truly?” Shakes asked, curious. “All the fish I’ve ever had was some kind of replacement substitute. I thought the oceans were dry.”

“Not our part of it,” Roark said.

Nat shook her head. Why hadn’t she realized it before? Fish . . . the flash of the redback’s tail beneath the water . . .

Of course!

34

“I DON’T KNOW WHY I DIDN’T THINK of it before!” Nat said, her face lighting up. “We can find food.”

“Where?” Shakes asked. Even Liannan looked intrigued, although the sylph had explained that her kind did not require very much sustenance, which is why they were long-lived.

“Out there!” Nat said, pointing to the gray sea through the porthole.

Shakes shook his head. “Aw, man, I thought you had a real idea. There’s nothing out there but trash.”

“No, no,” Nat insisted. “I was there—the day that—the day that we hit the trashbergs. With Daran and Zedric. We were looking out to the sea and we saw them . . . redbacks. There are fish out there.”

Wes sighed. “There haven’t been fish in the ocean since—”

“I’m telling you, we saw them. And Daran said he’d seen them before.” It dawned on her now what the Slaine brothers had been doing that week before Daran had drowned, when they were sneaking off by themselves. They were fishing! They were eating and hiding it from the rest of the crew.

“If you’re right, then I can do it,” Roark said. “Donnie can help.”

“Yes.” Brendon beamed, glad to be useful.

“Too bad we don’t have any poles,” Wes said. “Or bait, for that matter.”

Roark was undeterred. “Poles are not necessary for this endeavor. The essence of fishing is a good line. Something strong enough to hold the redback’s weight, but light enough to allow the sinker to pull the line down. Any ideas?”

Wes smiled. Nat could tell he liked the way Roark thought. “I saw a spool of wires in the bilge, not the heavy stuff—it might be light enough to work.” He nodded to Shakes, who headed down to look for the wires.

“Next to the starboard . . . ,” Wes called.

Shakes put up a hand. “I know where it is, boss.”

“But is it safe to eat?” Nat asked. “With all the toxins in the black water?”

Wes shrugged. “It’s not ideal, but we can take the risk. We need to eat.”

Nat agreed.

An hour later the group had crafted two fishing poles, using metal tubing from the deck rails and the spool of wire Shakes found in the bilge. “There, that’ll do.” Roark nodded.

Wes made hooks from bent nails and handed them to Nat, who finished the poles by threading the spinners and hooks onto the long delicate wire.

Roark and Brendon grabbed the poles and got to work. Nat watched as they each cut a swatch of cloth from Brendon’s shirt and tied it around the wire. The cloth would act as a marker just above the waterline. If a fish tugged at the line, the little red swatch would disappear below the water. Cool.

Nat turned to Roark. “What about bait?”

Wes sighed. “We’ve got nothing to spare. I might be able to pull a worm from somewhere under the decks, but that’s about it.”

“Again, that is not a problem,” Roark continued. “Only the bottom-feeders like worms. We don’t want to eat those anyway; they’re full of lead and who knows what else. We’ll be fishing near the surface where the water is a little cleaner. As for bait, we don’t need food. Watch.” Roark and Brendon whispered a few words, took a chunk of metal, and placed it on the hook.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Small magic,” Brendon said, grinning.

“A little something to attract the fish,” Roark said. “Once it’s in the water, it will spin and dance just like a little minnow. When the fish start biting, there will be more.”

Nat had been doubtful at first, but Roark’s idea suddenly seemed real. Her hopes soared: Perhaps they would eat today after all.

“It’s true, then, what they say about you guys,” Shakes said excitedly.

“What do they say?” Roark asked, his eyes narrowed, obviously knowing the deadly rumors about the smallfolk among mortal kind.

“Only that you are cleverer than most,” Nat said gently. “Isn’t that right, Shakes?”

“I can help, too,” Liannan said, as she leapt from the boat and onto the icy sea, her slender form light enough that she could walk on water. The group watched in delight, and Shakes looked downright worshipful.

The smallmen cast their lines and the sylph gasped. “They’re coming!” she said. “I see them down below.”

Liannan tiptoed back onto the boat and joined Nat in watching the little red dot bounce along the surface. Roark gave the line a little jerk, trying to set the hook. They didn’t have reels, so they had to wind the wire around the pole as they raised the line. Halfway up he stopped. “He got away,” Roark mumbled. He looked up from the ice at the disappointed faces of the crew. “Patience—we’ll get him next time.”

It took three tries before Roark finally hooked a redback and was able to pull the fish to the surface before it escaped from its crude hook. After the second catch, the two smallmen were shivering, and Roark handed his pole to the sylph, who cast the line far out into the water. Nat did the same with the second pole that Brendon had handed her, throwing the line as far as she could.

Nat kept one eye on the red cloth and the other on the horizon. The shadows seemed to stretch longer as each minute passed. She was ready to give up when she finally pulled her first redback from the water. “I got one!” she cried, and Liannan hurried to help her wind up the wire. The red fish went wild when it landed on the deck. Nat nearly had to jump on top of it to stop it from flopping back into the waves. She laughed out loud as she held the fish in her bare hands. Its skin was as cold as ice and slippery like oil. Its muscular body flexed forcefully against her grasp. Nat realized at that moment that other than the bird a few days earlier, she’d never held a wild animal before. The redback thrashed in her grasp and Nat’s heart beat wildly. Is this what we’ve lost? she thought. Is this what the ice has taken from us? She wondered if that was what the Blue would be like, the redback so full of life that it was almost a shame to eat it.

Somehow, the redbacks had brought a warm current with them, a clean stream of unpolluted water. “What is that?” she asked Liannan.

“Water from the Blue,” the sylph said. “The oceans are melting, the world is changing, returning to what it was.”

The girls pulled two more redbacks from the icy water before the fish stopped biting.

Before they lifted their last one from the cold water, Shakes was already frying the fish. He and Wes had cleaned and prepared the day’s catch, gutting them, pulling out the bones but otherwise keeping the fish whole. The stove in the galley was busted, so Shakes had rigged up an impromptu one by mounting a cylinder of propane under a flat metal plate. The propane burned wildly—it looked like he was searing the fish with a flamethrower—but it worked.

“Redback à la Shakes,” he said cheerfully, serving up the plates.

The group gathered around the table with their plates of fish. Wes looked around at the expectant faces. “Well, what are you all waiting for? Eat,” he admonished. “I told you, we don’t stand on ceremony on my ship.”

Nat was a little skeptical, seeing the skin was charred on the outside, but she changed her mind as she soon as she cut into it. The flesh was white and moist. She took a bite and smiled.

She couldn’t remember enjoying a better meal. She remembered the small, silent meals at home, nuked fauxburgers while she watched a show on the nets. Even once she’d hired Wes’s team she had eaten alone, feeling uneasy in the company of the Slaine brothers.

Brendon and Roark had found a rare jug of mead among the Nutri cans, and were pouring glasses all around.

“More small magic?” asked Nat.

Brendon nodded. “If only it had been enough to save our friends.”

At the end of dinner, she saw Shakes and Liannan moving slightly away from the group. Nat felt some relief to discover that the lovely sylph was more interested in the first mate than the captain.

“He’s got it bad, that one,” Brendon noted, motioning to the two.

“Aye, that was fast. But then, can you blame him? She’s a sight.” Roark smiled dreamily. “They’re not called the Fair Folk for nothing.”

“He’s not bad-looking himself,” Brendon teased as he took Roark’s hand in his.

Ah. So that was their connection. Not brothers, after all. Not at all, Nat smiled.

Outside, on the deck, Shakes leaned closely to the ethereal sylph, and Nat could see that Liannan didn’t seem to mind. Nat turned away from them to say something to Wes but stopped. The glow left her cheeks.

Wes wasn’t there. His chair was empty.

35

THE NEW CREW SETTLED INTO PLACE. Brendon was better at plotting a course than Farouk had been. Something in the trashbergs made the compass go haywire and swing out of control, something Farouk had never been able to adjust for, which was why they had run into the trashbergs and veered out of course. Now that everyone knew about the stone, there was no more pretense concerning their destination—the Blue. Nat would spend the mornings up at the helm with them while Wes consulted the map, holding the blue stone up to his eye while he made corrections on the navigational pad. Brendon made concessions for the compass and plotted their course on the back of a coffee-stained document he found in the engine room. If they had continued to follow the compass, as Farouk had done, they would have kept traveling in circles.

But with Brendon at the bridge, they kept to a straight line. He guided the ship deftly past the mounds of trash that cluttered the ocean. His small hands moved nimbly—he seemed to have a natural feeling for how Alby would react as he turned the wheel. Whereas Farouk preferred to smash through the smaller piles of ice and trash, Brendon moved gracefully around the obstructions, swerving through the crowded ocean without ever once hitting the debris. It made for a much smoother ride—free of the constant scraping sound that the ship made when Farouk had sailed it through the ocean.

While Brendon kept them headed in the right direction, Roark commandeered the galley and the daily fishing. They were finally making good time and their fear of starving began to fade. It was a better crew than he’d ever had before, Wes thought. They worked as a team, like one unit, functioning smoothly. Some nights they were downright merry, with Nat leading the card games, and teaching them to play gin, whist, and snap, or poker if they were feeling punchy. The smallmen taught them the Layman’s Code, a way to communicate by knocking, as well as games they knew: Smallman’s Secret and Who’s the Sprat. Liannan tried to teach them a game from her people, but it was too complicated and involved high-pitched whistling and singing no one could imitate or understand.

Liannan and Shakes tried to keep their budding romance under wraps, and aside from Shakes grinning like a maniac all day and Liannan blushing whenever he was near, they merely appeared to be very close friends, laughing over their cards, or teasing each other when the other had failed to guess the Smallman’s Secret.

Wes was glad for Shakes, but he was also apprehensive for his friend; he had no idea what Shakes was thinking. In his experience, it was best not to get involved, but he was also a little envious of his friend’s happiness. Nat had made it clear that she wasn’t interested in him, and he respected her wishes, even if being so close and yet so far from her made him feel uneasy. The sooner he dropped her off at the Blue, the better for everyone. Then he could turn around and forget they had ever met.

That morning, she was standing too close to him again, helping them navigate through the strait. “Here you go,” he said, handing her back the stone when the task was done. His fingers brushed her palm, but he had learned to ignore the electric feeling, and he walked away from her quickly.

Nat watched him leave the bridge, feeling troubled at his abrupt departure. It was all for the best, truly, since there was no chance of them being together. But when she found him by the railing a few hours later, she went to him without thinking. “Your sister?” Nat asked, looking over his shoulder to the picture in his hand.

“Yeah, that’s Eliza.”

He showed her the photo of a little girl in a puffy snowsuit, standing next to a snowman. He was in the picture, too, his chubby arm slung around his sister’s shoulders.

Nat stared at it for a long time. “How old did you say she was when she was taken?”

“Let me see—I was seven.”

“And so was she.”

His eyes crinkled. “Shakes told you, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“We were twins, but I came out first. She’s always been my little sister.”

“So what happened to her—really?”

Wes sighed. It was hard to talk about. He didn’t remember much. “There was a fire,” he said quietly. “Smoke alarms didn’t work. It came out of nowhere and then it was everywhere.”

A fire that came out of nowhere. Nat felt a chill in her entire body. No. It couldn’t be true. “She burned?”

He gripped the picture tighter. “No, that’s the thing . . . they never found a body. They said she must have disintegrated into ashes, but come on, there would have been something . . . something to identify her . . .”

Fire and pain. She closed her eyes and could see it. The smoky ruins . . . the child burning within the flames . . .

“She’s alive. She has to be. She’s out there somewhere,” he said.

“I’m so sorry,” Nat whispered. She was sorrier than he ever knew.

“It’s okay.” He echoed the words she had told him the other day. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Nat did not respond. She wanted to reach out to him, but it was as if he were behind a wall of glass. He would hate her now. He would always hate her. She didn’t need to push him away, she already had. The fire. The child. The fire that came from nowhere. The child that was taken.

“Wes, there’s something you should know about me . . . ,” she said, her voice almost inaudible, just as Shakes burst from the helm.

“More ships!” he said. “Roark spotted them in the trashbergs; kid’s got eyes like a fighter pilot.”

Wes stood up straight. “RSA?”

“Not sure. Still too far to tell,” Shakes said, as he followed Wes out to the deck.

Roark was climbing down from the crow’s nest. He reported his findings. “They don’t carry the flag.”

“The engines are too loud, too,” Wes said. He took out his scope and looked out at the distant horizon. He focused the glass and he could see them better. He could hear them, too.

There was the sound of gunfire and cannons.

Brendon walked off the bridge and stood next to Roark. “What is it?”

“A battle,” Wes said, still peering at the ships through his lenses, watching bullets fly between them. “Between two slavers, it looks like.” He recognized them by their silhouette. The two massive ships were so overloaded with junk, they looked more like shantytowns than ships. It was just as he’d feared when the navy ships left them alone.

“Slavers,” Brendon whispered. “That can’t be good.”

Nat felt dread, thinking of the slavers from K-Town she had seen. Hard men, with flinty eyes and ugly tattoos.

“Looks like they’re both Jolly’s crew,” Wes said, handing her the binoculars so that she could see the skull and bones painted on both of the ships.

“Who’s Jolly?” asked Nat, returning the glasses back to him.

“‘Jolly’ Roger Stevens, otherwise known as the biggest icehole who’s ever sailed the ocean gray,” Shakes muttered.

“So why are they fighting themselves?” she asked.

They watched as the ships converged. One was clearly following the other, its crew preparing to board the smaller ship. They collided with a crash, and a moment later, the two crews were engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Men toppled into the sea. Gunfire mixed with grunts and laughter.

“Slavers rob each other all the time; it’s easier than roaming the sea for pilgrims,” Wes explained.

“With any luck they’ll destroy each other,” Shakes said. “Then we can just drift away . . .”

“Have we ever been that lucky?” Wes sighed. “But go back to the helm and try to get us behind one of the trashbergs. Maybe we can hide.”

Alby moved toward a floating junk pile, and for a moment, Wes thought they might be lucky after all. But then the gunfire ceased. The scavengers stopped fighting.

Wes looked though the scope, studying the two ships, and realized why the attack had stopped—the slave cages on the defending ship were almost as empty as their attacker’s—there was hardly any loot to fight over.

He zeroed in on the two captains, who were meeting on the deck of one ship. They shook hands and turned, seeming to look straight at him.

The slavers had spotted them.

And it was clear: They were next.

36

WES CALCULATED HIS ODDS. HE HAD Shakes, a blackjack dealer, a sylph, and two smallmen on his side, and none of them except he and Shakes were experienced in combat. He told Shakes to stand at his side and ordered everyone else belowdecks to the lifeboats.

But no one moved.

“We want to fight,” Brendon said bravely, as Roark nodded. “We’re not going to run anymore.”

“You’re not getting rid of us this easily,” added Nat.

Liannan was already scouting the slavers’ approach. “If you have a plan, I recommend you share it with us now. They’ll be upon us soon.”

“Look, it’s not that I don’t appreciate your courage,” Wes said. “But these guys are a rough bunch—Shakes and I have dealt with them before. Let us deal with them now. One wrong word and any of you could end up dead. Everyone get down to the lower deck; if we’re boarded, take a lifeboat out—it has a small motor on it, it might give you guys some time, put some space between you and them,” Wes said, taking out his gun. “Brendon, Roark—do you know how to use one of these?”

“We do not use iron,” Brendon said, pulling out a silver dagger from his pocket. “But we are armed. And we have Liannan with us.”

“She wasn’t much help with the snipers who took out your old crew,” Wes reminded.

“I did not see them,” Liannan said coldly, as she appeared on the deck to join the group. “The ships are made of iron—which repels our power.”

“Too bad.” Wes sighed. “We could really use some help right now.”

“I’m staying up here with you guys. I’m not leaving,” Nat said. “I can fight.” She locked eyes with Wes, until he nodded.

“Okay. But if we’re boarded, we don’t have a chance,” he said.

“Then we’ll die together,” she said. It was all you could ask for, she thought.

“Boss—” Shakes said, turning to Wes. “Remember, if it comes to that, take me out, before they get here. I’d rather die here than in a cage. Shoot me first, okay?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Wes said, gritting his teeth, his heart pumping. “It’s not going to come to that, I keep telling you.”

“It’s not?” Shakes attempted a smile even as his face was paler than the sail.

“Still want to stay up here?” Wes asked Nat.

She nodded. “That lifeboat is a death trap. I’d rather die fighting than starve in the ocean.”

“Have it your way, but if we can’t take them out, we’ll take out each other,” Wes said.

Shakes put out a trembling hand. “Deal.”

Wes slapped his on top. Nat followed suit. “Done.” Liannan and the smallmen added theirs.

Their deaths accounted for, Wes sighed. “All right, if you want to fight, start by staying out of sight. We need to conceal our numbers. Grab something heavy and hide.” He motioned to Nat, pointing out a place behind one of the sidewalls where she could disappear. Brendon and Roark understood immediately and stashed themselves behind some clutter on the deck, disappearing completely. Wes looked around for Liannan, but she was already gone. Nat noticed his confusion and pointed upward. The girl had shimmied up the mast and was hiding among the sails, her slight, elven form almost invisible in the billowing fabric.

Nat crouched down with the boys. They waited, holding their breath, not speaking. She could hear the sound of the engines getting louder.

One of the slave ships sped toward their boat, the battering ram on its bow pushing ice and debris aside as it plowed through the water.

Wes raised a hand for quiet and motioned to Shakes, pointing toward the bow of the approaching ship. The soldier crawled to the back end of the big gun on the deck. The weapon wasn’t much to look at, but it packed a whopping punch. Wes had welded the base of an old howitzer behind a metal shield. The shield allowed someone to aim and fire the gun and have some degree of cover. The short-armed gun was like a miniature cannon and fired rounds as large as baseballs. It would have been a formidable weapon if only they had more than one round of ammunition for it. Shakes checked to see whether the barrel was loaded and nodded to Wes.

They only had one shot, so they needed to make it count. Wes waited until the ship was close. If they could score a good hit, they might be able to sink the slave ship before it got close enough for its crew to swim to them. Even a good hit might scare them away if they thought he had more ammo.

Wes considered his strategy: He wanted to scare the slavers away before they could see how poorly armed his crew was, but the farther the slavers were from them, the harder it would be to hit the ship.

So he waited as long as he could and then nodded to Shakes.

His friend took his time aiming the big gun. The sighting mechanism was missing, so Shakes had to guess to hit his mark.

The ship was a mile away . . . half a mile . . .

Wes was about to yell at Shakes when the soldier finally pulled the trigger.

The cannon-size gun let loose with such a bang that the whole deck shook, and the air filled with a thin cloud of smoke.

But when the smoke cleared, the slavers were still coming for them. The shot had gone wide, hitting a patch of ice thirty feet from the vessel.

Shakes cursed and Wes climbed behind the thick metal shield. “It’s not your fault,” he told Shakes, his eyes never leaving the slave ship. “The charge in that thing is decades old; it’s a miracle that gun even fired.”

The two of them watched, hands on their sidearms, as the ship moved closer. The vessel was like theirs, a run-down, put-together affair, but unlike Alby, which had been lovingly restored, the slave ship had a hodgepodge look. Its hull had been reinforced by car hoods, refrigerator doors, corrugated sheets of metal, a lumbering patchwork of junk. Smoke drifted from its chimneys. Wes spied several ominous-looking gun barrels poking through the metal maze.

The ship was so close now that they could hear the slavers speaking to one another.

Everyone huddled in their places and waited.

“What are they saying?” Roark whispered to Nat.

She strained to hear. “I’m not sure.” The slavers’ language sounded brutal to her ear, a corruption, all consonants and no vowels. Then she realized they were actually speaking textlish, a language that was only designed to be written, not spoken—even though she’d heard it in pockets of K-Town, and once in a while when she was a dealer in Vegas.

The slave ship was right next to them now; the mercenaries had tossed over a rope ladder and were boarding their ship. A raggedy troop of hard-looking boys and men climbed aboard, along with a few scary-looking women, holding guns and sharpened steel shanks. Nat counted thirty of them.

Across from her, Wes holstered his gun.

“What are you doing?” she asked, horrified. They had planned to fight. But now it looked as if Wes was just going to give up.

“If we fight, we’ll die. There’s too many of them, I thought they were only going to send a small strike crew, but we can’t take all of them,” he said. “It would be suicide. We have to surrender.”

“But we said—”

Wes didn’t let her finish. “I’m going to let them take us; maybe I can talk my way out of it—I know these guys. And if not, it’ll give me some time to think of another way out.”

“Another way?” Nat said pointedly.

“Don’t worry—I would never give them your necklace,” he said. “I promise. I would eat it first.” He grinned.

Wes nodded to Shakes and the rest of the team. Slowly, he came out from behind the shield of the howitzer, raising his arms in surrender. The group followed suit. There was no argument, no debate. Wes marveled at that; they were better at following orders than his old unit. The smallmen dropped the daggers they’d drawn for battle; Liannan descended the mast and walked regally to the front, holding her robes around her, Shakes hovering protectively nearby. Nat went last.

The slavers murmured and gestured to one another, as they surrounded the small group. Two of them took Wes. They bore the same scars, like scratches from cats or branches, on their cheeks. Wes knew that the lowest of the slaver clans cut their babies’ cheeks at birth. The scars grew as part of their faces—forever marking them as people of the black ocean.

“That’s it? That’s all your numbers?” the largest one demanded. Wes noted that his face lacked the scars—this man had grown up outside of the slaver clans. He spoke the standard tongue, but his words were barely comprehensible. He stank like the sea and his clothes were stained and tattered; he would probably wear the rags until they disintegrated.

“Yes,” Wes replied.

“Thought you ran a bigger crew than this, two soldiers and four passengers?”

“We lost a few,” Wes said.

There was a murmur in the crowd, and the mercenaries quieted down, parting for the appearance of the ship’s captain. Nat stifled a gasp. It was the familiar face of Avo Hubik, the Slob, the slaver from whom she’d won their ship. Just as in K-Town, Avo was sleek and handsome, his black eyes as deep as the night. Like the slaver who’d spoken, his smooth, handsome face was without scars, but he did sport a skeleton tattoo on his forearm. Nat noticed the scar above his eyebrow was almost the same shape and on the same spot as the one on Wes’s forehead. Coincidence, she wondered, or something else?

Avo walked up on the deck with a smile on his face.

He stopped when he saw Nat and his smile broadened. “Ah, there you are. Just as I suspected, you were too cheap to be a proper trophy. I should have known you were working for this guy,” he said, pointing to Wes.

Wes shrugged as if he weren’t caught in a trap. He matched Avo’s leisurely pose. Two old friends and adversaries meeting again.

“Slob, nice to see you again,” Wes said with a grin. “It’s been too long.”

“Wesson,” Avo said. “I have warned you many times not to call me that.”

Wes laughed. “Let us go, Slob. You can have your ship back—but I’m warning you, don’t touch my crew.”

“I have my ship back, didn’t you notice? Your dear old Albatross is aptly named,” the slaver said, no longer smiling. “And as for your crew . . .” His eyes flicked over to the girls, lingering on Nat.

“Don’t even think about it, pervert,” Wes warned.

Avo laughed. “Don’t worry, Wesson, your sloppy seconds aren’t my style,” he sneered.

Wes began to talk faster. “Hey, man, come on, be cool, you know me, let me work for you. I’ve got a good crew here, you know I can double the area you’d normally be able to cover in a day. Jolly won’t even have to pay me my usual fee—I’ll take a cut as a favor.” He smiled his easy, charming smile. Running another con, but this wasn’t a safari guide or a lazy seeker team. This was the most feared scavenger in the black waters.

Avo laughed a short, nasty laugh. “Bradley said you’d turned soft, but I didn’t believe it. Seeing you with a bunch of girls and dwarves, I guess he was right. Now I understand why you didn’t have the nerve to take the job,” he sneered.

“What’s he talking about?” Nat asked, looking at Wes. “What job?”

37

AVO LAUGHED AGAIN. “TELL HER, WHY don’t you? About how Bradley offered you good work, easy enough, hunting down pilgrims in the black waters. Cleaning up the ocean of trash. Lucky for us, you didn’t take it. Looks like you decided to join them instead.”

Wes sighed. This wasn’t going as he’d hoped.

The second slave ship pulled up next to Alby. This one was similar to the first, with a long line of cargo containers dangling like cages from the edges of the deck. Its captain, a lean, bald, and surly-looking pirate, boarded the ship. His skin was pale and jaundiced, unlike the scavengers of old with their nut-brown sunburned faces. But the sun’s rays did not reach the ocean anymore; it was as gray out here as it was anywhere else in the world, and so the slavers were as pale as any citizen of New Vegas. Like Avo, Wes noticed, the new guy was carrying a military locator on his hip.

The bald slaver was known as the Ear, Wes remembered now. Called that because he was missing his right one. His ship was the Van Gogh. “This is all we got?” he asked, looking contemptuously at Wes’s scraggly crew.

“Looks like.” Avo nodded. “The boys checked it out. A lifeboat’s gone, but that’s all. They lost a couple along the way, Wesson said.”

The Ear spat on the deck. It was clear he didn’t think much of the ship. Wes noticed burn marks on his jacket and wondered whether the slaver had taken them from his earlier fight with Avo.

“Toss for it?” Avo asked, throwing a silver coin in the air.

“Heads,” the Ear called.

“Tails,” Avo showed him the back of the coin. He smiled and pointed right at Nat. “That one.”

“No! Don’t hurt her!” Wes yelled. “Avo, I swear to god if you—”

“Wait—wait—” Nat said, as Avo removed a blade from his back pocket and walked toward her. She cringed from his touch.

“Relax . . . ,” the slaver said, pulling up her sleeve. He marked the skin on her hand with a crooked S.

Wes struggled against the men holding him. “I need to warn you . . . she’s marked!”

The slaver grinned. “Exactly. Marked but still healthy. Which is why I want her—she’ll fetch a higher price at the markets. Vardick, take her to the Titan.” He nodded to one of the mercenaries, who grabbed Nat by her cut hand.

“Wes—!” she cried.

“Nat! Don’t fight them—don’t—”

But Nat kicked at Vardick, and in turn he knocked her on the side of her head with the butt of his rifle, and she went down hard on the deck.

“Don’t mess up her face,” Avo said, annoyed. “They don’t like when they’re too beat-up looking.”

Wes broke away from the grip of the pirates holding him and spun around, burying his fist in the nearest slaver’s gut, breaking his ribs and sending him to the ground. The slavers had a lot of brute force, but none of them really knew how to fight. The man was twice Wes’s size, but he’d hardly had a chance to move before Wes struck him. His military training proved handy in moments like this, and right now, with slavers on all sides, he’d take on the whole crew if he had to.

“Enough of that,” Avo said, languidly raising his pistol. “Or I’ll make you watch what they do to her.”

Wes froze and surrendered. The pirate he’d defeated kicked him in the back and he fell to the deck.

“Next,” the Ear said, “I’ll take Vibrate over here.”

Liannan shot Shakes a worried glance as the Ear’s men took him to their side. Shakes didn’t make a sound as they nicked his ear with a cut. Blood dripped from the wound.

Avo studied the rest of the group. “I’ll take the sylph,” he said finally. “Maybe Jolly’ll want her for his collection.”

Liannan kept her hands behind her back. She didn’t want to carry their brand. But it was useless, as a pair of Avo’s men tag-teamed her, forced her hand open, and carved it.

“The smallkind.” The Ear pointed. “I’ll take them both, two for the price of one, eh?”

Like Shakes, Roark and Brendon did not cry or scream when their ears were cut. Wes was proud of his crew. He only hoped he had an idea to get them out of this. He hadn’t lied to Nat, but the situation looked more dire than he’d thought. He had counted on all of them being on the same ship. But now that they were being split between two . . . it would be harder to rescue them all.

“What are you doing with the little ones?” Avo asked, curious.

“Outlaw territories—circus will pay a lot for ’em.”

“I’ll take Wesson here,” Avo said languidly.

Wes kept a smile on his face as the pirate slashed his hand. “You’ll regret this, Slob. I promise you. Remember that. Warn Jolly, too. I’ll come for him when I come for you.”

They were brave, empty words, he knew, but he hoped it would give his people courage. And he was glad that at the very least Nat was with him.

“Vincent!” Liannan screamed, as the two groups were dragged to their respective ships.

But Shakes didn’t even look up. He had already given up, Wes thought, and maybe so should he.

38

THE BACK END OF THE TITAN served as a village for the captives, with cargo containers arranged in a horseshoe along the perimeter of the deck. The containers were mounted so that half of the box was sitting on the deck and other half was hanging over the water. The arrangement allowed for more space on the deck, but Wes guessed the scavengers weren’t after efficiency. Left to hang in the cold ocean air, the cages would be doubly cold and any attempt at escape would likely land you in the black waters.

The only way in or out was through a heavy iron door locked by a bolt as big around as Wes’s arm. There was a jagged hole in the middle of it, enough to let in some light. A gray-skinned scavenger pressed the point of his blade to Wes’s back as he pointed to a cage’s open door, and Wes walked in, Nat right behind. Through holes in the steel floor, they could see the dark ocean waters rushing below them. The loud rush of moving water echoed inside the box, making the two of them shiver. The cage felt ten degrees cooler than the ship’s deck.

Hanging above the water, there was nothing to insulate them from the freezing ocean.

Wes smelled ripe fruit and nuts, and for a moment he forgot the cold as he looked around for food. But the cargo box was empty. He wondered whether there was something outside their door, but he saw nothing. He thought for a second that the cold was starting to play tricks on his mind. He panicked, then realized what he was smelling. In faded orange letters he caught sight of the NU-Foods logo on one of the walls. The company specialized in “New Foods for You”—food that didn’t require refrigeration or cooking. You simply stored them in a cupboard and used them as needed. The foods were guaranteed fresh and bacteria-free for decades. Stock up for a century!—or something like that. He’d forgotten the tagline. Immortal food. The smell of NU-Foods remained strong. The smell would be here when the world ended. It was the cockroach of foods—indestructible even in its grossness.

Wes laughed and so did Nat. They were about to starve, smelling nothing but processed food products.

Her smile faded quickly. He could tell she had something on her mind. “Is it true? What the Slob said?” Nat asked. “About the job?”

Wes sighed. “Yeah. It’s true. I was offered the same job he’s doing.” He told Nat about the mission he’d turned down. This isn’t work, it’s murder, he’d told Bradley. “The RSA uses slavers to kill or torture its own citizens. They didn’t care what I did with the pilgrims—as long as I made them disappear. If the Blue is real, they don’t want anyone else finding it.”

“You must have quite a reputation,” Nat said thoughtfully.

“Yeah, well, I turned them down, didn’t I? This is all my fault; I shouldn’t have let you leave New Vegas.”

“It was my choice,” she said. “It’s not your fault.”

“It is exactly my fault, but I’m hoping Avo will listen to me. We have history together. He’ll hear me out, at least. He’s had his fun and his revenge; he’s won already. I’m in a cage.”

“You and Avo—you have the same scar on your right eyebrow. But you said Shakes hit you with a pickax. That it was an accident.”

Wes grimaced, looking uncomfortable. “I’ll tell you sometime.”

“He was in the service with you, wasn’t he? Avo Hubik. They said he’s from New Thrace, but he can’t be, he doesn’t have an accent. I wondered about that when I won Alby. By the way, I always thought ‘Alby’ was short for ALB-187, but Avo called it the Albatross.”

“It’s an old joke between us, that that ship’s more of a burden than anything. You’re right, he’s not from Thrace; he’s ex-army—we served in the same unit,” Wes said. “Now he’s a mercenary, just like me.”

“What happens if you aren’t able to persuade him to show us some mercy just because of the good old days?”

Wes sat. “Well, if I know Avo, one of these days he’s going to get distracted, or lazy, and I can bust us out, get all of us the hell out of here.”

“And if that doesn’t work? We’ll be auctioned off as slaves, right? I mean if we’re lucky, that’s what’ll happen. Because if no one wants us, they’re going to sell us to the flesh markets, won’t they? The outlaw territories are starving. And they’ll take any kind of meat.” She shuddered. She’d heard the dark rumors about the flesh trade—first they blinded the slaves with acid, then skinned them alive before butchering them for parts.

“It’s not going to come to that, Nat. I won’t let it. Remember our pact?”

Nat didn’t answer. “But why did he say I’d fetch a higher price . . . What do they do with the marked?”

“I don’t know.” Wes wouldn’t meet her eye.

“You do, you just don’t want to tell me.” Nat felt her stomach twist. Wes was trying to hold it together, but she saw the fear in his eyes that he was trying hard to hide, and she remembered how young he was then. How young they all were. He was the best at pretending. He kept his cool, made them believe he was older and in control. But he was only sixteen. He was still just a boy. All of them children and orphans. Slob was the worst of them, Nat realized, the meanest bully on the playground.

The cold seemed to nip at them from all directions. There were no distractions, nothing to see or do. The days and nights were unnaturally long, and always, there was the arctic wind, burning like a fire that offered no heat.

For the next several days they were kept in the cage with nothing to eat, nothing to drink but melted icicles that formed around the corners. Nat felt fine at first, but on the third day she felt too dizzy to even sit up. She was claustrophobic in the cage, drained of energy, hungrier than she’d ever been. She tried to sleep, but her body shook every time the wind whistled through the bullet holes. The frigid air would sweep across her skin, waking her from her sleep as it robbed her reddened cheeks of their last drops of moisture.

Nat heard a tearing sound and she thought for a moment that the crate was about to fall to the water below. She looked up and saw Wes ripping a long strip of fabric from the liner of his vest.

“What are you doing?”

He didn’t answer; he just kept tearing another long strip from his clothes.

“You’re going to freeze! Stop it!”

“Here,” he said, handing her the longer one. “Eat it.”

“What is it?” she asked, too weak to reach for it.

“It’s Bacon Fruit. Tastes like fruit, looks like bacon. The military rolls them into these polyiso tubes. Poly’s basically the stuff they use to make home insulation. The liner keeps the dried fruit fresh for years. Shakes and I discovered it makes for cheap personal insulation just as easily, so we stuffed our jackets with them.” She watched as Wes reached inside the lining of his vest and tore a long strip of fabric from inside it.

“I was trying to save it until we really needed it. Looks like that day has come. I never actually thought I’d end up eating the stuff.” He took a bite and smiled. “Tastes worse than it looks.”

He was wrong. Nat thought it was the most delicious lining she had ever eaten. The hunger faded for a moment as she chewed.

In the morning, the guard pushed tin cups of gruel and water through the hole in the door. Along with the Bacon Fruit, it was enough to keep them from starving to death, but that was all.

Still, every time the door banged, Nat was sure it was Slob; she hadn’t liked the way he had looked at her—she could almost see the watts in his eyes. But as the days passed and nothing happened, Nat began to think that maybe he had forgotten about her, or that maybe Wes had been able to talk him out of selling her for now.

What did they do with the marked? Why did they fetch a higher price at the markets?

Nat could hear Liannan in the storage container next door, which meant that the sylph was still alive. But what about Shakes and the smallmen? She wondered how they were faring, and prayed that they were still alive.

She fell asleep on Wes’s shoulder, when she heard a soft voice call her name in the darkness.

“Nat? Nat? Can you hear me?”

“Liannan!” Nat said.

“I can’t talk long, the iron is too strong, but I can project my voice a little. I’m scared, Nat.”

“Don’t be. Wes will get us out of here. He will, I know he will.”

“It’s all this iron,” Liannan said softly. “If only there was a way to get out of this cage.”

“Maybe there is,” Wes said, piping up, “if I know these guys. By tomorrow they’ll be bored and they might let us out of here. Which is good and bad.”

“Bad how?”

“Because when slavers are bored, they make the slaves put on a show.”

39

WES WAS RIGHT. A FEW DAYS LATER THE slavers let them out into the open. Nat was glad to feel some warmth on her face, glad to be out of that small container. Her eyes had not seen daylight in nearly a week. Though the sky was its usual foggy gray, it burned for a moment like an ancient summer sun when they opened the cage.

The pirates singled out the marked prisoners. Nat was separated from Wes and made to stand with the others in the middle of a circle. The slavers kept iron spears, crudely forged from scrap metal, pointed at their backs in case the prisoners attempted to use their powers against them, although there was little chance of that happening, as the hunger and despair had sapped every ounce of hope from the captives’ spirits. They performed as dutifully as trained monkeys.

Nat watched as fellow marked slaves levitated boxes, made the sails ripple, and knocked glasses around the deck.

“This is what they’re for, right? Stupid parlor tricks,” sneered a crew member holding an iron spear.

“You there—do one,” another said, pointing to Nat. For a moment she was caught off guard. “Me?” she mumbled, and the slaver nodded, his mouth opening to reveal jagged set of yellowed teeth.

She didn’t move. He poked the sharpened piece of metal at her, and Nat shivered. Her mind was empty. She felt less than human and knew immediately that was the slavers’ intent.

“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t do anything.”

The slaver’s jagged smile disappeared. He narrowed his eyes, his face contorted horribly. He made to bash her with the stick, and Nat cowered, ready for the blow, but none came.

She looked up to see the slaver turning red, his collar contracting around his neck, choking him.

She looked around—and a fellow marked prisoner was staring at the slaver with a focused anger.

The slaver began to sputter as the fabric continued to tighten, cutting off the blood. The man fell backward, his head crashing on the hard metal deck.

The slavers laughed at their fallen comrade. A second pirate—tall, burly, and stripped to the waist to show off his ugly tattoos—kicked the downed brute aside. “You’ve got to take charge of these animals!” he snarled. “If you give them half a chance they’ll toss you in the ocean. Go belowdecks and make yourself useful.” He walked past the row of marked prisoners. “It’s my turn to have some fun.”

“You like to play, huh?” he asked, pointing to the young boy who had choked his comrade. He gestured to a row of cages. “Hold those up for me!”

The boy seemed uncertain what to do next.

“DO IT! OR I’LL STICK THIS THROUGH YOUR ROTTING NECK!”

The marked slave closed his eyes. He had a dotted patch of raised skin on his temple, the most common mark, which meant he had the power of telekinesis—he could move things with his mind. Slowly, ever so slowly, the row of cargo containers rose from the ground. They floated a few inches, then a foot, then three feet, but the effort was too much and the slave collapsed on the ground, along with the cages, crashing on the deck.

“OY! WAKE UP!” the pirate yelled, kicking at him.

“He’s dead. You killed another one. Slob will be pissed. Traders are coming. You know they pay more for the marked ones.”

“What they want with ice trash is beyond me. In a month they’ll all be thrillers.”

“Besides, he’s not dead,” the other one said, throwing a bucket of black water on the poor boy’s face. “But I’m sure he wishes he was.”

They were marched back to their cages, Nat too weak and too scared to talk, even as Wes tried to console her by rubbing her back. So that was what Avo wanted the marked for—to use them for amusement—for sport until they could sell them. The slavers would toy with them, a form of torture, like pulling wings from a fly, until they were sold.

That night Nat heard a faint fluttering sound outside her cage.

“What is it?” she asked Wes, who moved toward the door, looking through the tiny hole.

“Don’t worry, it’s not the guards,” he said. “Look.”

Nat peered through the slit. A flock of multicolored creatures surrounded their cage—they looked like large butterflies or birds, but were not either—they were flitting and flying, as their marvelous blue, pink, purple, gold, and silver feathers lit the night like a rainbow.

“Can you hear them?” Liannan asked, her melodious voice echoing through the darkness.

“Yes—I can—I can even understand what they’re saying!” said Nat in wonder.

“What are they saying?” Wes wanted to know.

Nat tried to explain—it wasn’t so much that she could hear them speak words or sentences, it was that she was filled with their emotion, their spirit.

“They’re saying . . . they’re saying . . . there’s hope. There’s hope for us. Hope and welcome.”

There was a noise from the food slot. Nat cried out in surprise as small nuts, seeds, and fruit began to fall through the hole. She took Wes’s handkerchief to catch them.

Hope, she thought. We will survive this.

Thank you, she sent to the birds. Thank you. Please, we are not the only ones here. Bring food to all.

They ate their meal, and Nat could hear cries of delight murmuring through the slave quarters.

Nat picked several berries and shared them with Wes, their lips turning red from the juice.

Afterward, Nat found she still had her deck of cards that she always kept in her pocket, and they played card games, using seeds as chips. “Fold,” Wes said disgustedly as he threw his cards down. “Where did you learn how to play?”

“It’s one of the first things they teach us at MacArthur. How to play cards. They size up our abilities that way. See who can use their powers to predict things, read minds, stuff like that,” Nat said, shuffling the cards and dealing the next hand.

“So that’s how you win,” he said with a wry grin. “Not fair.”

She looked at him and shook her head. “Not at all. I can’t do anything like that, I’m just good at it,” she said, a little annoyed. “Is that so hard to believe?”

Wes grunted. He assessed his hand. “Fold!”

She laughed.

He pushed a cup of seeds her way and she knew he would have given them to her anyway. “So, card sharking is just part of the training?” he asked.

“We move on from the poker table to number games, patterns . . . like the one at the fence.” She picked up a card from the stack. “What about you? You never told me how you ended up a mercenary or why you left the military. I know you said you didn’t want to go career, but still, wasn’t it easier being a soldier than having to do this sort of thing? I mean, look where we are.”

“Truthfully, being a hired gun is a more honest life than one in the military,” Wes said, as he studied his hand.

“How’s that?” she asked, putting a pair of cards facedown on the floor.

“You were never in the service—so you don’t know half the things they ask us to do, in Lower Pangaea, New Rhodes, Olympia. It’s their way of guaranteeing the soldiers’ loyalty. They make us all complicit in their crimes. Once you’ve done it, you don’t think twice about saying yes the next time, since you’ve already crossed the line.” He discarded a few cards, picked up two more.

She was silent for a moment. “Is that what happened . . . in Texas?”

He brooded on that. “Yeah.” He didn’t look her in the eye. “The rebels wouldn’t surrender, we had them cornered, but they wouldn’t wave the white flag. The town was empty; no one knew where the Texans were hiding their people. I found out by accident. I got caught on a run, hauled in, and tortured. That’s how I got this scar. Avo too. But we didn’t break. They thought we were dead. We managed to escape, and we even caught one of their people . . . he was marked . . .” Wes sucked in his breath.

“You don’t have to tell the story if it’s too hard.”

“I didn’t want to do it, I wanted no part of it . . . but I couldn’t stop him either. Avo, he . . .” Wes looked agonized.

“He tortured him.”

“Yeah.” He closed his eyes. “He had a mark on his cheek, a brand . . . like a serpent. Avo figured out he could . . . he could . . .”

“Hurt him by touching it,” Nat said softly.

“Yeah.”

“He would push on it, and it would glow . . . and the guy just kept screaming . . . and finally, he broke. The Texans were hiding their people a few miles inland. Hidden in the snow. They’d moved them into one of those old arenas. I thought we’d surround them, you know, like a siege. But the orders came. Bomb the entire place. Kill their kids, their wives, everyone. Get them to surrender.”

“It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t do it. You didn’t torture him and you didn’t give the order.”

“But I couldn’t stop him either. Their blood is on my hands and I’ll never be able to wash it off.” He took a shaky breath. “I left the service after that . . . I didn’t want to be any part of that . . .”

“Wes—you’re not a bad person,” she said, putting her cards down, the game forgotten.

Wes did the same. He shook his head. “It was war—but it wasn’t right. We were no better than the slavers. Worse, maybe.”

40

THE NEXT MORNING, THE SLAVERS WERE intent on discovering why their prisoners were not starving and listless as they had been. A team of guards searched every cage and stripped down every captive but found nothing. The cages were empty. Every crumb and every seed had been eaten.

Nat was worried the pirates would punish their captives, but the arrival of a new batch of pilgrims focused their attention elsewhere.

That was the routine: Every day the slavers scoured the surrounding area in a small black inflatable. Some days they returned with captives, some days, none. Nat, Wes, and the rest of the prisoners were on deck, watching as the next batch of victims arrived. From afar, the captives—a group of smallmen—looked strangely peaceful, hopeful even, but as the boat neared the slave ship, they began to react violently. One drew a dagger from his pocket, while two others attacked the slavers, kicking and punching.

The pirates quelled the little rebellion soon enough, throwing one of the smallmen overboard to drown so the rest fell into line, the sight of their sinking comrade taking the fight out of them.

Nat learned how the slavers worked; in the morning they filled the inflatable boat with food and supplies. They sent out their better-looking men, clean-shaven and decently attired. They would circle the dark ocean until they caught sight of a pilgrim boat.

The slavers would coast alongside the pilgrims, greeting them warmly, offering aid and guidance. More often than not, the pilgrims had been lost for days and were likely starving. The slavers would tell them they were from the Blue, and were there to offer them safe passage through the strait; all the pilgrims had to do was ditch their boat and climb on board theirs. The doorway was not far, they told them.

It was only when they reached the hulking slave ship that the pilgrims realized they had been lied to, and that far from finding the refuge of the Blue, they had been turned into prisoners, and enslaved. Hence the sudden violence.

The smallmen were hustled onto the ship, their faces pale and frightened, noses broken as well as their spirit. Two of them were placed in the cage on the other side of Nat and Wes’s.

Later that night, Nat knocked on the wall. There was a tentative knock back.

They knew the Layman’s Code! Just like Brendon and Roark did.

Where did you come from? she knocked.

—We are from Upper Pangaea. There were more of us.

—Yes. We know. We picked them up. Brendon Rimmel and Roark Goderson.

There was a long pause and then:

—Brendon is our son. Is he safe?

—He is alive. As for safe, we do not know. He is on a different slave ship. We were separated upon capture.

—Thank you.

With new captives to torture for their entertainment, the slavers didn’t bother with the rest. “How do you think they’re doing—Donnie and Roark and Shakes?” she asked.

“Shakes will take care of them as best he can,” Wes said. “He won’t leave them.”

Nat nodded. That sounded about right.

“Another game?” He yawned.

“Sure.”

They played poker for a while, Nat beating him easily. “Your scar moves when you have a good hand,” she told him. “That’s your tell.”

He wiggled his eyebrows. “Tell me more.”

“Wes, I do have something to tell you,” she said. “I just . . . I haven’t been honest with you.” She had to do it. She had to tell him, even if it meant he would hate her, even if it meant they could never be friends again.

He rubbed his eyes. “Yeah, what is it?”

“The night your sister was taken . . .” She couldn’t do it, she thought she could, but she couldn’t tell him.

Wes raised his eyebrow. “The night my sister was taken . . . ?”

“When I worked for Bradley, I . . . I was part of a repatriate team . . . we would take things . . . without anyone knowing . . . secrets, weapons . . . but our specialty was people.”

He clenched his jaw and tossed his cards to the floor. “No. No. Don’t tell me that. You had nothing to do with Eliza!”

“I’m a monster . . . I . . . hurt people . . . your sister . . .”

He shook his head, tears coming to his eyes.

“Your sister is dead, Wes. Because of me. I killed her.”

“No!”

“The night you described, the fire that came from nowhere, the fact that there were no remains . . . Oh god, Wes, the things I used to do . . . the things they made me do . . . the things I can do . . .”

“NO, NAT, NO! You had nothing to do with that!” He took her hands in his fists. “Look at me. Listen to me! It wasn’t you. You had nothing to do with that!”

Nat was sobbing now, and Wes was holding her so tightly. “They would send us out—to do exactly what you described—to take children! When people wouldn’t give them up to the repo men, we would take them, to keep everyone in line. To remind people they couldn’t break the rules. If that guy hadn’t dropped Shakes like he had . . . they would have sent a team for him. I did it! I know it was me who took Eliza. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she cried. “I didn’t know. But when you talked about it—it all came back . . . everything . . . we would destroy things . . . bomb things . . . the fires . . .”

“No,” he said miserably, releasing her from his grip. “No. Listen to me. It wasn’t you, Nat. You might . . . you might have done those sorts of things in the past . . . but you didn’t kill Eliza.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I know what really happened that night.” He leaned against the wall of the cage and closed his eyes. “Because the fire was Eliza’s idea. She was behind it all along,” he said quietly. “Eliza was marked. She had blue eyes, and a spiral on her arm.”

“A weaver.”

“Is that what you call it?”

“She could create illusions, couldn’t she?”

“Yeah. She . . . made this fire . . . I still don’t remember what was real and what wasn’t. But here’s the thing about Eliza . . . she wasn’t . . . she wasn’t . . .” He sighed. “She wasn’t very nice. She was . . . scary sometimes. I don’t know where she is or what happened to her, but I need to find her, Nat. So I can save her . . . from herself.”

Nat stared at Wes.

“It wasn’t you, okay? I know. Because . . . I know my sister. And all those things you did . . . they’re in the past . . . you couldn’t help it . . . you were just a kid. They used you. They use all of us,” he said.

She didn’t know what to feel then. Relief?

It didn’t seem like enough. She just felt empty. Even if she hadn’t been the cause of Eliza’s disappearance, she still felt guilty.

“Hey, come on now, don’t look like that,” he said. “Come here.”

She leaned against him and he folded her in his arms.

“So your sister was a monster,” Nat whispered, feeling safe as she leaned against him, their bodies creating a small space of warmth in the cold room.

“I didn’t say that,” he said, his nose almost in her hair, his soft breath on her ear.

“She’s a monster . . . like me.”

“You’re not a monster.”

“There’s a voice in my head, and it’s the voice of a monster.”

“You mean like the way you understand animals?” he asked, and she could feel him smiling.

“No, it’s different.”

“Do you know what it is?”

She shook her head. “All I know is that it was the voice that told me to escape, to go to New Vegas, and go to the Blue. And it sends me dreams. Dreams of fire and devastation, dreams of flying, like it’s preparing me somehow.”

“What’s it saying now?”

“Actually, it’s been quiet for a while.” Since the white bird was killed, she realized. There was something more. Since she had fallen for Wes, it had been silent, angry somehow. She remembered the anguish of the wailer, and its large shadow on the water, its anger as it tore their ship apart.

“What else can you do?” he said, hugging her closer to him.

“Not much,” she said, as she snuggled against him. “It just comes and goes. I mean, when bad things happen, it saves me—I jumped out the window at MacArthur and it carried me, but I can’t make it do anything unless . . . I feel something strongly, then it just comes out. I’ve never been able to control it. Except . . .” She hesitated, shy all of a sudden. “Except when I pulled you from the water. It was as if I could hold it, I could use it.” Crystal clear and in control, that was how she had felt, when she had saved him.

“Huh.” Wes thought it over. “I think you’re afraid to use it, and that’s why it’s unpredictable. I think you have to embrace it. You can’t fight it. Don’t resist it.”

Resist it? It was true. She had resisted it. She had tried to hide from it. Tried to outrun it. But it was there. It was always part of her. The voice is mine. I am the monster. Hadn’t she known that from the beginning? Why was she fighting it?

Wes spoke directly into her ear, his strong arms around her, and she had never felt safer. “You have to accept who you are, Nat. Once you do, you can do anything you want.” He chuckled softly. “Or maybe, to tap into your power, all you need to do is think of me.”

41

NAT FELT SHY THE NEXT DAY, WHEN SHE woke up lying next to Wes, his arm still slung across her torso. She picked it up gently, trying not to disturb him. She heard the sound of far-off gunfire and she walked to the door, to look through the slit to see what was happening. Wes woke up and stood next to her. “What’s going on?”

“More captives, it looks like. More smallkind,” she said. She moved away from the window so he could see. “And the Ear is back. His ship mustn’t be too far from ours.”

The smallmen were shivering on the deck of the ship. Their hands were unbound; they wore no chains or ropes. There was no need—the slavers had simply removed their coats, exposing them to the cold. The frozen air was its own shackle, crippling the smallmen, forcing them to obey.

There was a barrel full of ice and slurry, and it looked like the slavers were playing one of their favorite games: making Popsicles. They threatened to dunk anyone who dared to disobey their orders. At this temperature, the water would immediately freeze on the skin, and death would not take long.

Wes prayed that the smallmen would obey, and then looked away; he’d seen too much already. He tried not to listen, but there was no way to block out the Ear’s braying laughter as it carried over the sound of screaming. The bald slaver was joking with the Slob that now he had enough for a tiny circus.

The next few days were the same, and the weariness and the claustrophobia began to take its toll. There were no more new captives, and the mercenaries became restless and frustrated, taking their rage out on the prisoners. The small cups of gruel that had arrived once a day disappeared, and Wes noticed the bitter joy the slavers took in the cries of the young and old among them.

They were down to their last Bacon Fruit, Wes’s jacket was almost flat, and although he tried not to show how cold he had become since they had resorted to eating his clothing, Nat could see the blue flush on his cheek, his frostbitten fingers. He spoke less, and when he did, his words were slow and calculated as if each syllable was a struggle.

The weather had worsened as they made their way toward Olympia City, the center of the flesh markets. Sudden showers of snow poured from the sky and a constant fog filled the air. The water was rougher as they neared the outlaw territories, and trashbergs swirled around the ship.

Wes was visibly trembling and, more than once, he asked Nat if it was day or night—his eyes were bothering him. He had chosen to eat rather than to be warm. Nat tried to make him wear her coat, just for a minute, but he adamantly refused.

Nat knew she had to do something before they plunged into despair. Wes was deteriorating before her eyes. “Liannan,” she called. “Tell us a story about the Blue.”

The sylph’s voice carried over. Her voice was weaker than the last time they had spoken, and Nat knew that the imprisonment was taking its toll, the iron slowly sapping the strength from the lovely being. “It’s beautiful. Everything they say about it is true. Your throat does not burn when you inhale; the water is as clear as the air. The sun still shines in the Blue . . . and the grass is the green of emeralds.”

“How do you know? You’ve been there?” Wes challenged.

“I am from Vallonis.”

“So why are you here, then? Why leave?” he asked. Nat wondered why he was being so aggressive. He had never acted that way toward Liannan before.

“The Blue is part of this world, it has always been part of it, and once, very long ago, it was this world. A shining civilization: Atlantis, a world where magic and science existed peacefully together. But the promise of Atlantis died during the First Breaking, and the Blue faded into the mist, until the Second Attempt in Avalon. But Avalon died as well, and the world of magic was closed to this land. When the ice came, it is said among our people that the Return was finally upon us. That the Age of Science was over, and the Third Age of Vallonis had finally come. Our people have returned to this world, but . . .”

“But?” Nat prompted.

“Something went wrong. This world is killing our magic and killing us, causing what you call the ‘rot’ . . . and so we sent scouts out, to bring our people back to the doorway, back to the safety of Arem. But it will not be enough to hide in the Blue. Our worlds are colliding, becoming one again. The Blue must cover the land once more and magic have its proper place.”

Nat frowned. “Or . . . ?”

“Or everything will be poisoned, not only this world, but Vallonis as well . . . until everything is lost. I was sent to the gray lands to find the source of the sickness. I chanced upon the pilgrims and thought to lead them to safety first, but afterward, I must resume my search.”

“See? She’s not giving up,” Wes said, finally a ghost of his former smirk appearing on his drawn, handsome face. “So you don’t either.”

She smiled back at him, but the smiles left their faces when the door to their cage opened with a bang and the guard pointed to Nat. “You’re up.”

“Hold on!” Wes said, sticking his foot through the door before the man could slam it closed. “What’s going on?”

“What do you think?” The guard smirked. “Traders are here. Shopping. Get ready.”

Nat glanced at Wes.

“No, hold on, hold on now,” Wes said. “Avo said he wouldn’t harm my people in any way . . .”

The guard laughed. “And you believe that, lover boy?” He kicked away Wes’s foot and slammed the door. “They’ll be here in five!”

Wes clenched his hands into fists. “When he comes back—listen, when he opens the door, I’ll hide behind the shadows, and I can deck him from behind, then we’ll get out of here, get Liannan out, get to the lifeboats. I think I know where we are—we can’t be far from the port at New Crete.”

“No, Wes,” she said slowly. “It’s too dangerous. There are too many men out there. You don’t have a gun, we don’t have a ship—if you fight him, they’ll kill you.”

Wes shook his head. “No—listen to me, Nat. I’m not going to let them take you!”

“It will be all right,” she said bravely. “Maybe . . . maybe they won’t want me.”

“NO!”

The guard opened the door and handed her a metal collar linked to a chain. “Put it around your neck, just in case you try anything funny.”

The collar was tight against her skin; it was made of iron, dull and heavy.

“Come on now,” the guard said, tugging at her chain. “Come on, get a move on. Say good-bye to your boyfriend.”

Good-bye? Then she realized—if the traders took her—this was it. She would never see him again. This might be their last moment together. It came upon her so suddenly, and seeing the stricken look in his eyes, she couldn’t help but tear up as well. But what could they do—they were trapped here. She didn’t want him to fight them, she didn’t want him to get hurt, and so she would go quietly and say good-bye. “Well, I guess . . . good luck, then?” she said, trying to appear nonchalant even as she swallowed the lump in her throat and walked toward the door.

“Nat, wait . . . ,” Wes said, and before she could take another step, she felt Wes’s hand reach for hers. He turned her toward him, his dark eyes burning.

Without a word, he leaned over and kissed her.

Nat was startled, but she raised her mouth to meet his, and as his lips pressed on hers, she felt his arm encircle her waist, pulling her close, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if they fit together and always had. She could feel his heart beating in his chest, the heat between them—and the desperation. She ran her fingers through his soft hair—something she had yearned to do since they’d met. His kisses turned hard, passionate, and as she inhaled his sweet scent—felt his body against hers, she felt the strength in him. She could keep kissing him forever, she thought . . .

Why had they waited so long for this? There was so much she wanted to say but so little time to say it. She fluttered her eyes open.

Wes had a hand on her cheek, looking at her with so much feeling. “Nat—” he said, in a strangled voice.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “Whatever happens, I can take care of myself.”

“So you keep telling me,” Wes said, his voice strained and hoarse, as the guard pulled her away. “But see, the thing is, it doesn’t matter that you don’t need me, because . . . I need—”

But before he could finish his sentence, the guard pulled her away from him. With a great roar and a look of deep and unfathomable anger on his face, Wes kicked the gun from the slaver’s hand and pummeled him with his fists, sending him sprawling to the ground.

“Nat, run!” Wes yelled.

A group of slavers were upon him, and Wes fought ferociously—ten of them were heaped on the deck, bloody and bruised, but he couldn’t take on the whole ship, and as strong as he was, they outnumbered him until he was lying in on the floor, blood streaming from his eyes, nose, his face raw.

Nat screamed but there was nothing she could do, and so she continued screaming all the way through the length of the ship. Even as he lay broken and bloodied in the cage, Wes could hear her cries.

42

THEY TOSSED HER BACK INTO HER CAGE. Wes was still lying in a crumpled heap in the middle of the floor, and she ran to him. She was so afraid of what she would find that she could hardly breathe.

“Ryan!” she cried, turning him over.

His face was bruised and bloody, but he was breathing, and she ripped her shirt to wipe blood from his forehead. The slavers had been brutal, but they had left him alive, and for that she was thankful.

Wes opened one eye. “You’re back,” he croaked. “Thank god. I’m still going to kill him,” he said. “I’m going to kill him with my bare hands. Tear him limb from limb. What happened? What did they do to you?”

“Shhhh,” she admonished, wiping his face gently. “Shhh . . .” She shook her head. “No. No. I’m okay. I’m okay. Nothing happened.”

Wes groaned. “What do you mean?”

“Traders didn’t want me. They said I wasn’t marked and they wouldn’t pay, said I was worth nothing. Avo was furious, but he couldn’t talk them out of it.”

“But how?”

She whispered into his ear. “Look at my eyes.”

He opened the other eye and stared up at her.

Her eyes were gray.

“Lenses?” he said.

She nodded her head.

“Well, I’m still going to kill him,” Wes mumbled. “That promise I’ll make sure I keep.”

Nat smiled, remembering his lovely kiss. “Okay,” she said, as she continued to clean him up. He would look pretty banged up for a while, his handsome face swollen and cut, but he would be all right. His wounds would heal.

She kissed his forehead and held him close. “You know what?”

“What?” he asked.

“I remember now why you look so familiar. You’re a death jockey, aren’t you?”

“Used to be.”

“The night I escaped from MacArthur, I walked right into the race. Do you remember?”

He sat up and opened his eyes. “I remember. You . . . you kept the car from hitting me, and from hitting you. You were the girl. The girl on the tracks. I looked for you, you know. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m okay.”

His eyes crinkled. “What happened to your shirt?”

“You’re wearing it as a bandage.”

“Is that right?” he smiled wickedly. He looked at her again, and she saw that he was looking at the mages’ mark on her skin, the flame that she always kept hidden, right above her bra.

“So that’s it, huh?” he said.

“Yeah,” she said, grimacing. “That’s my mark.”

He reached his hand to it, and she recoiled, preparing for the pain, but when his finger touched her skin, she was warm, so warm, and there was no pain, only . . . peace. “It’s beautiful, like you, like your eyes,” he said. “Now cover up, you’re going to get cold.”

That night, when Wes had fallen asleep, Nat spoke to Liannan through the walls. Nat told her friend everything. The traders’ arrival. How the traders had made the marked prisoners stand in line for inspection.

“What did they want with us? Do you know, Liannan?” she asked. The head trader had been garbed in priestlike robes. Their skin was coated in white powder, and their hair dyed to match. She described the way they had culled the marked prisoners, and those who were showing signs of rot—sallow pallor, yellow eyes—had been dismissed.

“I’ve heard stories about the white priests,” the sylph said quietly. “They believe that they can transfer the powers of the marked to their own bodies. It’s a lie. They’re butchers. False prophets. Fakers. They pretend to have power, but all they have is their mad religion.”

“Transfer our power . . . how?”

“In a ritual . . . a sacrifice.”

Nat shuddered. “They had some specialist with them, but she said I was nobody, that I wasn’t marked so they didn’t want me.” She told Liannan about Wes’s kiss and the miracle of her safety. “My lenses . . . they came back. I don’t know how . . . I’m a lucky girl,” she said.

“Luckier than you might guess; only a spell could provide such protection to hide your true nature,” Liannan told her.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Nat protested. “I had an iron collar on, I couldn’t do anything. Maybe the trader just didn’t know what to look for.”

“No, don’t you see? When Wes kissed you, he blessed you with a protection spell. One that even iron could not restrain.”

Nat was taken aback. “But how?”

Liannan did not answer for a long time. But when she spoke, her words were light and almost teasing, “He must like you very much, Nat, to have woven one as powerful as that.”

43

THE NEXT AFTERNOON, AS THEY WERE gathered in the circle, Nat noticed the guards were distracted. Suddenly there was a great screeching noise, and the ship listed to the right—and then picked up speed. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“We’re headed somewhere else, looks like,” the smallman next to her said.

Wes whistled for the nearest guard. “Hey, man, what’s happening? Aren’t we going to the markets?”

The guard laughed, showing his broken teeth. “Don’t worry, mate, it’s still the auction block for you all. But before then, the boss has been called to do something else.”

“What?”

“Now, why would I tell the likes of you?” Then he whacked Wes on the head with a blow that would have killed a weaker man.

The answer came the next day, during preparations for the circus. The slavers went from cell to cell pulling out marked prisoners for another show, but the cold had taken its toll. The prisoners had reached a turning point and had neither the strength nor the will to perform anymore. The pirates would have to look elsewhere for amusement.

They didn’t accept this revelation very well. A particularly ugly pirate sneered as he kicked open the door to Nat and Wes’s cell to find them sitting on the floor, weak from the cold. “All of you who were looking for the Blue—well—by tomorrow it will be just another occupied territory. Maybe they’ll call it Nuevo Asul.”

Nat raised her head in horror. “What do you mean?”

“Navy’s zeroed in on the location of the doorway. We’re shoving you lot off on the Ear’s ship so we can move faster; Jolly wants us travelin’ light so we can pick up any bounty. They owe us for the work we did,” he said, as he shined a flashlight into their irises and grunted his approval.

“He’s checking for frostblight—can’t sell us if we’re too far gone, can you?” Wes explained.

The pirate nodded. “Yeah, whaddaya know, the land of unicorns and honey’s real after all. Fresh air and food for everyone, right? As if.” He snorted, and left them to their cell.

The Blue.

Vallonis.

The military was on its way to the Blue, so that the RSA could take it as a territory, just another extension of its borders, imposing its will and dominion over the land.

Wes stared at Nat. “The stone . . . you’re not wearing the stone,” he said softly, the horror dawning on his face. “Why aren’t you wearing the stone?”

“Because I gave it away,” she said quietly.

“You what?”

“I gave Avo the stone.”

“But why?”

Nat shook her head. “Before the traders and the white priests came, Avo took me to his room.”

Wes gripped her forearms. “What did he do?”

“No . . . it wasn’t . . . that wasn’t what he wanted.”

She remembered the slaver’s smug smile.

Avo had put a hand on her collarbone, caressed her jaw. “Exquisite,” he had whispered. He was talking about the stone. She had unhooked the chain and given it to him without a fight.

“The voice in my head, it told me to do it.” She looked up at Wes, and there were tears in her eyes. “I tried to resist, but I couldn’t stop myself. I told you, I’m a monster. There’s something wrong with me, Wes. I gave it away. I gave away the stone.” Rage and ruin. Devastation. She was the catalyst, she was the key . . . What did she do? Had she given up hope? Had they turned her into something? Was this something they had programmed into her at MacArthur? But she couldn’t stop, had given up the stone as easily as a trinket, as if it were nothing. As if the Blue were nothing to her.

She sunk to her knees. “There isn’t any hope. Everything will be lost. Just as Liannan said.”

“Stop it! Let me think, okay? Just stop! Didn’t you hear what he said? They’re moving us.”

“Only to another cage,” she said bitterly.

Wes put a finger to his lips. “Hold on! Do you hear that? I think those are Alby’s engines. They must have fixed the old bird. Listen, I think this is it. This is our chance. Remember what you told me? About never giving up hope? We can still work with this.”

“But how?”

“No one’s going to die, and they won’t take the Blue.” He smiled.

“You’re crazy,” she said. “Getting cocky again.”

“If I am, it’s because I’m betting on you.”