Raging Star

NIGHT SEVEN

IT’S THE TIME OF YEAR WHEN THE DARK CROWDS THE LIGHT earlier an earlier each day.

I nab Slim on his own the moment I can. When d’you think’s the blood moon? I says.

I don’t think, he says, I know. He looks at the moon, fatter than last night. Includin this one, he says, seven nights.

Could be eight though, I says. Or nine. You cain’t say fer certain.

I bin livin my life by that lady’s wax an wane goin on fifty year, he says. I know her faces an if I say it’s seven, it’s seven. Fer certain. He peers at me closely. What’s the fret about?

Nuthin, I says.

Tommo heads off to sit first watch, high atop Painted Rock. The rest of us gather around the fire. Me, to wait belly-tight with nerves. Fer the time to turn till I can leave to meet Jack at Irontree. No point goin early. He never appears before the time. I bin early to meet points more’n once an had to kick my heels while I waited fer him to show.

We settle in fer the evenin. With knees creakin, Slim grunts hisself into his slingchair to smoke a thoughtful pipe. Ash an Molly roll hemp twine fer bowstrings. Nero tucks in my coat fer a snooze while I dry my damp boots by the fire.

The waters might look calm, but I can feel it. Runnin jest below the surface. The sour current of dissent. Another mistake by me an it’ll rise agin. I don’t hold ’em to blame. I’d feel jest the same in their place.

We gotta hold together. Hold fast. I look at them, my family, my friends. The dance of flames chases shadows on their faces. Their familiar, unknown faces. This is old, what we do, in this old place here. It runs in the blood of time. People by a fire. With dark closin in all around them. DeMalo’s words circle an tighten my thoughts.

If you keep on, more people will die. Maybe even people you care about. Weigh your chances.

Weigh our chances. I cain’t git my thoughts straight. But I must. Right away. Seven nights. I need to talk to Jack. I try not to check the sky too often. Try not to show how antsy I am.

Lugh an me sit close together on a log, thigh to thigh. He nudges me. Got a meet tonight, huh? he whispers. I look at him. You keep checkin the sky, he says.

They all know I git regular intel about DeMalo an the Tonton an what’s goin on in New Eden. They know I cain’t say who or where they are. They think I meet with Bram’s old network. The little gang of contacts, informants an insiders that he managed to set up before he died that day on the road to Resurrection. Jack runs them now. He’s information. I’m action. Together we plan. I don’t ever meet nobody but him.

Creed’s bin mendin this little hand squeezebox that Slim got from Bobby French, a trader pal of his. Now, he tries it out fer the first time. Sweet melancholy wheezes from its cracked leather lungs.

Good gawd, it works, says Ash. Where’d you learn to play?

Travellin show, he says. Squeezebox, tightrope, fire jugglin … y’know, the usual.

Ash looks at him askance. Tall tale or truth, with Creed it’s sometimes hard to know. You was never a showman, she says.

You think I tell you everythin? he says.

Huh. Well, she says, it would explain a lot.

He noodles quietly on the squeezebox while a skin of Molly’s latest brew gits passed around. Stink currant rum this time, but it’s always the same. Brain-killer hooch with a kick like white pain. I give it a miss. I need a clear head.

Emmi comes to sprawl across our laps. She buries her nose in Lugh’s shirt. I know jest how he smells to her. Safe. Home.

An it strikes me. We ain’t ever bin like we are at this moment. Never. I mean, the three of us takin comfert from each other’s nearness an company. It was always me an Lugh, with Em on the outside. Fer the very first time, this feels like brother an sisters together. Lugh smiles at me over Em’s head. I smile back. Tonight he seems lighter somehow. He seems … lifted.

I cain’t bear to think of sendin Emmi to Auriel. Of bein without her. But I must. It’s the only way to keep her safe. I’ll speak to Lugh in the mornin.

As the stars shoot the sky, Creed idles their way on the squeezebox. Its ancient sighs fade the echo of harsh words. Smooth balm over anger. Drift our troubled day to the night.

I ain’t ever known a star season like this one. Molly watches ’em, shakin her head in amazement. So many shooters, she says. If they keep on at this rate, there won’t be none left.

Mercy’s bin lookin at Lugh. Really starin, like she cain’t help herself. It’s makin him flushed an shifty. At last she says, It’s uncanny how like her you are. Your eyes, they’re just the same. The face, the smile, even how you turn your head.

She’s right. Lugh’s the spit of Ma. He shrugs, but you can tell he’s pleased. Time creeps. My stummick’s in knots. Hurry on, hurry on, I need to see Jack.

Ash stands an stretches mightily. My watch, she says. Better go relieve Tommo. None too gently, she nudges Slim with her boot. Hey, sleepin beauty, don’t you be late fer me.

He cracks open his good eye. Fret ye not, he says.

On silent feet, bow in hand, Ash heads into the shadows.

Emmi says, What’s that tune, Creed?

No idea, he says. Probly the last song this old thing played. It’s like it’s bin waitin. It ain’t quite ready to come, but it will. In its own time, it’ll come. He keeps playin softly an, sure enough, before long, the song shows itself. It’s slow. Spare. Worn an warm from its passage down the ages. Ah, says Creed.

My throat thickens as I reckanize it. As it sounds in my heart. The tune settles. It waits. Fer the right voice to claim it. It waits. Fer Molly. An she sings.

Dreams to sell, fine dreams to sell

Angus is here with dreams to sell.

Memory slashes me. Ma, singin me an Lugh to sleep. The sun scent of her skin. Her fingers smoothin my hair. It’s bin ten year. But this music cuts deep. To the place where the wounds never heal. Lugh’s arm circles my shoulders. He hugs me close.

Hush now, my baby, an sleep without fear

Dream Angus will bring you a dream, my dear.

The song halts from Molly, raggedly tender. An I know, without knowin it, that she sang this to Gracie. Her child with Jack, fever-dead after five months of life. Em leaves us, goes around the fire an lays down with her head in Molly’s lap. Music at Silverlake died with Ma. Not once was there a lullaby fer Emmi.

Molly sings while Creed plays. There’s a truce, even a smile in their eyes fer each other.

One more note, I’ll be undone. An at last it’s time fer me to go. I give Lugh’s hand a squeeze. Then I slip away, Nero still huddled inside my coat. Tracker rises from his spot at Mercy’s feet. Slim raises his pipe to my goin. Creed nods. Molly smiles. They’re all used to my night-time junkets by now.

I scoop up my quiver an bow. I leave the warm an the light an my folk an Ma’s song. With Tracker at my side, I head fer the night-deep woods.

I set Nero to fly an we head north. Irontree, where Jack changed our meet to, is a good two leagues from here.

I pause, jest a moment. I give our night-time signal. A two-note widowbird shiver. So our lookout knows who’s on the move in the woods below. Answer floats down from the top of Painted Rock. It’s Ash. She’s took over the watch from Tommo. He’ll be on his way down to the comferts of camp.

Saba, wait up! It’s Lugh, hurryin after me, dodgin a path through the trees.

With a snap of impatience, I stop. What? I says.

I jest wanted to—that song, he says. I couldn’t stay. It’s too much.

I know, I says. I bin dreamin about her lately. About Ma.

It’s strange, he says, we bin without her fer so long an you think yer okay an you are, but then Molly starts singin an—all these feelins an memories came rushin outta nowhere an I was right back there. That last time she sang to us. Lugh lets out a shaky breath. It hurts, he says, but … I felt like she was with us fer a moment.

She was, I says. Listen … Lugh, I gotta go, I—

I know, but I thought maybe I could … walk with you a ways? He looks at me, uncertain. Like I might not welcome the offer.

Oh, my poor heart. Like Molly’s song warn’t enough fer one night. Here’s Lugh takin a step towards me. I bin waitin fer this since the day the Tonton took him from me. Long months ago.

I’d like that, I says. More than anythin I would love that, but … Lugh, I got some hard thinkin to do. I really appreciate you speakin fer me like you did, but you an me both know I done bad work today at the bridge. They’re right. It ain’t good enough. I gotta do better, a lot better, startin right now. I got some … concerns that I—

We could talk, he says. Maybe I could help. You an me, we always bin able to figger things out together.

I could walk with you a ways. We could talk.

That he should even hafta say it. My very blood quickens to Lugh. To tell him everythin, anythin … or not hafta tell him becuz he’d already know.

I wish we could, I says. But this is somethin I gotta work out on my own. I do wanna go fer that walk though. Soon.

You bet, he says. I’m here any time. Always here.

I turn to go, then remember. I gotta talk to you about Em, I says. I wanna send her back to Auriel at the Snake. It’s wrong to have her here. A fight like this ain’t no place fer a kid. If somethin was to happen to her, I—I cain’t even think of it. Or if somethin was to happen to us. We’d wanna know she’d be okay.

I won’t have it, he says. Even if I would, I sure as hell wouldn’t send her to Auriel Tai. We’re family, Saba. We’ve fought hard to stay together an we will, no matter what. She does need to step up, though. One minute she’s smart an tough an you think you can rely on her an the next, she’s actin like some dizzy little kid. I’ll speak to her.

But I—

We ain’t gonna argue this, he says.

I gotta go, I says.

As I move away, he takes hold of my arm, sayin, Hang on a sec, I— He almost but don’t meet my eyes as he says, I need to … I want to apologize to you. Fer the way I bin actin since you saved me from Freedom Fields. Turnin away from you. Blamin you fer everythin. Bein so angry. The thing is, after Ma died, I only had one thing to do an that was pertect my sisters. Make sure you survive. I had to be the front line. Stand in front of you an take the shot, like with Pa.

You know we don’t talk about that, I says.

Night-time in the hut. In the months jest after. Pa blind drunk an ragin his grief. At us. At hisself. Why should we live when she was dead? Where’s my gun? My knife? Where’d you hide ’em this time? Don’t lie to me, son, don’t make me beat it from you.

When I do stupid things, like try an race you to the bridge? It’s becuz I need to git there first, says Lugh. Front line, you see? It’s all I know. But when I got took, you managed fine without me. You an Emmi both. You grew stronger. Smarter. An I’m proud of you. But I bin feelin, I dunno … useless. But no more. No more, I swear. Today changed everythin.

An I know the moment it happened, I says. There at the bridge, when I was holdin on so tight to you. I bin there myself, Lugh, I know that moment. When death leans in to kiss you, to take you, when it’s so close you can smell its breath. An you say no. No, you sonofabitch, you will not have me this time. An you want life so bad an you pull yerself back into it an suddenly everythin’s so clear.

He’s starin at me an I realize I got my fingers diggin into his arms as I speak, like some crazy person. You got it, he says. That’s it ezzackly. Yer th’only one who’d know how to say it.

Saba? It’s Tommo. He’s standin not ten foot away, among the trees. Can I talk to you?

Not now Tommo, I says.

But I only—

Later, okay? Lugh turns on him, impatient.

There’s a moment’s pause. You cain’t read his face in the shadow of the trees. Sorry, he says. Then he’s gone.

He’s stuck on you, says Lugh. You took his hand today. He’ll take that as encouragement.

We ain’t talkin about him, I says. We’re talkin about you.

Yeah, well … today made me realize … He shakes his head. I wish I was good with words, he says. I realized I want so much, Saba. The sky above my head an the sun an the stars an … I wanna feel the earth beneath my feet, in my hands. It’s so little but it’s so much, y’know, it’s … it’s everythin. An yer everythin to me. You an Emmi. You gotta know that.

He pulls me into his arms an we hold fast to each other.

Tears heat my eyes. I bin missin you so much, I says, you got no idea. I’m sorry I hurt you, Lugh. I never meant to. I bin selfish an stubborn. Not jest about Jack, but—

He’s gone, that’s all finished, he says. It’s gonna be okay, Saba. You an me, we’re as we should be. We’re us agin.

Some good came outta this day after all, I says.

We got the power to git what we want, he says. One day soon, we’ll have a piece of this good land fer ourselfs. Fer the first time, we’ll live a life that’s worth somethin. Jest like we always dreamed. An we won’t be shackled by the past no more. Don’t worry about Em. We’ll keep her safe.

I give him a last hard squeeze. I really do gotta go, I says. I start to walk backwards, away from him. See you, I says.

If I don’t see you first, he says.

Such a tired old clunker. But it makes us smile every time. I leave him there in the trees, bathed in moonlight. When I take a last look over my shoulder, he’s headed back towards camp.

My feet skim me through the woods. I’m all speed an starlight. Wolfdog an crow, my companions. An hope don’t jest whisper within me. Now it shouts loud to the night.

My brother has come back to me.

There ain’t no better outrider than a wolfdog. Tracker runs on ahead, then fans out an loops around behind me, over an over. We had a month of this, so he’s well-trained. Me, on secret night journeys to meet Jack. Tracker makin sure we don’t run into nobody we oughtn’t. Nero cruises above the treetops, keepin pace with me here on the ground.

That surge of joy speeds me on the first half league. I’m pure happiness. Lugh took the first step. He opened his arms to me. But as my thoughts creep back in, my feet start to slow.

It’s gonna be okay, Saba. You an me, we’re as we should be. We’re us agin.

I’m foolin myself. To be us would mean that the truth would flow between us like clear water. Jest as it used to. But now I measure it out in fearful drops. Even if I could tell him, even if I told Lugh every single one of my many secrets, until he knows that Jack’s alive an finds a way to accept him, we ain’t got no chance of bein us. Not even a new kinda us.

Lugh took aginst Jack from the off. I thought he’d be grateful to him. If it warn’t fer Jack, we’d of never reached Freedom Fields in time to save his life. Maev was the one who told me why. Said I was hopeless not to figger it out myself. The way Lugh sees it, Jack stole me from him while he was weak an helpless, prisoner of the Tonton. I’m sure that’s right. After all, twins ain’t like any other. Till the day the Tonton took him from Silverlake, Lugh an me together was bindweed.

Fer now Jack’s dead an must remain so. But if we win this fight, he’ll step back into life an it won’t jest be Lugh not overjoyed to see him, there’s Tommo an Ash an—this ain’t the time to think about all that.

If we win this fight. To win. In seven nights. Seven to the blood moon, if Slim’s right. An he is he is I know he is. A new plan. Fast. I gotta think of one, make one. Another blown bridge or road or checkpoint an DeMalo will do like he threatened.

You hit me again, I’ll hit you back tenfold.

If he unleashes his full power aginst us, we won’t survive. We’ll be jest like the Hawks at Darktrees, butchered in the night as they slept. There, he was only gittin rid of a possible problem. They warn’t nowhere near New Eden an barely even a thorn in his side. His reach is long an bloody.

I’ll have your whole misstarred mob hunted down and killed. Wherever you run to. Your brother. Your sister. Weigh your chances.

I bin foolin myself. We’re all fools. Deluded to think we can beat him. We’re the few. The weak.

The few an the weak. Suddenly it hits me. It’s bin starin me in the face from the start. It’s only thanks to DeMalo that we’re still alive. This whole time—today at the bridge, an way back to Hopetown an Freedom Fields, the fight at Pine Top Hill, then Resurrection—we bin bold an reckless an oftentimes lucky. It ain’t that we didn’t fight hard. We did. We do. Sometimes we even fought smart. But we ain’t bin smart or lucky enough to keep us alive. When it came to the point, DeMalo pulled back from destroyin us. An it’s bin about me every time. Whatever it is that he wants from me … that’s what’s kept us alive.

I’ll guarantee everyone safe passage over the Waste, your friends and family.

An in return?

You.

Me. Marry him. Death ain’t so bad. You only do it once. Married to him, I’d die each day.

Nero’s bin dippin in an outta the trees round about. Almost like he’s keepin a eye on somethin. Now, a little ways ahead, Tracker’s caught a scent on the wind. He’s stopped dead. Stiff-legged. Head high. As I come up to him, I’m shruggin off my bow an nockin a arrow. The scrub pine crowds thick here. I cain’t see nuthin. I motion him to me an we slip behind a tree together. I tighten myself fer action.

There’s a sudden commotion. In a flurry of branches, three little mosstails crash from the woods. Huge eyes red in the night. They spring across our path, not twenny foot in front of us, with Nero chasin behind. That’s what he was on about.

I relax. Tracker stares after ’em. He’d never chase. Never beg. He’s too noble a beast. But, nose to tail, he quivers with desire. Not jest one mossy, but three. He looks at me. Nero shouts at him, anxious, urgent. I remember their lean squirrel supper. The chance of such a feast is rare.

Go on then, I says.

He’s gone in a streak. I can hear the mossies crashin about, changin direction in their desperate race. Almost right away, I curse myself fer lettin ’em go. They’re my sentries, Nero an Tracker. They can see things, hear things, sense things that I cain’t. Damn. That was stupid. Dammit.

I go on, but it ain’t long till fears rise. What if DeMalo’s had me followed since this mornin? What if he never meant to let the bridge go unpunished? Why should I trust him? He said it’s the endgame. New rules apply.

I double back a short ways. Start to beat a trail east. At a scatter of rocks, I haul off my boots an cross them barefoot. After a weave through some rootsprawl, I lose any trace of my passage on a carpet of hard blackmoss that ribbons among the trees.

Then I race north in the starfall night. I keep my bow nocked an ready. North to Irontree to meet Jack.

He followed her. Keeping well back, slipping cat-footed among the trees. Easy for a canny tracker like him.

Tracker had sniffed him out right away. But no need to raise the alarm over a friend. He kept looping back to check on him. Guarding the hunter and the hunted at the same time.

Not that he was hunting her. It was Jack he wanted in his sights. It was Jack he’d promised to deliver.

He hadn’t seen him since that night at Blackwater Tarn. When he’d watched them from the rocks. Seen them together on the shore. Ever since then, she’d been meeting him. He was sure of it. She had a certain look about her when she’d been with Jack. Nobody else would notice. Only him.

Like Tracker, Nero kept an eye on him. Making sure he came to no harm in the night. Dipping in and out of the trees. But he always flew a forest that way. There was nothing to draw her attention.

Then he surprised a tack of grazing mosstails. And they surprised him. As they panicked away, he took cover. She’d want to know the cause. She’d bring Tracker. Flush him out. His heart pounded the excuses he could give her. She didn’t come.

When all was still again, he found she’d moved on. Tracker and Nero had gone after the mosstails. He picked up her trail again. But not for long. She’d done a quick double back and headed east. He managed to track her as far as some blackmoss.

There, her trail went dead. He’d spooked her. He’d lost her.

He could hardly believe it. He cursed himself. He had no time for wasted chances. Hand Jack to the Pathfinder by the blood moon. That was the deal.

It had never occurred to him this might not be easy. Now the thought crashed on him. Crushed him. What if he couldn’t deliver on time? All kinds of things might happen to prevent it. So much was out of his control. And he’d made a mistake, a basic one, already.

The Pathfinder wasn’t the kind to accept excuses. You couldn’t welsh on a deal with such a man.

Panic gripped him in a sudden, hot wave. He should never have done this. He was out of his depth. This could end in all sorts of trouble. He started to move through the trees. With his thoughts tipping, he was careless, unseeing. He stumbled on a root. He fell to his knees.

And he saw the crow lying dead on the ground.

Relief floods me as I spot the Irontree. It rises high above the canopy ahead. I’ve worked myself into a fine old rattle. Thinkin that every movement in the shadows is a Tonton. This ain’t like me. First time in my life I bin spooked by a night-time wood. That’ll teach me to keep Tracker an Nero nearby.

The Irontree stands in the Ironwood. Some big Wrecker place must of bin here once, way back when. There ain’t nuthin left now but some of its bones. Huge iron girders that rise from the ground like they’re rooted. They ain’t in plain view. You don’t notice ’em at first. That’s becuz they bin swamped by the forest. As the trees grew, they took the iron into their bodies. They swallowed it. Embraced it. An the king of these trees looks down upon the rest. Irontree. A great oak of mighty girth an splendid branches. Jack’s built hisself a little eyrie, a platform, in its topmost branches. It cain’t be seen from the ground.

I give our signal, Jack’s an mine. The quiet krik of a nightpip. I wait. No answer. I track forwards, cautiously, my bow ready to fire. I don’t see no sign of his forest pony, Kell. I call agin. No answer. Where is he?

I’m at the foot of Irontree now. It’s all quiet. Bloody Jack. He’s late agin. With a sigh, I let my bow down.

There’s a whoosh sound above. I look up. A man plunges at me from the sky. Boots first. Straight down. His hands grip a rope. His black robes fly, his head wrapped in a sheema. Fear kicks me. The heartstone’s warm. It’s him it’s DeMalo he’s here!

I duck, go to run. But he’s hit the ground, snatched me round the waist an we’re bouncin in the air. Up, light as birds, soarin high. The rope’s rubber. I gasp. Clutch him tight fer dear life. My bow an quiver tumble to the ground. The red hot’s wild in me. The heartstone’s hot. Before I can think we’re landin on the platform, high up.

As he unhands the rope an lets go my waist, I haul off an deck him. A swing at his chin sends him flyin. He lands on his back. I snatch the knife from my boot an I’m on him, I’m on top of him, my knife high, ready to slash. I’ll kill him, I will. This time I’ll kill him if it kills me. He grabs my wrist, we grapple an twist an then he’s sittin on top of me. I struggle an thrash. I rear up to bite him. Hand, arm, anywhere I can reach. He holds me off, his eyes flashin outrage. His silver moonlight eyes.

Silver eyes. Not black. Not DeMalo.

I freeze where I am. Jack? I says.

He clamps a hand to my mouth. Yer bein followed, he hisses.

In the woods below, somethin’s crashin through the trees. Headed this way. Movin fast. We scramble to our feet. He pulls two shooters from his belt an throws me one. From the edge of the platform, we part the hangin moss so’s we can see what’s goin on below. My bow, my quiver an arrows, spill all over the ground.

A gang of flathead pigs come stampedin through the unnergrowth below. Not one of ’em’s higher than my knees. There’s maybe eight of the little beasts. As the sounds of ’em start to fade, jest as I’m openin my mouth to blast him, Jack shins to the top of Irontree. He scans the forest with his looker. It’s gone quiet. He shakes his head an climbs back down.

Flatheads! I grab his sleeve. I don’t believe it, I says. Are you crazy or what?

He eyes me warily as he feels his chin an jaw. An jest when I thought you was startin to mellow, he says.

What the hell was that? I says. Swoopin down on me? I could of killed you.

How? Bit me to death? he says. You was bein followed, Saba. I was watchin out fer you from up there.

Yeah, pigs, I says. Save me.

Use yer head, he says. Somethin startled ’em. I mean, the woods’re dark an I couldn’t see who an I guess I couldn’t swear to it, but it sure seemed—

Seemed? Couldn’t swear? Oh, yer quite the lookout, I says.

Aw, fergit it, he says. We’ll be arguin the toss all night long. Anyways, I guess if there was somebody, Tracker would of sniffed ’em out. Where is he, by the way?

Here, I says, somewheres around. I don’t dare tell him that I sent Nero an Tracker off huntin. He’d tear a strip from me an no mistake.

Jack pulls off his sheema. Ruffs his short hair to confusion. Anyways an by the way, Saba, what’s got you so edgy? he says. You must of known it was me. He flips the hot heartstone with a finger.

Some Tonton comes flyin at me outta the sky, I don’t stop to think, I fight, I says. An speakin of by the way, what’s with the gear, Jack? An the words infiltrate the Tonton better not cross yer lips.

I give him my hardest stare. His gaze slides away.

We agreed, I says. We agreed you wouldn’t, you know damn well we did.

I agree that we agreed it was too dangerous, he says. We never agreed that I never would. So I can also agree that we never agreed.

None of yer eel talk, speak plain, I says.

I only done it once or twice, he says. Today an … okay, maybe a few times. But only when I know it’s safe. Information is power, Saba. An we need as much inside information as we can git. How d’you think I found out about the bridge? Keep yer friends close an yer enemies closer, right? He gestures to his robes. Who better than me? I know their ways, how to blend in. We ain’t gonna git no closer’n this.

If only he knew how very close I bin to the enemy. He cain’t ever know. Nobody can.

What if the Tonton know you helped us at Resurrection? I says. That you warn’t one of them but a fake an a plotter? They could all have orders to find you, to watch you, follow you.

Nobody follows me, he says. He heaves a sigh. Look, he says, we demolished the place. There was fifty men killed. It was complete confusion. If anybody spared me a thought after the fact, they’d figger I got blown to the sky. Jest like yer Free Hawk gang do. If the Tonton knew about me, we’d all of us be heads on spikes by now.

Don’t ever say that. You take too many chances, I says. Don’t do this no more, Jack. Promise me. Promise.

No, he says. If we don’t risk, we don’t win. This ain’t no cakewalk, darlin.

Don’t you dare talk down to me, don’t you dare, I says. If you git yerself killed, I swear I’ll … I’ll kill you.

My fury boils. With him. With DeMalo. With the whole gawdamn world. Fury I’m beset by doubt an weakness. Reduced to a frightened girl. Me. The Angel of Death.

Take off that gear, I says. I hate you in it, I hate it, d’you hear?

I attack his Tonton robe. Start yankin at it. But it tangles in his weapons belt, so I pull that off an dump it. Jack stands there, not helpin, not hinderin. I drag off the robe, grab a fistful of shirt an walk him backwards, fast, till he hits the tree trunk. I hate it, gawdamnmit, I says.

Then I kiss him. An I kiss him. An I kiss him.

I’ll burn DeMalo from me in the fire between us. I’ll stoke the flames high with my lies an secrets. Feed ’em with my weakness an my fears. I’ll lay waste to myself in the heat of Jack’s body. Melt the flesh from my bones. Blaze my bones to ash.

A breath of night air stirs the haze of my mind. He ain’t kissin me back. He ain’t touchin me. He jest stands, not movin. His shirt hangs open. Did I do that? I don’t recall. I press closer, ever closer. My fevered hands roam him. Reckless. Hell-bent.

Uh-uh. He grabs ’em. Firmly. Stop right there, he says.

I’m dazed. Halfways to scorched, but nowhere near burnt. Why? I says. What’s wrong? You want me, you know you do.

He makes a strange noise. A strangled-at-birth kinda laugh. He’s all rumpled an ruffled an hot silver eyes. He takes a deep breath. Boy, he mutters, this is a first fer me.

We both know that ain’t true, I says. I go fer his lips agin, but he steps back. Puts space an air an coolness between us. What’s the matter? I says. Why ain’t you kissin me?

Becuz you ain’t kissin me, he says. Right now, all you want is a warm body. Mine jest happens to be the closest one. I’d say the state yer in, pretty much anybody’d do.

I bristle, shake free of his hold. How dare you? I glare. What the hell’re you talkin about?

He smiles his quirk of a smile. An cue righteous indignation, he says. Never bullshit a bullshitter. I know this one, Saba. I bin there, I done it. He shakes his head, rueful. You dish it out, eventually, somewhere down the road, somebody dishes out the same to you. I jest discovered I don’t much care fer the taste. Ain’t that how it goes. Measure fer measure.

Spare me the sermon, I says. When did you git so gawdamnn virtuous?

He swipes a gentle finger down my cheek. I dunno, he says. The moment I seen yer face?

That takes the wind from my sails. I stare at his chest. The marks an the scars. From shoulder to hip, three thick puckered lines. The rake of a hellwurm’s claws. The red risin sun inked over his heart, the blood tattoo of the Tonton. The same as DeMalo’s. DeMalo agin. Always, always DeMalo. So. There won’t be no oblivion fer me.

Tell me what happened today. Jack’s voice is quiet. Determined.

Fer the first time, I notice what he’s done. He’s made a bower at one end of the platform, with branches of fir to soften the floor. Rainbow shimmer discs hang all around. As they turn an swing, they play in the moonbeams. There’s a cold roast fowl, bread an a bottle.

He went to a lot of trouble. It’s beautiful. Special. It makes my heart hurt. I hug myself tight to stop it from weepin. I see you bin thievin agin, I says. Whatever happened to virtue?

Overrated, he says.

I’m sorry, I says. My timin always did stink. Especially when it comes to you.

I cain’t argue with that, he says. Let’s eat. We’ll talk.

Fate had nodded his way. Shown him the dead crow. He’d instantly known what to do. It hadn’t been dead long. He tucked it inside his shirt and went in search of Nero.

The mosstails had left a trail of broken branches in their flight. He followed it to the killsite. Nero was there. Gorging himself on the carcass of a tiny mossjack. Tracker was nowhere in sight. It looked like he’d made a quick kill for his friend and gone after a bigger beast for himself. He’d done such things before.

He couldn’t let Nero know who was taking him. His scent shouldn’t give him away. Crows had a weak sense of smell and Nero’s beak was deep in a heaven of blood and flesh. Still, he’d better make sure of it. He’d already slipped out of his coat. Now he silently scooped handfuls of rotting forest floor into it. Crows always know a face though. He wrapped his sheema around his head.

He’d only get one chance. He waited among the trees for the perfect moment. As Nero burrowed deeper into the guts, his greed was greater than his caution.

He edged closer. Closer. Close enough. He threw the coat over Nero. Then he grabbed him and hurried away.

In fact, I talk. Jack eats. An he drinks. An he listens. We sit cradled in the bed of fir boughs an I tell him how it all went aginst us. About Lugh’s brush with death. The fog that meant Ash couldn’t warn us in time. How the convoy was on top of us before we knew it. That I tried to stop the blast an failed. I talk of the slaves an the beasts. The Stewards an the Tonton. I cain’t speak of the unspeakable. The noise an the smells an the nightmare realness of the death we dealt them. I tell him it was dreadful an leave it at that. Then it’s Creed wounded, the curious joy of findin Mercy, an Creed’s challenge. I don’t tell the untellable. DeMalo. The blood moon.

Jack don’t say much. The odd question an once or twice, he nods. I can tell he’s thinkin hard.

We did wonder why they built that bridge, he says. But a settlement party—slaves too—headed to the Raze. What do they want with a wasteland like that? What’s DeMalo up to? You can bet he’s got a plan. We need to find out what it is.

I want Jack to know that DeMalo was there today. But I cain’t tell him straight. I might give somethin away, in my tone or my eyes or my face. So I says, There was two big dogs with the Tonton today. Creed called ’em ghosthounds.

Jack sits up straight, his eyes sparkin. That means DeMalo was there, he says. Them dogs never leave his side. He got ’em after Resurrection. Guess he don’t feel too safe. Did you see him? Tell me he didn’t spot you.

We was too far away, I says. There was smoke an noise an confusion … no, he couldn’t of. I sure didn’t see him.

Outright lies. Half-truths. Evasions. Each time I open my mouth.

DeMalo bein there means that convoy was definitely somethin special, says Jack. Otherwise, he would of left it to his Tonton grunts like usual.

That’s what Mercy said, I says.

Mercy, he says. Yeah. You can bet slaves notice things nobody else does. We gotta find out everythin she knows. Saba, d’you hear? You need to talk to Mercy.

Yeah, I says, Mercy, of course. I’m only half-listenin. Starin at a shimmer disc that hangs low beside me. At the play of moonlight as I spin it. Now I look at Jack straight. We cain’t win this, I says. We’re way outnumbered.

He frowns. That’s old news, he says. We knew that from the off.

But now I know what that means, I says. What it looks like an feels like. We got six fighters, Jack, that’s all. Emmi’s a dead weight an now we got Mercy too. Tommo an Creed only jest escaped. Lugh nearly fell to his death. If we’d lost them, we’d be finished, an fer what?

It was our first op, he says. We learn an move on. We git better. Smarter. Yer talkin like we didn’t win the action. We did.

They’ll be rebuildin that bridge already, I says.

So we hit ’em agin, somewhere else, right away, he says. It’s the whole idea, you know that. We ain’t many, but we can move fast. We make quick hits. Unpredictable. Time an agin.

Today was a waste of our effort, I says. An our firepower an our nerve. We ain’t gonna win by killin people. Death only leads to more death.

Today will of shook DeMalo, he says. Another few hits like this one, he’ll be scramblin to cover hisself. His losses mount up, he starts to look weak, people lose confidence in him. A few more start to bleed to our side—

That game’s way too long, I says.

We need to step it up, he says. We’ll hit the Tonton next. That’ll hurt him the most. I got a plan to take out two checkpoints on the same night. Opposite ends of New Eden.

I’m tellin you, this whole idea’s wrong.

It’s right an you know it, he says. It’s about who owns the future. One man or everyone. DeMalo or the people of New Eden. Fine, good, heal the earth, who wouldn’t want that? Come together fer a common cause. Work together fer the common good fer a change, instead of each person guardin their own little patch. But as free people in charge of their own destiny. Not with the gun of a tyrant at their backs.

New Eden’s too small, I says. There ain’t that many places we can hide. He’ll track us down before long.

You want the future to belong to DeMalo an his spawn?

Of course not, that ain’t what I—

Cuz that’s what’ll happen if we all stand back goin, it ain’t down to me, what could I do anyways, I’m too weak, he’s too strong. You didn’t do that when you was searchin fer Lugh. You took on the world single-handed to git him back. But … oh right, that was about family, warn’t it? An, let’s be honest, that’s where it ends fer you, ain’t it? When push comes to shove.

No, I says.

You should of left when I told you to, he says. After Resurrection. Yer jest holdin us back. You should leave us to it. His eyes glint ice, not silver. I take a quick swig of wine. Sweetness an fire, it burns his words down to my gut. There they churn thickly, sickly. We’re silent, tight hearted, tight lipped. Then, not lookin at me, he says,

You want me to say the word, Saba? Give you permission to go? he says. Fine. Go, the three of yuz, an good luck. There ain’t no shame in it. You tried, but this kinda fight ain’t fer you. Yer tied to yer family by blood an love. That means you’ll rush to their rescue, no matter what, an that’s dangerous to the rest of us. What happened today with Lugh? That jest proves it. Love don’t make a good leader. It weakens you.

Jack’s words click a trigger. In my head. In my gut. An I’m suddenly hot, my heart thumpin. Brothers. Sisters. Family. Blood ties. Mothers, fathers, children. Somethin new, unknown, starts to breathe deep inside me. With a tremble of excitement. A shiver of possibility.

Love weakens me. I repeat it, unner my breath, to myself.

That’s what Lugh’s always said. What I never really believed.

Love weakens, I says aloud. Maybe not. Maybe … it makes me different. From you. From the rest of ’em. From DeMalo.

Okay, says Jack, but I don’t see what this has to do with—

DeMalo knows about us now, I says. After today, he knows our drill—the quick hit an run—so he’ll be thinkin what he’d do if he was us. He’ll start thinkin like us. He’ll probly even enjoy it, treat it like a game. After all, we are playin his kinda game. The violent kind. That’s what we’ve all bin playin, all this time.

So? says Jack.

We did wrong today at the bridge. An DeMalo’s wrong. What’s right must lie somewhere else. Between us maybe. Or beyond us.

Or maybe not. Maybe what’s right lies much closer to home.

So … I says slowly, what if we stop thinkin like him … an start thinkin … like me.

Like you? Jack’s eyes narrow with sudden innerest. Go on, he says.

He’ll be espectin us to blow another bridge, or a road or a checkpoint, I says. What if we don’t? What if we change the game? Do somethin else? Somethin completely different?

Like what? says Jack.

I stole a horse today, I says.

Mischief, he says. Tricks.

No, I says, no, that ain’t what I mean. It’s more’n that, much more. Mercy said somethin … what was it? I know.

It won’t take much to make their house crumble. It don’t stand on strong foundations. DeMalo ain’t built New Eden on strong foundations, Jack. No families. No fathers an mothers with their children. He’s split them all apart. It ain’t natural. There ain’t no … heart to it. To New Eden. It’s jest this … idea. His idea. D’you see?

Okay, he says, but how does that change what we do?

I dunno ezzackly, I says. I gotta work this out. I gotta strong feelin, Jack. An I don’t jest feel it in my gut. It’s my heart an my head too … all of me. Whatever this is, there’s meat in it, I know there is. I gotta talk to Mercy. Yer right, she’ll know things. I need to go.

Hey, hey, hang on. As I start to move, he grabs my arm. I’m a great believer in goin with yer instinct, he says. But you got me thinkin too. Thanks to yer blunder at the bridge today, our hand’s bin well tipped. Yer right, DeMalo will try to outfox us. I would if I was him. But here’s what I think. He’s the lodestone, Saba. The power here rests in him an him alone. One man. The Pathfinder, with his miraculous visions. This ain’t the same as crazy Vicar Pinch an Hopetown. Without DeMalo, New Eden collapses. It’s his plan, his ideas, the force of his will. Yeah, let’s change the game. Let’s cut it short right now. I’ll go back inside the Tonton. I’ll move quick before I’m discovered. I’m gonna kill him.

Another click of the trigger in my head. Say agin? I says.

I’m gonna kill him, says Jack. The sooner the better.

No, no, the bit before, I says. The Pathfinder with his miraculous visions.

Visions at sunrise. I seen ’em myself. Another secret I hold close in my heart. DeMalo led me there by the hand. To the bunker in the hill, to the room with white walls. Where he shared his miraculous vision. A vision of the earth before the Wreckers destroyed her. Sights wondrous beyond all imagination. Unfergettable as long as I live.

I says, You seen ’em, right? The visions, I mean. Don’t all Stewards an Tonton go there, as part of, y’know, what’s it called—

—initiation, sure, says Jack. I was set to go, but I got killed before I could. It all happens at this hill, at dawn. Hard by a place called Weepin Water. Nobody’s allowed to talk about what they see an nobody ever does but—I tell you—afterwards, they all look at DeMalo like he’s the sun itself. It must be somethin pretty amazin.

He is the lodestone, yer right, I says. An if there’s any heart to New Eden, that hill is it. We gotta go there, Jack. Right now.

Right now? he says. No way. Look at you, yer completely wired. No wonder with all that happened today, an you cain’t tell me you got any shut-eye last night in that cave.

Sleep’s a waste of time, I says.

Don’t be stupid, he says.

All right, tomorrow. Weepin Water. I’ll meet you at that hill jest after middle night. Bring torches. We’re gonna git inside there somehow.

To do what? he says.

You said it yerself, information is power. We’ll find out what there is to know about that place. It ain’t figgered in our thinkin before. It should of.

Fair enough, he says.

An don’t you do nuthin till then, I says. Not a thing. None of yer sneakin around, no dressin like the enemy. Promise me.

He smiles. Cross my heart an hope to die, he says.

His eyes gleam silver intent. As I start to git up, he grabs my hand, gives it a tug an I fall to him, deep in the fir boughs. How could I ever mistake him fer DeMalo? His scent is so surely of none but him. Warm skin an, faintly, warm sage. Like a whisper of wider lands. His end of day beard shades his face. I smooth its rasp with gentle fingers.

See? he says. We can be calm. Quiet.

I gotta go, I says.

You remember earlier? he says. When them flathead pigs was about to trample you an I swung down like a he-man to save yer life …

In yer dreams, I says.

… at great peril to my own, he says. I’d jest like to point out that’s the third time I’ve saved you from certain death. You see, there’s this thing—I dunno if you remember—it’s called the Rule of Three … have I mentioned it before?

Once or twice, I says. I linger down his nose. Slightly crooked. Completely gorgeous. I’m glad I didn’t punch yer nose, I says. I like it.

Don’t distract me, he says. How it works is, you save somebody’s life three times—

—their life belongs to you. I know, Jack.

All I’m sayin is, the pigs made it three to me. I win.

Yer pathetic, I says. Desperate. I trail around his lips, so smooth an warm. Them pigs warn’t nowhere near me, I says. We’re still two all.

He gathers me in. Desperate, huh? he says. I’ll show you desperate. Our fingers twine, our legs tangle an his lips ramble roses all over me. Till I shiver an tremble with want fer him. Who’s kissin you? he says. Who’s touchin you?

You are, I says.

Say my name, he says.

Jack, I whisper. Jack. Jack.

Now kiss me, he says.

I kiss his name to his lips. His smooth, wine-sweet lips. I should go, I says.

You better go, he says.

Our kisses grow hungry. Our bodies heat.

There’s a bark from below. It’s Tracker. I break away with a gasp an peer through the branches at the sky. Jupiter hangs low in the east. The night’s half spent already. I need to git back, I says. I push him off, sit up an start puttin my clothes to rights. He’s made a heroic effort to undress me. You work fast, I says.

Yer a movin target, I hafta. Here, he says, lemme help.

I button, he unbuttons. I tuck, he untucks. I slap his hand. I’ll do it myself, I says.

As I jump to my feet an do the job proper, he leans back on his elbows. I never do know what to espect when I’m with you, he says. But even so, I gotta say tonight’s bin particularly unpredictable.

We live in unpredictable times, I says. Tomorrow night. Weepin Water. Don’t be late.

I take hold of the rubber rope an whistle at Tracker to warn him. Then I leap from the platform. I let go as the ground speeds at me. I fall an land in a crouch. Tracker dives outta the way, startled. I scoop the spilled arrows, fill my quiver an shoulder my bow.

Take a different route back to camp, says Jack. An watch yer back.

I glance up. He’s lookin down at me through the curtain of moss an branches.

How many nights to the blood moon? I says.

Countin tonight? He looks at the moon. I’d say … seven. Why?

I was hopin he’d say different. I was hopin Slim was wrong. Seven nights an our fates will be decided. It’s all in my hands. It’s all down to me. Tomorrow night, I says. Don’t be late.

As I pass the bushes trampled by the pigs, I remember the mosstails from earlier. The panicky way they crashed from the woods across our path. Jack’s words echo in me.

Somethin startled ’em. Use yer head.

If there was somebody followin us, Tracker would of found them. He’d of let me know. He’d of warned me.

Nero don’t show.

As Tracker an me run through the woods, on a roundabout route back to camp, I look fer him. Seek fer him. Hope fer a sight of him. In the trees, in the sky, aginst the moon.

He should of come with Tracker to Irontree. It’s strange he didn’t. He loves Jack with true devotion. An he knew we was headed to meet him. Jack’s the only one we ever run to in the middle of the night.

I stop to take breath atop a bare escarpment. From here, I can see fer leagues all around. It’s a restless ocean of treetops. Frosted by the sharpness of the moon, they murmur of winter to come.

There’s millions upon millions of stars in the sky. Night after night, they rush their brightness to the earth.

But Nero’s shinin dark ain’t nowhere to be seen.

I cain’t really say this time’s that much different from all the many times before that he’s disappeared fer hours. More’n once, he’s bin gone fer a couple of days. Nero’s always had his own life, apart from me. A winged life of secrets an ancient crow ways, that calls him to do what he must. Still, this time, his absence gnaws at me. I’m jittered with unease. Why, I couldn’t say.

I lay a hand on Tracker’s head. Where is he? I ask him. Where’s Nero?

He tips back his head an howls. A full-throated wail to the heart of the night. Three times he calls to his friend.

As the sound dies away, we wait. An we wait.

But there ain’t no answer.

So on we go.

As we near Painted Rock an our feet start to slow, I signal our approach to the watch. Slim’s creaky rustheap of a voice replies. You cain’t ever mistake his birdcalls.

Tracker bounds on ahead, outta my view. Suddenly, the most unholy noise cracks the night. A shocked yelp that shatters to a high-pitched yammer. I run in fear towards the sound.

In a little clearin stands a tall bull pine. Tracker circles frantic in front of it. There’s a crow spiked to the trunk. Jest above head height. Wings spread wide. Dead.

Nero.

My heart seizes. I stop. I fall to my knees.

Everybody’s come runnin, weapons in hand. Their sleep broke by the racket. Ash lights the way with a torch.

Emmi screams when she sees him. Nero! No! She rushes to the tree, scrabblin to git at him. It’s Nero, please, somebody help him!

I choke out one word. Lugh!

Molly runs to Em an grabs her, sayin, Hush now, honey, he’s dead, poor thing. Come away.

An Lugh’s here. On his knees. Holdin me. I cain’t breathe. Cain’t breathe. Nero. No. Ash, he says. Take him down, please.

She’s the tallest of us all. Gawdamnmit, I’ll kill whoever did this, she says. Light me, Tommo. He holds the torch close. With her pocket knife, she starts to prise the spikes from his wings. Fergawdsake, she says. Somebody shut Tracker up.

He’s still howlin an yammerin his distress. Mercy soothes him with soft words, soft hands. He quiets to a pitiful whimper.

Creed helps Ash, foldin each wing as she frees it. They’re so careful. So tender. Makin sure they don’t hurt him. They cain’t. He’s dead. He cain’t be mustn’t be cain’t be please. Lugh holds me to him.

Hey Saba? says Ash. C’mere.

There’s somethin in her voice. Tight caution. I stumble over to her. She lays him gently in my hands. He’s a limp, heavy weight. Take a look, she says.

Tommo lights him with the torch. His sleek black body. His soft smooth breast. My heart lurches. The breast feathers shine full an glossy. Nero’s breast don’t look like this. His feathers is still growin back. From the wound that DeMalo’s hawk dealt him. Fer a moment, I cain’t take in what I see. Then the truth starts to smoulder.

Well? says Ash.

It ain’t him, I says. This ain’t him. The breast feathers. It ain’t Nero.

They exclaim an crowd in to look. I couldn’t hide that Nero’d bin injured. So I fixed on a likely tale of a hawk attack on him an me sneakin into a Settler’s hut to steal a medicine bag to patch him up. More secrets, half-truths an outright lies. They all listened with one ear, if that. At the time, we had much bigger things to concern us.

My brain starts to tick. Clear an calm. This crow died natural, I says. Look, he’s got a lump in his neck. Seems to be some kinda bubo.

Emmi shudders from weepin so fierce. Tears wet her face. Yer right, she says. It ain’t him. But I don’t unnerstand.

Somebody wanted us to think it was him, says Mercy.

But why? Em says. Who would do such a cruel thing?

The Tonton, says Tommo. They’re the only ones spike like this.

If it was Tonton, we’d be dead, says Ash. Another Darktrees.

But I’m thinkin to myself, No, this is jest the kinda thing DeMalo would do. To send me a message. Prove to me how close he can git. How easily he could kill us the moment he wanted to. The next move in our endgame? Here it is.

Maybe it was one guy on his own, says Tommo.

That makes sense, says Molly. One guy couldn’t take us all on, but he could leave a message. A warnin. You’ll be the ones spiked next time. I’d say Tommo’s right.

DeMalo could of had us followed from the bridge, I think. Or a lone man might of acted on his own. If there was somebody hid here in the woods, waitin fer their moment to play this foul trick, surely Tracker would of sniffed ’em out earlier. We beat patrols with him regular an often.

Ash, I says. You an Tracker did a sweep soon as you got here, right?

She nods. An there’s bin one of us on watch the whole time, she says.

Not the whole time, says Creed. When I got back, there warn’t no one on watch. Everybody was in camp.

It’s my fault. Emmi’s face crumples in misery. Saba told me to go back, she says, but then Lugh came an I didn’t. I didn’t. I’m sorry, it’s all my fault.

Never give a child a grown-up’s work, says Creed.

Lugh turns to him with a frown. You must of bin followed, he says.

I cain’t see how, says Creed. I took a seriously snaky route back here.

We’ll check jest the same, I says. Emmi an Mercy stay here. The rest of yuz, take yer track.

I whistle fer Slim to come down as we fan out an run circles around Painted Rock. It don’t take long. It’s all clear. Jest as we gather back at the campfire, Slim rushes through the gap, chest heavin from hustlin from the top of the Rock.

What’s happened? he gasps. I heard the dog howlin an then all the commotion—oh lordy, no! He’s seen the dead crow on the ground.

It’s okay, it ain’t Nero, I says.

Somebody wanted to frighten us, says Lugh. They managed pretty good, too.

You must of seen somethin, Slim, says Ash.

Not a thing, he says. It’s bin quiet, I swear. Jest Saba an Tracker comin back, jest now.

Creed rounds on him. Stabs him in the chest with a finger. You must of missed ’em, he says. Stupid old man, yer useless, y’know that? You an yer gawdamnn dress. The Tonton was right here an you didn’t see ’em.

Creed, stop it. Molly snaps, hot as fire. Don’t you dare talk to Slim like that.

Enough, I says. Who, why an where can wait fer later. We’re outta here. I’m thinkin Starlight Lanes, I says. Yer friend Peg the Flight. What about it?

Good idea, he says.

Besides Slim, we don’t none of us know his junkjimmy pal Peg. But he’s friendly to our cause an his place, Starlight Lanes, is in Sector Five. That ain’t too far from Weepin Water an DeMalo’s bunker in the hill. Good for meetin Jack tomorrow night.

But Nero, says Emmi. Saba, we gotta find him! We cain’t go without him! She clutches my hand, her eyes big with pleadin.

Nero’s bin with me his whole life. He was huddled on the ground when I found him. A helpless scrap of skin an fuzz. He’d fell from the nest, his ma nowhere in sight. As I held him, his tiny heart beat quick time in my hands. He looked at me, I looked at him an I swear, he knew I didn’t have no ma neether. We joined souls at that moment an fer always.

But Jack’s voice speaks to me, Jack’s words run in me.

Yer tied to yer family by blood an love. That means you’ll rush to their rescue, no matter what, an that’s dangerous to the rest of us. Love don’t make a good leader. It weakens you.

I got eight other souls to consider. Standin right here. Waitin fer me to be the leader they need. To do what’s best fer all, not jest them that’s closest to my heart.

I’ll bury this crow, I says. Creed, take Tracker once around the rock. Have a quick look fer Nero.

I’ll go with, says Tommo.

Tommo don’t jest lip read real good. His other senses lie higher than us who can hear. He’s got cat eyes, cat feet an a nose fer anythin outta place.

Good idea, I says. The rest of yuz, strike camp.

They’d wakened her at dawn yesterday. The earth songs.

Emmi had been dreaming of such things for many nights. Of the earth and the stones and their songs. And her touching them and being able to feel and hear and know their songs with her heart and her head and her body. And the songs leading her, telling her, teaching her. Not songs with words. No. No words.

Dreams. They were places where anything could happen. Life awake was nothing like a dream. At least, not until yesterday dawn. When she woke to a world and herself full of songs.

She soon realized no one else could hear them. Then she knew what it was. The call. She was getting the call. Auriel Tai got the call as a young girl, too. When light—her spirit guide—sang to her. Auriel’s grandfather became her teacher. Now she needed a teacher. Auriel could help her to find one.

All day she’d asked Auriel to come, to find them. Pressing her message into the stones with her hands, into the earth with her bare feet. Not knowing if it would work or what she was doing. But hoping they might speak to any light that touched them. The sun, the moon, the stars. That the light would then speak to Auriel. Come to me, Auriel. I need you.

She needed her badly. There were so many songs, she couldn’t make them out one from the other. Stonesongs, earthsongs, their night songs and day songs. Their songs that sighed like air through people songs. Like when Molly sang her lullaby.

But tonight in camp, lying there, listening, she realized one song had started to run through all the rest. Very faint, very small, but needing to be heard. If only she could understand what it meant.

As they started to pack up to go, suddenly she knew. It was a song of below. Of dark and alone and afraid. She told her bare feet to feel their way there. To take her to where the song began.

It don’t take long. After more’n a month of this, day after day, we got the fast come an go down pat. Slim’s carthorse, Duff, stands patient, hitched to the Cosmic. Molly an Tommo load Bean the mule with the ammo an other bits of fightin gear while the rest of us ready our horses. There ain’t much talk. We’re all shook by what’s happened.

We can hear wolfdog howls as Tracker circles Painted Rock with Tommo an Creed in search of Nero. Though I know it ain’t likely they’ll find him, still I’m tense until they come back.

Tommo’s face says all. Sorry, he says. No sign of him.

Mercy’s jest about to mount Tam, her stolen pony. I hurry to give her a boost. She don’t really need my help, but it’s my first chance to speak to her since I seen Jack. The moon shades dark the tired hollows of her face. The scratches from Nero’s attack. I could count every line, every wrinkle. But she sits tall, straight-backed, a queen in her slave collar.

I fiddle with the bridle. Keep my voice low as I says, I gotta talk to you. Alone. Soon as we git to Starlight Lanes.

Her eyes speak assent.

You comfortable there, Mercy? says Lugh. His voice makes me jump. I didn’t realize he was so close.

Yer sister’s had a shock, she says. Look to her, won’t you?

He hugs his arm around my shoulders. You don’t hafta tell me, he says. He’ll find us, Saba, he always does. He’s probly jest off on some crow business.

As I sling my pack onto Hermes, I catch Tommo starin at me. He’s kneelin, fmessin with his bootlace. The second our eyes meet, he ducks down his head. A flush floods his cheeks. My conscience gives me a guilty start. I’d put from my head he tried to talk to me earlier. Lugh’s right. I shouldn’t of took his hand at the bridge.

Now, you know where yer goin, says Slim. Starlight Lanes, Sector Five. He takes a deep breath. His arm goes up to point the way. You head southwest from here—

Got it, says Ash. You told us twice already.

Well, he says, the sign’s likely to be overgrown is the thing. There’s snakecreeper grows fast as wildfire all over the—

We’ll be on the lookout, I says. You better git rollin.

I told Peg the Flight all about you numberous times, he says, but, still, don’t especk no warm welcome. Peg’s a genius with the junk, but a notorious cranky old fish. Ergo, there ain’t many drop-ins at the Lanes. Ideal fer a hidey-hole. Oh, an I meant to say. There’s a Steward fella by Willowbrook’s got a bad tooth I promised to pull. I’ll swing by there an yank it out. Maybe stop a couple other places along the way. Gotta keep myself lookin bona fide. A wolf in sheep’s clothin, that’s me. A sheep’s dress, I should say. Ha ha! Wouldn’t that be a sight? A sheep in a frock.

Slim, I says. Go.

Walk on, Duff. He clicks at his carthorse an, with a cry of, See you anon! they’re off. Inside the Cosmic his potion bottles clank in their cupboards as they bump through the gap an outta sight.

Eccentric he is, no question. But he’s a medicine man among few such. So Slim’s got value, he’s official in New Eden. The five circle tattoo on his right arm says so. Still, it’s curfew till sun-up fer everybody but the Tonton. An dawn’s a while off yet. He’ll hafta travel by one of the old ways till daylight. The slow, rough ones that wind an wander, that nobody much uses these days. DeMalo’s new roads is the thing. The rest of us, we’ll strike out wild. We’ll probly reach Starlight Lanes well before he does.

I take a last glance around. The site’s clear. I won’t think about Nero. I won’t I won’t. We’re all here, we’re all ready to mount up. Apart from one. Where’s Emmi? I says.

Nobody remembers seein her once we started breakin camp.

Molly says, That one’s had her head in the clouds all day.

Dammit, I says. Why cain’t she never do what she’s s’posed to?

Lugh sighs. I’ll go, he says.

Look who I found! It’s a shout. Emmi’s voice. We whirl around as she comes runnin through the gap. She holds Nero in her arms.

My heart bounds. Leaps. Nero! I cry.

Tracker makes a beeline, barkin like crazy. In the clamour of excitement that breaks out, I rush to her an take him. He greets me with caws of relief. Tellin me what happened, if only I could unnerstand. I elbow off Tracker, set to drown him with slobbery licks of joy.

Where’d you find him? says Creed. We looked, Saba, I swear we did.

As I check Nero to make sure he’s okay, Emmi’s breathless with the thrill of it.

I found him in a rabbit burrow tethered to a peg, she says. His beak was tied, so’s he couldn’t call fer help. He’d nearly got it off—he’s so smart, he was rubbin aginst this sharp stone—but oh, poor Nero, it must of bin awful. He must of bin so afeared. He was sure glad to see me, I can tell you.

Where was this? I says.

Oh, over there a ways. She flaps a vague hand in no particular direction.

Unnerground, says Creed. Guess that’s why Tracker didn’t sniff him out. He ain’t no burrow hound.

How did you know where to look? I says.

Em’s a hopeless dissembler. She tries to meet my eyes, but cain’t. Like a guilty dog that’s stole the supper.

I dunno, she says. I jest kinda … felt where he was.

Felt, says Lugh. Airy fairy. Come on, Em, none of yer mystical baloney.

It ain’t baloney! I swear, she says.

Lugh gives me a frownin look. Jest then, there’s a vexed squawk from my arms. Nero’s head feathers stick up in mad spikes all over. Tracker’s soaked him with swipes of his tongue. We laugh. I ain’t laughed fer so long, I almost fergot how it feels. I pull Emmi in fer a one-armed hug an kiss the top of her head.

Thanks, Em, I says.

I’m really really sorry I didn’t watch, she says. I feel jest awful, truly I do. But look, I brought you the tether cord. Here.

She hands me a short length of two-ply hemp twine. Plain, workaday cord that’s seen plenty of use. The kind anybody pretty much anywhere might be likely to have on ’em. I shove it in my pocket. Where’s yer boots? I says. Go put ’em on, yer as bad as Creed. Okay, we’re on our way. Next stop, Starlight Lanes.

Nero would have managed to free himself before long. He’d tied his beak loose enough to make sure of it. Still, he’d hated doing it. Hated himself for doing it. Taking him, frightening him.

He’d rattled her. She thought a Tonton had followed them. That the dead crow and Nero proved they could get at her—at all of them—at any time, at any place. So what? She wasn’t going to give up. Run away in fear. Had he really thought, even for a moment, that she’d do such a thing?

No. He’d stopped thinking. He’d lost his head. It was a shaming, stupid trick. Born of panic in the night-time woods.

He had to stay cool. Forget about DeMalo and just stick with his plan. It was simple and it would work. He’d follow her as she went to meet Jack. He’d look for his chance. He’d take it.

And his deal for their past and future would be done.

Our way to Sector Five takes us through the fells, with their acid springs an unsettled tors. It’s a place of sudden echoes. Of long ago bloodshed, cold on our skins. The wind whines its claws over rock. There’s bin a fresh landslip, a big one. We hafta dismount an help the horses pick their way through the shattered slabs.

I planted myself at the rear from the off, wantin to be alone with my thoughts. Not that I’ve had much chance. I carry Nero snug to my chest. He’s buttoned inside my coat with his head poked out to see where we’re goin. Tracker sticks like a burr, shovin his nose in, anxious to keep check on his friend.

Ash hangs back to wait fer us. How is he? she says. Hey, Nero. How ya doin, buddy? She reaches out slowly. He chitters nervily, beaks at her. It’s okay, okay, I won’t hurt you, she says. But he won’t let her near enough to stroke him. Helluva thing, she says to me.

You said it, I says. I go to walk Hermes on, but her hand on my arm stops me. The hostile wind circles, snatchin at her forest of plaits. Whippin the manes of the horses. She stands foursquare aginst it, tall, shadow-eyed an sharply white faced. Like a shade of some old war, rumbled from the stones by our passage. Her fingers chill through my sleeve.

I bin thinkin, she says. An I don’t like where it’s took me.

The liar inside me takes a cagey step back. What’re you talkin about? I says.

Come on, she says, you must be thinkin it too. It was one of us did that to Nero. Took him an tethered him.

I stare at her. It never crossed my mind, I says.

I don’t wanna think that one of our own did it, she says. But I cain’t figger how else to explain it.

DeMalo is how. But I cain’t say. I couldn’t ever say. None of us would dream of hurtin Nero, I says.

If somebody wanted to git at you, shake you, what better way than Nero? she says. An, I mean, we ain’t ezzackly bin holdin hands an dancin in a circle. Yer in a spiky time, my friend.

Are you talkin about Creed? I says. You an him’s best friends.

I ain’t namin nobody, she says. I hate that I’m even sayin this. Maybe I’m wrong. But. You need to look into it. If it is one of us, we gotta know who. An why.

You ain’t mentioned this to nobody else, I says.

No, she says. An listen, you make sure you suspect me too, okay? It could be I’m tryin to throw you off my trail here. Mind you, if I was, it’s such a sorry attempt I’d hafta cut off my own head in shame.

No need fer that, I says. Okay, Ash. This stays between you an me.

She nods as she turns up her collar aginst the wind. We pick our way on through the rockfall. After a bit, Ash says, You know me, right? I ain’t crazy or nuthin an … gawd knows I ain’t got no imagination, but … I feel like she’s still here. With us.

She don’t hafta say who she means. I know. It’s Maev.

An I see her, Ash says. Sometimes, I’ll turn an I swear I see her. Jest fer a moment I catch a glimpse of her. An it’s so real. It’s like she’s … caught in the light. In the moonlight. The sunlight.

Maybe she is, I says.

She’s bin so tangled with my life, says Ash. With who I am, fer so long. It don’t seem possible she’s gone. An her an me, we had some … times together. Y’know what I’m sayin? Not heavy or nuthin—neether of us was like that—but …

Oh, I says. I guess I thought becuz her an Lugh—

Ash slants a smile at me. He, she … whoever, right? she says.

I’m sorry, I says. I know we don’t talk about her enough. I jest feel too guilty.

Don’t, she’d hate that, says Ash. She believed in you, Saba. She believed in this fight. Remember who she was, how she was, an take strength from her.

This time, when she puts out her hand, Nero lets her stroke his head. If only crows could talk, she says.

If only.

Mid-mornin. The northeasternmost corner of Sector Five. Sweat wet from a sudden heavy heat, we pick our way along a forest alley. Its single track winds through the grown-over ruins of a settlement. Here, the shape of man-worked stone. There, a peek of iron. The earth creeps an seeps. A slowtime tide of moss an bushes an trees. Sunbeams straggle through branches. Like I figgered we’d be, we’re ahead of Slim. The alley’s rutted deep with long use, but nuthin’s passed along it today. It narrows as it heads fer a wall that towers high. The last gasp of some big Wrecker buildin, slowly bein swallowed by the great bloated bleb of crawlin forest.

Emmi’s walkin jest behind me, with Tracker. I glance back. She’s stood stock still, with the strangest look on her face.

What is it? I says.

She don’t answer. Tracker whimpers an sniffs all around her. She’s stopped next to a great stone, shafted through its heart by a determined hazel tree. She turns her head sharply. Stares at the stone hard.

Don’t lallygag, Em, we must nearly be there. Emmi. C’mon. Quit dreamin.

The track ends at the high wooded wall. There ain’t no sign of no junkyard.

Did we follow Slim’s directions? says Creed.

Yeah, I says. But he did rabbit on. I might of missed somethin.

Mercy says, Did I not hear him say the sign might be overgrown? She nods at the wall, smothered by rambunctious snakecreeper.

Lugh an Creed scramble up, usin roots fer hand an footholds. They start tearin at the creeper. There’s a sudden green flurry as we all join in, haulin an pullin. Then we stand there pickin off bits of creeper as we look at what we’ve uncleared.

A great, rusted fancywork archway. Over twenny foot high, it wracks an twists, saved from collapse by girders an logs. We stare at the sign that hangs from the middle. Hard to say what it’s made from. Nuthin that ever grew in the ground, that’s fer sure. It was brightly coloured once, but long since faded. What looks to be a comet with a tail of stars smashes into bottles an sends ’em flyin. There’s a bunch of letters that could be words.

Star … light … Lanes, says Tommo. This is it.

We stare at him in wonder. He reds-up furiously, shrinks from our close regard.

You can read, I says.

So? he says.

You never said, says Lugh.

You never asked, says Tommo. I got numbers, too. He reads the sign, slow an careful. Ten pin, he says. Twenny lanes. Great for a date. Come in and score. He struggles over the next bit, frownin with the effort. S, e, n, i, o, r, s. Seneyeors? Seneyeors spec-ee-al rates Mon and Thur.

We wait.

That’s all, he says.

What the holy hell does that mean? says Ash.

Who knows? It’s Wrecker speak, I says. But this is the place. Starlight Lanes.

You read good, Tommo, says Lugh. Who learned you? Ike?

He shrugs. Tommo’s life is split in two. Before Ike an after Ike. Life-after-Ike he’ll talk about. Life-before-Ike he won’t, not a word. When he learned to read must come from life-before.

Let’s find Peg the Flight. Innerduce ourselfs, I says.

I lead us through the gates. We’re quite the gaggle. Eight of us, sundry horses, a stolen pony, Bean the mule, a wolfdog an a nervous crow perched on my shoulder. Nero’s stuck to me the whole way here. Hostile to anybody else that comes near him, quick to beak whatever bit of ’em happens to be closest.

Oh my! says Emmi.

The junkyard rises high in front of us. I ain’t never seen its like. Countless piles an hills of scrap metal, some small, some large, with cranky paths that wind between ’em. There’s a scatter of rackety low sheds an lean-tos. A flat-topped grassy hill rises behind the yard. In front of it stands the biggest junkpile of all.

A shack grows from it, clings to it. Made of flotsam an crazyjunk, thisses an thats of all sizes an shapes an descriptions. At a quick glance, I see car doors, goodyears, metal sheets, barrels, boards an logs. All put together any old way. It’s a puzzle how it holds together. I never seen such a wackadoo place. Dozens of ladders an walkways sprawl out like a spider’s web from it—down to the ground, up the junkhill, sidewise an every which way. There’s ropes an chains an pulleys with buckets. Slides an chutes. Tracks an swings. Barrels an nets an wheels an flags. There’s a raggedy wash hung on a line. An there’s live birds in cages. Hunnerds of birds. Everywhere, birds. The air trembles with their trills an chatter. Nero caws to his cousins in their prison cells.

Molly shakes her head in amazement. An I thought the Lost Cause was a dump, she says.

So, where’s this Peg the Flight? says Ash. An what kinda name is that anyways?

A camel mooches into view from a nearby scrapmetal hill. He’s a fleabit shambles. His hump slumps in defeat.

Look who it is, says Em.

Oh no, says Lugh. I fergot he was here.

It’s Moses. He loathed us from the start. Five-time winner of the Pillawalla Camel Race, fer years he hauled the Cosmic fer Slim. When we had to take to country too tricky fer a camel, Peg the Flight took Moses on to haul his junktub. After the handover, Slim mourned through one endless, noisy night. With a keg of seed rye an long, confused songs about camels an brotherhood. We pretended sorrow, fer Slim’s sake, but secretly we celebrated. You can only take so much camel spit.

He’s seen us. He glares with unbrotherly malice.

He don’t look too happy, says Creed. You don’t suppose he blames us?

Don’t be stupid, I says. Hey, Moses.

He bellows with rage. He charges.

He blames us, all right! shrieks Emmi.

We scatter fer safety, boy, girl an beast. Jest as we do, a giant bird comes barrellin straight at us from the sky. No, no bird, a flyin machine. But not a Wrecker flyer. A junkflyer. A revamp two-wheeler with metal wings an two windcranks. One on top, one behind. A skinny old fossil in goggles an a helmet wrestles with the stick controls.

Look out! I yell.

Moses turns on a dime an scrambles. I dive fer cover. We’re all jest in time. The flyer smashes at speed at the scrapmetal hill. It explodes in every direction. The racket’s so fearsome, you could hear it on the moon. As it starts to settle, we git to our feet an brush ourselfs down. Bean’s honkin his head off in raucous alarm. Moses hollers back from wherever he’s hid. Nero shrieks an swoops.

Welcome to Starlight Lanes, says Creed.

Everybody okay? I says. There’s nods all around.

The pilot don’t appear rattled in the least. Still wearin his goggles, his helmet cock-eyed, he chunters to hisself as he clambers around, checkin the damage to his flyer. There ain’t nuthin but damage. It’s completely wrecked. An now I notice that this particular scraphill’s main scrap seems to be crashed junkflyer—bits of wing, wheels an so on. Sudden nosedives must be a regular event around here.

Ah … Peg the Flight, says Ash. Now I git it.

I call over. Hey there, sir? Hello? Are you okay? We’re friends of Slim’s.

He tucks the smaller windcrank unner one arm, slithers down the heap an hurries towards the junkhill shack, still talkin to hisself. Maybe he didn’t hear me, what with the crash an the helmet an bein old an all. I chase after him, swervin an leapin through the scattered junk. Tracker an Emmi an Nero come too. We catch up an trot alongside.

I says, Excuse me? Sir? Peg the Flight? I’m—

Slim’s girl, Angel of Death, yes yes, shut up, I heerd you, she says.

She. Peg the Flight ain’t no sir, she’s a ma’am. A scrawny old damsel, stringy as rawhide. Her tan skin droops in leathery folds. Her vulture neck pokes from high, narrow shoulders. Tattered britches flutter like feathers.

Sorry, I says. Sorry about the sir, ma’am, I mean, uh—Slim should be here any time. He ain’t far behind us. He said he thought it ’ud be okay with you if we was to—

But she’s gone. Nimblin one-handed up a rackly ladder, speedy as a spider. Still gabblin to herself nineteen to the dozen. Step by step, back to the start, basics, you goose, you fathead, she says.

Me an Em scramble up the ladder in her wake. Tracker’s left below, whinin an barkin.

We follow as she scampers along a rope an slat walkway towards her shack. Easier said than done. It’s a peril, with missin slats an patched in bits of frayed rope.

Beggin yer pardon, Miz Peg, but we’d like to stay here a bit, if that’s okay, I says. If it don’t cause you no trouble, that is.

Beggin my pardon blah blah blah! Peg swats her free hand about her head. As she rushes past the caged birds, there’s a great hullabaloo of flappin an screechin. Yes yes, my dearies, I know, I know! Not long now to wait, my hearts! she cries.

She dives through the open door of the shack. She dumps the windcrank on a bench with some other rammel, barks, Quiet! at us an starts to scribble on the wall with a piece of chalk. Airflow, she mutters, turnage, lift, thrust. Step by step, back to the start. Basics, you goose, you fathead.

Ma’am? I says. I’d be grateful if, uh … well, would you look at that. I watch, spellbound, as a picture of a windcrank starts to emerge. Every last detail clear an sharp. Who’d think it of such a rattlepate old nonny? How far you flown in these things? I says.

She makes no reply, heedless to all but her task. Nero’s followed us inside. Still more cautious than he would be usually, but he’s far too nosy to resist at least a peek. Like the yard outside, the shack’s a junkheap. But a indoor one. An a shipshape one. An it’s all about flyers. There’s spare parts in buckets an crates. Endless drawins an plans scrawled on the walls. This room seems to be the heart of the sprawl of buildins over the junkhill. I crane my neck to see the clutter of corridors, cranky stairways an other rooms that spider off from here. Through dozens of windows, big an small, sunbeams warm the dust of a thousand days gone. Peg’s only comferts seem to be a rocker chair an a rusty stove swagged with webs.

A heap of fightin kit on a bench catches my eye. I pick out a couple of armbands an a jerkin an dust ’em off. They’re Wrecker old, smooth an supple with age, but not bad fer all that. Good sturdy dark-brown leather with rusty metal plates. Well padded. Brass buckled. The jerkin looks to of stopped a few arrows in its time. It’s got the wounds to show fer it. The armbands cover me, wrist to elbow. A good thing to have. Whaddya want fer these bits of armour? I ask Peg.

Them ain’t fer tradin, she says. She don’t even bother to look, she jest keeps on scribblin.

As I go to drop ’em back, she says, They’re yers, meant fer you, kept fer you, put ’em on.

I pause. Cast a frown at her back. Crazy old coot. Then, Thanks, I says. I slip the jerkin over my head, slide on the armbands an do up the buckles. A perfect fit. All of it.

Emmi’s bin silent this whole time. She’s knelt by a table, starin in wonderment at a birdcage that sits on top. It’s tiny. The size of my two fists together. Such dainty metalwork you wouldn’t think possible. Vines twine the bars, burstin with leaf an fruit an flower. Inside, there’s a metal finch perched on a swing. Scabs of colour tell of its painted beauty, once upon a long ago. What kinda person in what kinda world had time or cause to make somethin like this?

Nero flaps onto the table. He peers at the bird, his head tipped this way, that way. He croaks. Taps the bars gently with his beak.

Nero, don’t, says Em. It’s sleepin.

Wake it up, says Peg. The key, the key is the key to a song. She throws down the chalk an comes over, swipin her hands on her britches. Her crabby old fingers wind a key hid low on one side. There’s a whisper of a clank. Then the tinkle of ancient spiderweb music. The finch’s beak opens an shuts. It tips forwards an backwards, flickin its tail. As the song ends, it sits back on the perch. Its beak slowly closes. Frozen till the next turn of the key.

Oh, breathes Emmi. Make it sing agin!

Please, I says.

Sorry … please, she says.

Peg waves consent. Em winds the key an the song tiptoes through the dustbeams once more.

Them birds out there in the cages, I says. You should let ’em go. Birds need to fly.

Soon, girlie, soon. Me an them, says Peg.

A shadow falls over us. Tommo stands in the doorway. Slim’s jest pullin in, he says.

Slim gives me a morsel of news on the quiet. He made three stops on his way here. One to pull the tooth at Willowbrook, one to lance a neck boil an one to treat a private complaint so gruesome his toes curl at the thought. He starts to regale me, but I hold him in check an the gist of it is this.

At each place he stopped, they told him the same. They heard from their neighbour who heard from his that the Angel of Death haunts New Eden. That her ghost comes each night with the starfall. She was seen last night. An the night before that. She’s ridin the roads with her wolfdog an crow, seekin vengeance fer her death from any who cross her path. They’re all unsettled. Worried what it means. Fearin it portends trouble soon to come.

I don’t ever ride the roads. Nobody’s seen me. In starfall season folks see haunts where there ain’t none. I’ll tell Jack about this when I see him tonight.

Luckily, there’s more than jest junk at Starlight Lanes. There’s a little coldwater washpond too. Round the back, through a woodland garden patch, an a nut glade an a stand of cottonwood. We find Moses an Hermes an Bean there, nibblin at the bark. Hermes would put up with anybody fer cottonbark. Even a foul tempered camel.

I’m amazed Peg could give us direction to the pond. From that ripe smell she trails, I took her to be a stranger to water.

Now with a ring of pale skin where her slave collar was—Peg had it off in a jiff, like Slim said she would—Mercy strips off her ragged hemp tunic. A shawl of thin whip scars shrouds her shoulders. She folds the tunic with care.

I’d of thought you’d wanna burn that thing, I says.

The day there ain’t no slaves in New Eden, she says, I’ll build a pyre an watch it burn.

She wades in fer a swim an a wash. I toss her my soap-bundle. I don’t look at her direct. I cain’t bear to. That Mercy should be brought so low. The sight of her naked body, so scarred an gaunt, stabs my gut with red anger. This is DeMalo. I gotta remember that behind his clever words this is who he is. Mercy, jest one slave among many such as her. Like Slim’s friend, Billy Six. His hard-worked land stolen an him spiked through the throat, nailed to a post like a trophy rat. Maev, dead. Bram, dead. The Free Hawks an Raiders, all dead.

You kill people to git what you want.

So do you. You’ve just done it again. Any violence is regrettable, but it’s a means to an end. Did you weep when you destroyed Hopetown? Did you lose sleep over any scum that might have burned in its flames? No. We are so alike, Saba.

Me, like DeMalo. I gotta shut out his voice. It’s runnin through my head all the time. Confusin me. Twistin my thoughts. I can feel the heat rise to my cheeks. Mercy sees—not much escapes her notice—but she don’t remark on it.

You comin in? she says.

I bathe on my own, no offence, I says.

She takes that in, too, without comment. While she scrubs the dirt of slavery from her skin, I splash my hot face. Try to cool my hot mind. Drink down handfuls of water to calm the sick anger that roils my belly.

Once she’s outta the water an rubbin herself dry with a clean sack, Mercy says, So, what is it you want to talk about?

Would you say love makes you weak? I says. That’s what Lugh believes. Becuz of Pa, how he went after Ma died.

Mercy don’t answer right away. Then she says, That’s Lugh. What about you? Tell me what you believe.

I stare at my boots as I speak. As I think my way through each word. I seen both sides, I says. Not jest other people, I know it in myself too. I know how strong it made me when I was searchin fer Lugh. I couldn’t of done what I did, I couldn’t of endured if my tie to him hadn’t of bin so strong. But I bin made weak by it too. I made some bad choices. On the whole, though? I’d say I’m stronger fer love, not weaker.

I couldn’t of said it better myself, says Mercy. She sits down beside me, wrapped in the sack.

I raise my head to meet her eyes. I remember somethin you told me at Crosscreek, I says. You said my pa looked to the stars fer answers, but you look at what’s here, in front of you, around you. I need you to tell me what you see, Mercy. Whaddya make of this place? Of New Eden?

Huh! She gives a little laugh. You sure do got big questions on your mind these days, she says. What do I make of New Eden. She thinks fer a bit, then she says, Things ain’t always what they seem to be. People neether.

That ain’t new, I says.

She says, Somehow … New Eden don’t seem entirely real.

Them scars of yers look real enough, I says.

Of course, but, for instance, she says, them girls I tended at the babyhouse. Imagine that’s you. Your family’s driven away or killed—maybe right in front of you—but you’re not. You get to live becuz you’re one of the Pathfinder’s Chosen ones. You’re a Steward of the Earth now. You’re dazzled by him. Convinced by him. The power, the violence, they keep you in fear.

Yes, I says.

Mercy goes on. You’re paired with a boy you don’t know. Sent off with this stranger to work the land an make healthy babies for New Eden. Before you know it, if you’re lucky, you’re pregnant to him. Maybe you cain’t abide him, but you got no say in it. What do you think? How do you feel about it all?

My remembrance goes to the Stewards we killed. Buried in a shallow grave on the road to the Lost Cause. Eli an RiverLee. His dislike of her. Her fear of him. Her desperation to have a child. Knowin if she didn’t, she’d be slaved. I think of RiverLee’s precious silver necklace. Family reminders forbidden in New Eden, but she kept it, hidden, a secret. To remind her who she was, where she’d come from.

How do you feel? You tell me, says Mercy.

I feel awful about my family, I says. Why choose me above them? An I’m grievin them, I miss them, but I gotta hide how I feel. I cain’t talk to nobody. I hate the boy they paired me with. I hate him touchin me. He’s mean. But if I don’t have a baby, he’ll turn me in an I’ll be slaved. I feel afeared. I feel alone.

That sounds about right, says Mercy. An I’ll tell you somethin. Girls givin birth, they always call for their mother. Your mother did. So do them Stewards. Not one wants her baby to be took from her. They try to hide what they feel—after all, the Pathfinder knows best, it’s for the good of New Eden an Mother Earth—but I seen it in their eyes, their faces, every time. They cry in the night. An the ones who birth weak babies? They know ezzackly what’s gonna happen. They know the child of their flesh, that they carried in their body, will be left out of doors to die. If the cold don’t take it, some animal will. Maybe to feed its own young. Them poor girls, it just about kills ’em. One took her own life while I was there.

She killed herself, I says.

They don’t let that get out, says Mercy. Not good for morale. Them Steward girls, they’re breeders. Their wombs belong to New Eden. Natural feelins an inclinations don’t come into it. Did you know they’re expected to produce a child every two years?

Two years, I says. I didn’t, no.

If they fail, they’re slaved. An the boy ain’t never to blame, she says.

What about them? I says. The boys?

They pretend to be men, she says. I can only imagine how they feel about never seein their own child. The Chosen of New Eden, they’re all tryin to be who DeMalo says they are.

Pretend. That trigger in my head clicks agin. Things ain’t always what they seem. People ain’t who they seem. They’re all tryin to be who he says they are.

So that’s the Stewards an the babyhouse, Mercy’s sayin. I cain’t say about Edenhome, I don’t know it. Only, babies go there once they bin weaned.

Edenhome. Where they raise children to serve New Eden. Kids who was stolen from their folks. Weaned babies. When they turn fourteen, they become a Steward of the Earth an they’re paired by the Pathfinder to breed an work.

Then there’s slaves, says Mercy. Most like me, shanghaied. Some who used to be Chosen ones. Them that fell from grace with the Pathfinder.

One moment they’re a Chosen one, the next they ain’t, I says. That must give ’em food fer thought.

It don’t go unnoticed, let’s put it that way, she says.

An there’s the Tonton, I says. Don’t fergit them.

I ain’t likely to, she says.

When you start to pick it apart, I says, when you start to look close, New Eden ain’t what it looks like. But it’s workin, isn’t it? The Pathfinder’s plan to make a new world.

In some ways, maybe, she says. The Stewards are well fed all the time now. That means more of the girls carry to full term. Word is that crop yields are up.

DeMalo’s voice runs through my head.

I’m making difficult decisions every day. Allocating what scarce resources there are to those who can make best use of them. I’m behaving morally, responsibly.

Mercy an me sit silent fer a time, there by the coldwater pond. The sun on my skin feels softly, rarely kind. The same words churn in me, over an over. Mothers an children. Fathers. Brothers. Sisters. Family. People ain’t who they seem to be. On the whole, we’re stronger fer love. DeMalo’s weakness. Our strength.

I realize that Mercy’s watchin me, her eyes sharply curious. I take her neatly folded tunic an hand it to her.

You’ll be buildin that pyre one day soon, I says.

There she is, by the twisted tree. Allis, my sunlight mother. We’re alone, her an me, on the wide flat plain. In the grey at the edge of the world. The clouds hang low. The wind wails high. The tree gleams, bare an white.

At the foot of the tree is the gravepit. Rough an narrow an deep. Then we’re standin beside it, my mother an me. I know what lies within. The body in rusted armour. Laid out in the pit full length. The head wrapped around with a blood red shawl.

Golden Allis. Gone fer so long. Sun hair, sky eyes, bright soul. But the dark-past-the-edge has vanquished her light. She drifts. She shifts. She fades.

Her feet of air step into the grave. She beckons, come with me. It’s empty now. I follow her down. Into the down-dark earth.

Then water. On the rise. Up my bare legs. No, not water. Blood. It rises quickly. Blackly. Thickly. To my thighs, my waist, my chest. It grips me, I cain’t git away. I slip an I’m chokin, I’m drownin, I’m chokin, cain’t breathe, I’m—

With a jolt, I’m awake. Scrabblin at my throat. Pullin frantic at what’s chokin me—

Saba, wake up! It’s Molly’s voice, urgent.

I cain’t breathe! I gasp.

It’s off, okay, I’m takin it off. Saba, c’mon honey, open yer eyes. Sit up.

She pats my hand gently. I blink. Made stupid by the sudden glare of sunlight. Blasted to life while lost in the darklands of dream. Molly kneels beside me. She holds the red shawl.

Uh! I shrink back. Take it away!

Okay, calm down, okay, it’s gone. She pushes it behind her skirts, outta sight. You got yerself tangled in it, that’s all.

My rattleheart slows to a rackety gallop. That was in the bottom of my pack, I says. How’d you git it?

Emmi gave it to me, she says. When Mercy told me she left you fast to sleep, I came to cover you, make sure you didn’t die of sunstroke.

I stare at her dully. I didn’t mean to drop off, I says.

I’m bone weary. My head feels thick. My body’s heavy, like I’m weighed down by stones.

I’m sorry, says Molly. I didn’t mean to disturb you.

No, no, I says. It’s good that you did. I got thinkin to do. A lot to work out.

You hardly sleep at all these days, she says. You bein tired won’t be good fer none of us. Here, lie down. Cover yerself with this. She slips the knot on her headscarf an hands it to me. It smells richly of the rose oil that softens her skin, that scents her hair. As she shakes out her curls, I make a point of not lookin at the W brand on her forehead. She sees me not lookin. She says, It ain’t often I git a chance to air the war wound these days.

How can you make light of it? I says.

What should I do? she says. Cry fer the rest of my life? Molly of the Many Sorrows?

No, but—after everythin else … Gracie an Ike an then—I dunno how you bear it.

You got battle scars. This is mine, she says. You know what it tells me? I’m a survivor. An if I ever need remindin why I’m here right now, why I’m doin this? One look in the glass does it. Not that I don’t got plenty of other reasons. Ike, of course. An Jack. She hesitates a moment, then she says, You never talk about him. Since he died, you ain’t so much as mentioned his name, not even in passin. I know you gotta guard what you say with the others, but you know you don’t need to with me. The hurt puzzlement in her eyes makes my colour rise. I know Jack’s impossible, she says. Was … impossible. I know it was complicated between him an you. An maybe yer feelins warn’t as strong fer him as his was fer you—I dunno, yer heart ain’t none of my business an love ain’t easy, I sure know that. What I mean to say is … what I’d really like, what I really need, is to talk about him. With you. That’s all.

I’m silent. I sit starin at my boots while heat flags my cheeks. That was a sidewise reminder that Molly knows one secret of mine. She knows that the first man I lay with warn’t Jack. But she don’t know who. She’d never dream it was DeMalo.

The thing is? she says. The thought of Jack dyin never once occurred to me. Not once. Fer all the trouble he found or that found him. An the other thing is, besides me, Jack’s th’only one who ever knew Gracie.

Her voice falters. Fat tears spill down her cheeks. Damn, she says. Sorry. She fumbles in her pocket.

I hate this. That I lie to everybody. Most of all, I hate lyin to Molly about Jack. She’s our greatest guilt, him an me. Our biggest regret in this necessary deception. She, his dearest friend, who mourns him so deep. But she has to believe that he’s dead. The more people who know a secret, the more likely it is to slip out. Jest a glance from her to me at the wrong time could git someone thinkin. I’d trust my little Free Hawk gang with my own life. But not Jack’s.

An the fact is, I hardly dare mention his name myself fer fear I let somethin slip that I shouldn’t. How I ache to unburden myself to her. To tell her everythin. About Jack, yes, of course. But, if I’m honest, about DeMalo too. Of anybody in the world, I think Molly’s the one person who might unnerstand, who could help me make sense of it. Make sense of him an me. I want her to be my friend. I wanna be a friend to her. But it cain’t be. Not now. Not yet.

Sorry, I never cry. Molly blows her nose on one of her useless little scraps of hanky. Well, I better head back, she says. Creed’s probly lookin fer me to apologize fer the umpteenth time. He don’t do nuthin by halfs, I’ll give him that. I dunno if it was me slappin his face or what you said to him after, but the boy’s contrite. No more declarations of love, no more proposals. Don’t tell him I said so, but I quite like him now he’s actin more normal with me.

She gits to her feet an dithers with brushin off grassy bits, tidyin her skirts an petticoat. I can tell that she’s hopin I’ll ask her to stay. To talk about Jack, as she so badly wants to. I sit, silent, with a miserable heart.

She’s holdin the shawl in her arms. It’s a shame you don’t like it, she says. The colour suits you.

Shawls ain’t me, I says. An I ain’t easy with this one.

That’s the truth, near enough. But it’s a fishy excuse fer all the fuss I made. If Molly thinks so, she don’t let on.

Who’d of thought? she says. The Angel of Death, shy of a shawl. Don’t worry, yer secret’s safe with me.

I couldn’t begin to try an explain it to her. I cain’t explain it to myself. Why Auriel Tai’s blood red shawl has wrapped through my dreams from the moment I met her. Why it’s always swaddled round the head of a body. A faceless warrior in a gravepit. Or Lugh or Jack or DeMalo. An then, the unnerve of findin it in my pack. When Auriel an me parted at the Snake River camp, the shawl was draped around her shoulders. Then somehow—some strange impossible how—when I was leagues an hours an more leagues away, I found it in my bag. It was hers, no mistake. One of her hairs was caught on it. Long an fine, the colour of pale fire.

Saba? Molly’s watchin me with a little frown. If you really don’t want it, I’ll have it, she says.

I take it from her. No, it’s mine, I says. See you later.

Dismissed, rebuffed, she leaves me. With a smile an a wave an a grace that I do not deserve.

Alone, I stare at the shawl. It is mine. Fer some reason, it seems to be mine.

I curl in the grass by the pool, my head pillowed by Molly’s rose-scented scarf. Beside me, Nero nests hisself into the red shawl.

I tip into sleep an wake with a start. Like I’m on a cliff edge then fall off. Over an over. Agin an agin. My heart slams me awake each time I fall. Dark dreams trap me in shallow circles. Round an round. On an on.

Me on the hill above the bridge in the night. The Steward girl in the cart. Her face. Her smile. Her spotted kercheef at her neck. The sound of the blast an the sound of screams an blood rains down upon me.

While Mercy’s voice repeats an repeats. Paired with a boy you don’t know. Pregnant to a boy you don’t know.

Me an DeMalo. In the pool above the bridge. I’m in the water, in his arms. We twist an turn below the surface. Sunlight sparkles above. His white shirt billows. His voice whispers. Think of it. A child. Yours and mine.

From each place he kisses me, each place he touches me, a stream of blood starts to flow. The water turns red. Hands pull me down. Down down, the darkest depths beckon me down.

I go deeper, darker, as Molly’s voice sings. Hush now, my baby, an sleep without fear. Dream Angus will bring you a dream, my dear.

Strands of hair wind from darkness towards me. Long an fair, my mother’s hair, like weeds it winds around me. Then she, her ghost self, my white fog dead mother, wraps her arms around me an down we go, down down down.

Dream Angus will bring you a dream my dear.

As I bleed. As I drown. As I drift away to black.

I come to with a shudder. Sit up quickly. Too quick. A sleep of such dreams ain’t no sleep at all. My skin’s bumped with cold. The day’s fuggy swill is gone. The wind’s changed. A brisk easterly is busy at work, sweepin the dregs of day into night.

I bundle Nero in the shawl, any old way, with him squawkin protest till he struggles free an flies. I walk fast, brisk, to wake myself. In the hope that my dreamtime cain’t keep up. I collect Hermes from the cottonwood glade. I’ll need him fer the ride to meet Jack tonight.

The racket from Peg’s caged birds grows louder as I near the junkyard. I can hear music. Faint at first. As we follow its trail through the yard, it settles to a wistful lament. Somebody on a stringbox. A good player. Must be Peg. None of our lot scrapes the strings. It ain’t long before the deep smell of cooked meat joins in. My mouth waters. There’s a shout of laughter.

The music an smells an voices tumble through the open door of a ramshackle shed. Outside, there’s a roastpit. The spit’s empty, the rocks grow cool. Tracker slinks among the junkheaps, on watchdog duty. He greets us with a raised head an swish of his tail, then disappears agin, nose down, on his patrol.

Me an Nero go in. Rush lanterns hang on the walls of the shed. Splash warm pools of light over the dusty clutter. There’s a big space bin cleared in the middle of it all. Peg hunches over a battered stringbox. Her skinny old arm’s at one with her bow, haulin that mournful tune from its guts. Creed shakes his head in admiration as he plays along on his squeezebox. Molly an Slim an Mercy perch, uncomfortable, on barrels and whatnot. They’re tryin to eat, but without much success. Emmi’s in the grip of giddy excitement. She jigs an hops all around ’em, with her tongue goin clickety clack. They smile an nod. The fools. They don’t know not to give her encouragement. They’ll be trapped now till she tires or death takes ’em. Ash an Tommo know better. They don’t meet her eyes, but keep their heads down an fill their bellies.

Lugh’s right by the door. Eat tin in hand, he’s pickin over the ravaged carcass of a spread you might dream of. An he’s bein so fussy, he must be on thirds. There’s woodchuck roasted to tender flesh an crispy skin, boiled lilybulb with onions, nettlecake an more. I’m used to livin low, to hard fare. I’m only confused by plenty. Nero dives at the table. Lugh cries, No!, but too late. Nero’s done a snatch an grab. He shrieks defiance as he settles on a rafter with a big piece of woodchuck.

What’s all this in aid of? I says. What’s got Em in such a fizz?

Ah, there you are! Lugh turns quickly. It’s a birthday party. Molly pulled it together. Ain’t she a wonder?

Molly’s birthday? I says.

No, stupid, Emmi’s. She’s ten.

What? I says. Today?

Last month, he says. You fergot, bad sister.

Ten, I says, good grief. Anyways, bad brother, you fergot too. Why didn’t you come git me? You got grease on yer face.

You needed to sleep. He swipes with his sleeve an inspects me, narrow-eyed. I see you didn’t, he says. Yer startin to give old Peg the Flight some serious competition in the ugly bag stakes. All tired an wrinkly an big dark circles—

I slap his arm. I am not wrinkly, you—

He plugs my mouth with a wodge of cake. You what? He blinks blue-eyed innocence at me as he nibbles on a lilybulb. Sorry, cain’t hear you.

Saba, hey Saba! Emmi comes runnin. She pulls at my hands, hoppin an turnin me in circles. She gabbles full tilt, while I choke down the cake. Molly gimme a comb fer my hair—her very own favourite comb—an she says if I use it twice a day it’ll make my hair grow beautiful jest like hers. I cain’t wait, I already bin combin, can you tell? An Creed—guess what? He ate fire, he truly did, you should of seen! An then he pulled a button from my ear by magic. Here it is, look, he said it’s mine to keep. An Ash gimme a gizmo knife an Slim gimme this special medicine necklace to stop the rickets an—

Rheumatics, not rickets, says Lugh.

I should know, it’s my necklace, an it’s rickets, she says. An Mercy says she’ll make me a new shirt jest as soon as she finds one to cut down an we’re gonna have dancin in a bit an—

Emmi! Tommo calls. C’mere!

She dashes off agin an me an Lugh follow. She stands in front of Tommo, her eyes shinin. He puts his empty eat tin on the ground. Creed an Peg stop playin to watch.

Keep still, Tommo tells her. Hands out. Eyes shut.

She squeezes ’em tight an stretches her arms straight in front of her. He reaches behind him. He brings out the dainty little birdcage with the tiny metal finch that sings. He places it gently in her hands.

Open, he says.

She opens her eyes. A gasp of wonder. Joy lights her face. Fer a second. A breath. Then it darkens to shocked dismay.

There’s puzzlement all around. Raised eyebrows an baffled smiles. The cage is a rarely fine object. The best Tommo’s got in his trade bag is a buckle.

That’s quite the present, I says. It must of cost dear. What did you take fer it, Peg?

She waggles her head an shakes her bow. Never you mind, she says. The boy offered, I took, it’s business, our business, his an mine, Miss Nosy Poke, not yers.

Tommo, you didn’t. Emmi breathes the words in disbelief. It’s clear she knows full well what he’s traded. An she don’t like it, not one little bit. An Tommo don’t like her reaction. He scowls darkly. His cheeks flush.

No, says Emmi. You cain’t.

C’mon, says Ash. What is it?

Tommo’s glarin at Emmi. She glares back at him, her face scrinched with fury. There’s a long, uncomfortable silence. I notice Nero makin free with the food table.

At last Mercy says, When somebody gifts you, Emmi, it’s only good manners to accept with thanks.

Thank you, she says flatly. It’s the best present I’ll ever have.

No kiss, no hug, not even a smile. Fer the best present she’ll ever have. Then Peg swings into a sweet old waltz an the strange moment breaks. Mercy starts collectin the eatin tins. Molly pounces on Nero to rescue the food. As she scolds him fer a thief, she feeds him tidbits.

Lugh says to me, What was that about? An how did he manage it? Tommo ain’t got nuthin.

I know, I says. I ain’t got the faintest idea.

Ash saves Tommo from his humiliation. She grabs him to show him how to waltz an then he’s busy dodgin her clod-hoppin boots, countin one-two-three over an over. With a courtly bow, Slim bids Emmi to dance. Despitin his bulk, he glides her around in elegant twirls an swoops. Emmi makes a big show of ignorin Tommo. Her pleasure in her first ever party is gone.

Did you speak to her like we talked about? I says to Lugh.

He grimaces. Sorry, I fergot. But, c’mon, let her be. Now ain’t the time.

Now’s jest the time, I says. I’ll do it—don’t worry, I’ll be nice to her—but you owe me. We cain’t be th’only ones don’t gift her. Go rustle somethin up.

Where from? he says.

I dunno, look around, ask Peg, I says. We’re in a junkyard, fergawdsake. I managed to find you that necklace in a landfill an I’d say it’s pretty fine.

He grabs hold of it. The little green glass circle on a leather string that I gave him fer our last birthday. Eighteen year. He gives me a hopeful look as he says, Maybe I could—

You are not givin that to her, I says. Ungrateful swine. An don’t go givin her yer spare bootlaces neether.

He wanders off an I ain’t surprised to see him peer hopefully into a filthy old barrel. Like a birthday gift fer a ten-year-old girl might be found in such a place. It’ll fall to me to sort out but I’ll make him sweat a bit first.

I catch Creed’s attention an give him the nod. It’s jest gone dark outside. Time fer him to join Tracker on patrol duty. As he sets aside his squeezbox an heads my way, Peg rackets into a lively reel. She saws at the strings, stompin time on a board with gusto. Poor Slim lets out a pained wail. Lugh takes pity on him an Em shrieks with startled delight as he grabs her an starts reelin her about the room. Good man, big brother. Slim staggers to a stool to mop his brow.

Creed’s got me in his sights. His chin’s set determined, like a man on a mission. I think him an me’s about to have further words, probly on the subject of my character flaws. My body twitches to flee, but I stand my ground. I’ll hafta put him off. I gotta leave to meet Jack at Weepin Water.

Molly’s foot taps time as she helps Mercy clear the table. Creed passes by them an she touches his hand. She don’t look at him. It’s the briefest of touches an the light ain’t good, but I know I didn’t imagine it. An she was the one to reach. She was the one to touch. In the gloom, she must of thought she wouldn’t be seen.

Creed looks dazed. Like from a knockout punch, jest before you hit the ground. He walks straight past me. I stare at Molly. She smiles an chats to Mercy as they work. She makes like she cain’t abide him. Well. She did say it herself.

Life ain’t black an white. People ain’t neether. Family, friends, lovers. The longer I live, the more that I see, the less I know fer sure. Especially when it comes to matters of the heart.

So many secrets. Emmi an Tommo an now Molly an Creed. What else don’t I know about? Far too much, I fear.

Emmi! I wave at her, shoutin over the fidget of Peg’s fiddle. C’mere!

Molly, calls Lugh. We’re two down. Help us out.

This tame old jig? She shrugs. Why not? With a swish of red petticoat, she sashays over an he swings her into a dizzy whirl.

Emmi snails her way to me, in sullen obedience. What? she says.

Don’t you what me, Miss Ten Year Old. C’mon, I says, you can help me saddle Hermes.

Hermes whinnies when he sees me carryin his reed mat an bridle. The wind hurries thin shreds of cloud across the sky. They shine whitely aginst the blue black of early night. The weather’s changed. Feels like it’s gonna be a cold one.

Em plunks herself down on a tangle of rusty iron. Nero’s followed us outside. He busies hisself tryin to steal her new medicine necklace. I bin noticin how he is with everybody since he got caught an trapped in that burrow. He’s okay with me an Em, but that’s it. All others git pretty sharp shrift an he’s most needle-tempered with the boys. Even Lugh that he’s known all his life. That would jibe with a man snatchin him. My idea that DeMalo sent a Tonton to do the deed. To try an frighten me off. Push me towards early surrender.

Cut it out, Nero! Em gathers him onto her lap. She’s got her shoulders hunched, like she’s espectin trouble. Whaddya want? she says. I ain’t tall enough to saddle Hermes, an you know it.

Oh? I thought you might be now yer ten, I says. Listen, Em, I got a special job fer you. Where I’m goin tonight, Nero cain’t come. I’m leavin you in charge of him.

She brightens. I won’t let him outta my sight, not fer a moment, she says. She gives him a hug. Poor Nero, it was awful, what happened to you. An that other poor crow. You know who done it, doncha? she says to me. I seen yer face.

Maybe I do, I says. I twitch the mat into place.

Are you goin after ’em now?

That ain’t yer trouble, I got things in hand, I says. But listen, Em, you gotta unnerstand that I need to know everythin that’s goin on. No matter how small, no matter if you think it ain’t important, you need to tell me. What did Tommo trade fer the cage?

Her face scrinches in misery. Torn between duty an friendship. I cain’t tell you, she says. It’s only important to him, nobody else. I made a blood swear I’d never say.

Swearin in blood, that’s serious, I says. Must be pretty important.

Only to him, she says. Nobody else, honest.

I’ll be the judge of that, not you, I says. What was it? Tommo ain’t got nuthin of value.

Shows what you know, she says. Then she clamps her lips tight.

Now we’re gittin somewhere, I says. He’s had it hid away, huh? Somethin Ike gave to him?

I ain’t sayin no more, she says. I ain’t doin this to be contrary or vex you. I’m doin what’s right. Lugh’s told you his secrets yer whole lives an I’ll bet you never told one of ’em, not ever.

Where he hid Pa’s whisky, Pa’s gun, Pa’s knife. Lugh an me had a blood-sworn promise I’d never tell. Not even to spare him a beatin. So I never did tell. Not once.

If you make a promise, you gotta keep it, says Em. I learned that from you. You always keep yer promises, no matter what. An so do I. You can torture me if you like, I still won’t tell!

She pretends to lock her lips an toss away the key. I swear, the mulish defiance of her chin invites a swift kick to the seat of her britches. But she looks so tragic that my lips twitch as I slip Hermes’ bridle over his head. I could always ask Peg, I says.

Go ahead, waste yer time, she ain’t no blabber, says Em.

Don’t smart off with me, I says. I’m outta time fer this, Em. You gimme yer word—yer sworn word it ain’t important—an we’ll call it quits. Jest this once, mind. All else, you gotta tell me.

She dumps Nero an scrambles down the junkheap. You got my sworn word, she says. She holds out her hand an we shake.

I hang on to it. We gotta be able to count on you, Emmi, I says. Know that you won’t let us down. That means you follow orders at all times. When the day comes that you’ve earned our trust, that’s when you’ll have some leeway. Till then, you do as yer told, no questions, no fuss.

I’m sorry, she says. I should of gone back on watch when you said. I was jest so happy to see everybody back okay, but I know I acted like a little kid an I ain’t that no more. I’ll do better, I promise.

Yer a warrior now, a Free Hawk, I says. You got comrades who died becuz they believed that all people should live free. You an me an Lugh, we know what it means to lose our freedom. An you bin prisoner not jest once but twice. When they caught you an took you to Resurrection.

She meets my gaze, steady on. They kept me in chains, she says. Like they kept you in chains at Hopetown.

You acted the warrior then, I says. Yer my sister, Em. That means you got courage to spare. Yer strong an yer smart. We’re gonna win this fight. We’re gonna honour them that died fer freedom. Our pa fer one. Who else?

Maev an Epona, she says. Ike an Bram an Jack. All the Free Hawks an Raiders at Darktrees.

Well, you jest think of them—our friends an Pa, I says. An you’ll know how to rightly conduct yerself.

I will, she says.

Y’know, you an me, we’re a lot alike.

She blinks in surprise. We are? How?

We act first an think later, I says. But if we’re gonna win here, if we got any chance, we gotta think first an then act. So. From now on, you an me keep cool heads, okay? Can you do that? Can I do that?

Yes, she says. We can. An we will. An I’ll never let you down agin, never. She throws her arms around my waist. I love you best of all, Saba.

It always takes me by surprise. This hot, fierce love that rushes through me. Fer the sister I shunned so long. Denied to my blood so completely. I kiss the top of her head. Happy birthday, I says. Go have a dance.

She scoops up Nero but she don’t go. While I make a last check of Hermes, she’s givin it the old Lingery Lou. Some pretend fuss with her belt an general slormin around. She’s clearly wantin to say somethin. Back at the party, Peg’s playin Halleluja, I’m a Bum as everybody sings along. Slim’s raucous bellow drowns out the rest.

Yer missin the fun, I says to Em. I’m pullin on my metal clad jerkin. I fasten its buckles snugly.

She says, I guess Auriel’s probly on her way to the Big Water, huh? Her an Meg an Lilith an … all them people that fled New Eden?

Now I do the armbands. Three small buckles on each one. It’s gittin late in the year, I says. They’d hafta git through the mountains before winter an it ’ud be a big caravan. I figger they’ll stay at the Snake till spring. How come Auriel’s on yer mind?

Oh, no reason. Emmi shrugs. Jest … y’know, I liked her.

She’s bein cagey agin. Uh huh, I says. I’ll see you in the mornin. Keep Nero close. Don’t let him outta yer sight. I swing myself onto Hermes.

Em grabs the bridle an blurts out, How I found him—Nero, I mean—I warn’t bein airy fairy, it was … the earth told me. She whispers the last few words, lookin at me with big owl eyes. Then she bolts. With Nero clutched to her chest, she runs back inside the shed.

I stare after her. Em’s inclined to be fey. Airy. A dreamer with her head in the clouds. Always feelin this an feelin that. What Lugh calls her mystical baloney. Sometimes it’s rubbish. Sometimes it ain’t. It’s as like to be one as the other. What that was about, I got no idea.

I click to Hermes an we’re on our way. We leave the lights an warmth an good cheer. We leave Starlight Lanes as the cold night rises an I set a course fer Weepin Water. The lodestone of New Eden. The bunker in the hill. The room with white walls where DeMalo sees visions at sunrise.

I still couldn’t say why I’m so certain we need to go there. But I am. I’m most certainly certain. Maybe I’m a bit airy myself.

He’d just lifted the bridle when a shadow fell over the stall. He dropped it back on the nail, careful not to clink the metal. He opened the gate and stepped into the yard, flooded by moonlight. It was Molly.

Oh! Her hand flew to her throat. You made me jump, she said. What’re you doin?

Checkin on the horses, he said.

She went to Prue’s stall to stroke her nose. No Hermes, I see, she said. I guess Saba’s gone to meet her contact agin.

He bit off his frustration. Seems so, he said. Go, he thought. Please, Molly, go.

But Molly was in no hurry. Fussing Prue’s ears, stroking her neck, she took in his coat with a quizzical look. Cooled down already? she said.

He had no hope of catching up with Saba now. He’d left it too late. Another chance blown. He shrugged off his coat and draped it around Molly’s shoulders. Don’t catch a chill, he said.

So gallant, she said with a smile. She smelled of warm summer roses. And, just like that, he was trembling. She always had that effect on him. Her smile, her smell, her beauty.

In a hot rush, he had her in his arms, pressed to the stable wall. And they were kissing. Touching. Hungrily. Breathlessly.

She pulled away. Put her fingers to his lips. Somebody might see us, she said. She was trembling now too. Oh gawd, she said, what you do to me. Every time. It ain’t seemly.

You taught me, he said.

A frown creased her forehead. I shouldn’t of, she said. We should never of started this. I never meant to, really, I didn’t.

I know, he said. I’m a boy, we ain’t in love, you still love Ike.

I want you to have what I had with him, she said.

Her breath brushed him sweetly. One of these days I will, he said. So I need to know how to please a woman. Yer teachin me. That’s all this is.

They stared at each other for a moment. A smile began to curve her lips. Lesson time, she said.

Then she took his hand in hers. And she led him away to the woods.