For my family.

Those I was born to, and those I chose.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter One

The missing are harder to accept than the lost. My parents had been dead five years, but my sister? She’d been missing only three months. I’d grieved those who’d died, but I didn’t know how to feel about Tali. Guilt, fear, anger, hope – they came and left as fast as water birds taking flight.

She was out there, somewhere. A prisoner of the Duke’s, stolen from me just as he’d stolen the city of Geveg, the pynvium from our mines, the food from our tables. His greed had turned to war, and he’d crushed all of us under his boot, racing to get even more power. No one was safe, certainly not Tali.

Late at night, safe at Jeatar’s farm, I wondered if it was time to stop looking for her. I hated myself for thinking it, but it wasn’t just my life I was risking by trying to find her. My friends put themselves in danger every time we left the farm, and some had even got hurt because of me.

But then my guilt would haunt me. How could I stop looking? I’d made so many promises. Others had sacrificed so much to help me. It wasn’t just about one lost sister any more, but thousands of families ruined by the Duke of Baseer and his desire to control everyone in the Three Territories.

If I gave up on Tali, was I also giving up on them? On any chance we had to be free of him? To just be free?

Someone knocked on the door to the room I shared with Aylin. I didn’t want to answer. I’d tossed and turned all night, worrying and planning, and was really hoping to grab a few hours of sleep this morning now that Aylin wasn’t hogging the bed.

“Nya?” Danello said through the door. “Are you awake?”

Yes, but I didn’t want to be. We’d argued again last night. One of those dumb fights that started over nothing and ended with both of us storming off. If I opened the door he’d smile at me, and then I’d want to forgive him, and I wasn’t ready to forgive him.

Trouble was, I couldn’t remember exactly why we’d argued. But it had been his fault. I was almost sure of that.

“Nya, come on.” Danello knocked again. “You can’t still be mad at me.”

It had been over scouting reports, hadn’t it? Troop movements outside Baseer. I’d said that gave us an opening to sneak into the city, but Danello said it could be the army moving around again to make way for more soldiers. I said I wanted to leave by the end of the week – he thought we should wait until we had more information. I said something stupid and he said something stupid back.

“I have food,” he sang.

My mutinous stomach grumbled and I sighed. That was cheating, plain and simple.

“I have good food.” His sweet voice was light and playful. Hard to stay mad at him when he sounded like that. I pictured him out there, leaning on the door, his hair a mess from the breeze coming off the fields.

OK, maybe it wasn’t completely his fault. Aylin said I’d been grumpy lately – probably from lack of sleep. It wasn’t like he was telling me I couldn’t go, just that I should be extra careful, think things through first. Without knowing why the Duke was moving those troops around, caution wasn’t a bad idea.

And Danello had brought food.

I slipped out of bed, walked across carpet thick as my thumb, and opened the door. Danello carried no plate in his hands, but he did have a picnic basket.

I sensed a trap.

“I packed this full.” He held up the basket. Handmade from the looks of it, blue-reed weaves, too. Those didn’t come cheap. “All you have to do is come with me to get it.”

I hesitated. He wasn’t out of the woods yet, but if he had sweetcakes in that basket, I could manage a little forgiveness.

“Where?”

“Just to the gardens. Sunshine, fresh air.” He grinned, wide and silly. “It’ll be fun, and we could use a little fun.”

Aylin had been telling me the same thing. I grinned back. It had been a dumb fight anyway. “Let me get dressed.”

I shut the door and threw on some clothes, then ran a comb through my still-black curls. The dye Aylin had used to colour our hair and disguise us was starting to grow out, but unless I cut it as short as Danello’s, it would be months before I looked normal again.

Have you ever been normal?

I pushed the thought away as I opened the door. Danello beamed, his short blonde hair ruffled just like I pictured, his smile just as sweet. He offered me his arm and I took it.

“Did you pack sweetcakes?” I asked.

“You’ll have to come with me to find out.”

I followed, actually looking forward to something for a change.

Voices drifted up the stairs, folks laughing, talking, even arguing. So different from the first week we were at the farm, when half the people had huddled in corners and the other half run around setting up defences. We were safe for now, but how long would that last? Faces turned when we walked past the reception room, and the laughing ceased.

Those in the back leaned their heads together, awed gazes darting to me. Some I recognised – those who’d been in the underground resistance Jeatar had been secretly running in Baseer, soldiers on the farm, friends and friends of friends who’d escaped before the Duke sealed the city and began recalling his troops. The others I didn’t know, but new folks arrived every day.

“Any news yet, Nya?” someone called.

“Not yet.” Seemed like everyone knew about Tali. I guess that was a good thing, since the more people who knew I was looking for her, the better the chance that someone would hear something that could help me find her. Still, it bothered me that everyone knew my problems. And knew that she was my sister. As much danger as she had to be in right now, she’d be in a lot more if the Duke knew who she was. He’d sure as spit use her to get to me.

“When’s the next trip out?”

Danello’s hand tensed in mine, but he stayed quiet.

“Hopefully the end of the week,” I said. No commitment there.

“You’ll find her, don’t worry.”

“Thanks.”

Danello hurried me out the side door and we headed across the sun-baked courtyard. I drank in the humid air, the heat chasing the tenseness from my limbs. Fields spread out past the farmhouse grounds: tall, bright-green cornstalks with yellow tops waving in the wind; smaller, darker-green sweet potato vines in bushy rows. One pasture held grazing cattle with long, twisting horns.

Not at all like the islands and canals of Geveg. Even though we were miles from the river, and a two-day sail from Baseer, I still felt exposed with so much open space around me. There were no corners to hide behind, no side streets, no bridges. Just miles of fields. Geveg’s mountains were hazy in the distance, looking more like storm clouds on the horizon than rock.

To the north of the farmhouse was a grid of dirt roads and buildings, the houses of those who worked Jeatar’s farm. He had thousands of acres and hundreds of farmhands, and some merchants and traders had established shops there like a small village. I didn’t know if it had a name, but Aylin called it Jeatown.

The fields closest to Jeatown were dotted with dozens of tents, makeshift homes for those who’d also fled Baseer. Horses grazed in roped-off corrals, with wagons nearby. I even spotted a few carriages mixed in, proof that wealth didn’t protect you from the Duke’s soldiers.

“It’s getting crowded out there,” I said. “We might have to start making food runs twice a day.” We’d been helping Jeatar’s people hand out food and supplies to the refugees, and the bags were going faster every day.

“I heard the guards say there are even folks from Verlatta now.”

“Verlatta? What are they running from?” Verlatta had been under siege by the Duke’s army the last six months, but when I’d shattered his palace and started a city-wide riot, he’d recalled the army to subdue his people. Verlattians should have been rejoicing.

Danello shrugged. “I don’t know, but rumours say there’s fighting in all the cities.”

Even Geveg?

I tried not to picture my city in flames, people I knew fighting in the streets, their bodies in the canals, but I’d seen far too much for those memories to stay silent. War was coming.

Saints, war was here, and I’d probably started it.

I still had nightmares about being trapped in the Duke’s weapon, locked to the misshapen pynvium by cuffs of silvery metal that made you do what you didn’t want to do. The pain cycling through me and the other five Takers chained to it with me. Being forced to trigger it, to flash its pain and kill.

Of losing control of it and turning it into something that drained life.

I prayed the weapon had been destroyed when the Duke’s palace was, shattered by its own pain when the walls came down around it, but I knew better. It was still there, and the Duke was still trying to make it work.

If he figured it out, none of us would ever be safe again.

A soldier by the perimeter fence waved at Danello and called hello. He elbowed another soldier and pointed at me, but they were done gossiping by the time we reached them.

It was the same everywhere we walked. Knots of people watching me, whispering about me. You’d think they’d be bored with me by now, but there was always someone new on the guard who hadn’t heard what I’d done. Their words reached me, some from people who didn’t even try to stay quiet.

“That’s the girl who destroyed the palace and almost killed the Duke.”

“It’s the Shifter, the one who rescued all those Healers in Geveg.”

“There’s Nya. She saved our lives in Baseer. Took on the Undying to do it, too.”

My skin twitched with so many eyes on me. I’d spent my whole life hiding who I was – what I was – but my secret was gossip now. And gossip travelled faster than a four-footed hen.

Maybe even fast enough to reach the Duke’s ears.

“Here we are.” Danello pushed open a gate to a low-walled garden. Cool green shade greeted us, smelling of honeysuckle and white ginger. It was beautiful, but my uneasiness was rising like the tide.

“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” I said. With all the new folks on the farm, one or two could be spies – or worse, trackers – for the Duke. He finally had control of Baseer again, and that was making everyone nervous. We should be preparing to fight back, defend ourselves if needed, not enjoying the sunshine.

“Nya, it’s OK. It’s quiet here, no one will bother us.” Danello squeezed my hand and rubbed his thumb across my knuckles. I took a deep breath and nodded. He was right. Until we knew what the Duke was doing, there wasn’t anything to prepare for.

We followed a stone path that curved among bright yellow flowers and trees with white bark and circled around a small pond. Danello stopped and pulled a blanket out of the basket. He shook it open and spread it out by the water.

“Breakfast is served,” he said with a flourish.

I sat, scanning the bushes while he rummaged through the basket. Leaves rustled in the wind like footsteps crunching through dry grass, but I didn’t see anyone around.

“Do you want fish cakes or stuffed peppers?” He held both up and wiggled them as if that made them more appealing. Didn’t help the food, but it did make him look adorable. His warm brown eyes. The cute little scar above his lip.

I was a fool. A romantic picnic with Danello and all I could think about was what the Duke was up to? Danello deserved better.

“What’s the pepper stuffed with?” I asked, scooting closer.

“Um…” He poked a finger into the breading. “Looks like fish.”

“The same fish?”

“Maybe, if it was a big fish.” He grinned.

I chuckled, the first laugh I’d had in, Saints, I couldn’t remember. It felt good. This was good. Me, him, together all alone for once, with no one trying to kill either of us. I needed more of this – lots more. “I meant the same kind of fish.”

“I know, but it made you smile.” He set the pepper on a plate and grabbed a knife from the basket. “We’ll split both. That way you won’t have to choose.”

Like I chose to leave Tali behind? My grin faltered. I hadn’t meant to think it, hadn’t wanted to think it. Shouldn’t have thought it, not with the sun and flowers and a cute boy bringing me food.

A sweet scent drifted past on the breeze. White ginger. Tali’s scent. No wonder I’d thought of her.

Danello looked at me, uncertain. “You OK?”

I nodded and he resumed cutting.

It hadn’t been my choice to leave her. Danello and Aylin had kidnapped me, carried me screamingout of Baseer, thrown me on Jeatar’s boat, and locked me in a cabin until we were far enough away that I couldn’t swim back.

That’s not the choice you regret.

No, it was the one I’d made my first night in Baseer, when I could have saved Tali from the tracker Vyand and kept her out of the Duke’s clutches. But Danello and Aylin had been captured, too, imprisoned in a Baseeri jail and facing execution. Their certain deaths had weighed against Tali’s life.

And I’d chosen them.

Tali had been in trouble for sure, but Danello and Aylin would have been killed in just a few hours. I’d thought I’d have time to go back for her. Thought I could save them all, but I’d been wrong. I’d left her in a city tearing itself apart with a man who wanted to turn her into a weapon and force her to kill.

“Here you go.” Danello handed me a plate, a smile on his face but worry in his eyes. “One half of a mystery-fish-stuffed pepper and one full fish cake.”

I took my food. The first bite tasted like rock, but I kept eating. He’d gone to so much trouble, and all for me.

Footsteps thumped over stone and I tensed. Another couple appeared but kept walking around the pond. They didn’t even look at us. Maybe we were far enough outside the farmhouse grounds that people didn’t recognise me. My name was a lot more famous than my face.

“It’s OK, Nya, you’re safe here,” Danello said softly. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

He wouldn’t, either. He’d face any soldiers the Duke sent after me. Watch my back no matter what I tried to do. Even when he disagreed with it.

“Thank you,” I said. I should have said more, but the words wouldn’t come. I looked at him, hoping he’d know how I felt anyway. Eyes say more than lips ever could. Danello had nice lips. I smiled.

He smiled back nervously and leaned towards me, just a little, as if waiting to see what I’d do. I leaned in as well, my heart pounding. Hoping he’d come closer, so I could go closer and—

“Excuse me?” a woman called, stepping out from under the trees.

Danello blew out a sigh and turned around. I frowned at her. She looked too nicely dressed for a refugee. A Baseeri merchant perhaps. A man stepped out next, his face scarred, three scratches on one side, forehead to chin, like a giant bird had clawed him. He looked more like a soldier.

“Yes?” Danello asked.

The woman smiled at us. “Have you heard about the Great Flash?”

“Great Flash?”

She nodded. “It happened in Baseer. A flash bright as the sun, caused by a girl who channelled the Saints’ power to crush the Duke’s palace.”

I shivered. She had it all wrong.

“Um, that’s not what happened,” I said. “It was a pynvium weapon that overloaded and flashed.”

Danello grabbed my hand. “Don’t say anything else,” he whispered.

“The Saints sing of this girl,” the woman continued. She glanced at the scarred man. “They gave her the power of Their light so she could save us from the darkness.”

I couldn’t even save my sister. How did they expect me to save them?

“She sounds, uh, great, but we need to go.” Danello inched away, tugging me with him. He kept one hand near the rapier at his hip.

“Were you there?” the man asked. His desperate gaze bored into mine. He reminded me of some soldiers I’d seen at the end of the first war – the ones who gave up fighting and sat inside the Sanctuary all day, praying for salvation and begging everyone around them to pray, too. Ones who were lost, angry, wanting help and blame in equal measures.

“Will you tell us what you saw?” he asked. “Share your story with us and others who believe as we do?”

My story was being shared quite enough already. “Sorry, I didn’t see anything.”

The woman and the scarred man frowned but nodded. “Truth is a hard stone to swallow,” he said. “If you want to share, you can find us in the east camp. Look for a red carriage with gold stars.”

Carriage? Maybe they weren’t merchants if they could afford a carriage. But they didn’t look like aristocrats.

“Thanks, we’ll keep that in mind,” said Danello. We backed away, ready to run if they so much as stepped towards us, but they left and headed deeper into the garden. I heard the woman speak again, probably to the other couple we’d seen earlier.

“What in Saea’s name was that all about?” I kept my voice low until we passed through the gate and into the safety of the open courtyard. If we needed them, three guards were within shouting distance.

“I’m not sure it was in Saea’s name at all. They sounded like those sainters who hassle people in the park by the Sanctuary.”

“The ones who think the stars are going to go out?” I’d seen them too, shouting to all who’d listen that the stars would go black and the dark would fall, but one light would shine bright enough to, oh, I don’t know, chase away the shadows or something. I never listened for long. Their rants always brought soldiers, and soldiers brought trouble.

“Yeah. Maybe Baseer has its own sainters,” Danello said.

“Who are ranting about me.” It was worse than the gossip and the whispers. What I’d done wasn’t a sign from the Saints. It had been an accident. I’d only been trying to stop the Duke’s weapon and keep it from killing half of Baseer.

“It’s not you personally. They’re just trying to fit their crazy beliefs on to what happened. They did the same thing with that lightning storm last summer, remember? The one that set all those villas on fire?”

“True. Fingers of the Saints or something.” No one had listened to them, and some had even laughed. It was a pretty silly name.

We reached the farmhouse and pushed open the kitchen door. Ouea, Jeatar’s housemistress, sat at the table, peeling mangoes. Two girls sat on either side of her, smaller baskets of gold peppers in front of them. They twisted off the stems one by one.

Ouea looked up. “Nya, what happened? You’re white as salt.”

“A bunch of refugees think I’m the eighth saint.”

“They think what?”

Danello smiled. “Nya’s exaggerating, but there are some sainters out there talking about the flash in Baseer like it’s a sign from the Saints.”

Ouea tucked a greying strand of hair behind an ear. “People turn to faith when they’re frightened. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”

“Probably not.” Especially when there was enough in my worry bowl already. “Maybe Jeatar knows where they came from.”

“Could be.” Ouea nodded.

“Can you ask him tomorrow?” Danello said. “I was hoping we could spend the day together. Fun, remember? You’ve been working so hard lately.”

With nothing to show for it. Three times we’d sneaked out to Baseer – or as close as we could get – to search for Tali. But the rumours had been false, and the leads had led nowhere.

Ouea cleared her throat. “Danello? Where’s my picnic basket?”

“Um.” He winced. “In the garden.”

“You weren’t going to leave it there, were you?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Then go get it.”

Danello looked at me, then at the door. Ouea kept staring at him over the basket of mangoes. Her two young helpers kept their eyes on the peppers, but both girls were trying hard not to giggle.

“Wait for me in the kitchen garden?” he asked. “We still have a picnic to finish.”

I smiled. “Definitely.”

Danello dashed out, and Ouea went back to peeling mangoes. “He’s a good boy, that one is. Even if he is a bit forgetful at times.”

“Yeah, he’s great.” I glanced towards the door to the rest of the farmhouse. It would take Danello a while to run all the way out to the pond and back. Surely I had time to see if there was any news about Tali or those sainters. I’d be in the kitchen garden before him. “Jeatar in the library?”

“Last I checked.”

Hope and dread tugged at my heart. Maybe today I’d find out where Tali was. Or maybe I’d learn there was no reason to look for her any more.

And Saints help me, I wasn’t sure which would be worse.

Chapter Two

The library door was open but I knocked anyway. Onderaan and Jeatar looked up in unison. One smiled, one didn’t.

I frowned. “What happened?”

“Forget about going to Baseer,” Jeatar said, stone-faced as always.

“Why?” Please don’t say Tali’s dead. Please don’t.

“There’s massive troop movement along the river, and transport ships are being moved into the harbour. Looks like the Duke is mobilising his army.”

“Do you know where?”

“Not yet, but from the number of ships, it looks like an invasion.”

My chest tightened. “Geveg?”

“Or Verlatta, the mining towns, any of the river provinces.”

“If not all of them.” Onderaan shook his head and sighed deeply, for a moment looking so much like Papa I had to look away. It was still hard to believe he was my uncle. That I even had an uncle, let alone a Baseeri one. “This could be the start of a major campaign.”

I’d seen one of those before, five years ago when the Duke invaded Geveg and killed my parents. My Grannyma. When he burned the city of Sorille to the ground to kill his brothers – rivals for the throne.

“Any news from Geveg?” Last we’d heard, there were still riots, though it hadn’t turned into a full uprising yet. Information was sparse, since Jeatar had sent most of his spies and scouts to Baseer, but he had a few Gevegian contacts left.

Jeatar hesitated, glancing at Onderaan. Not a good sign. “Unconfirmed rumours say the Governor-General is dead.”

“Seriously?” A surprise, but it didn’t bother me none if he was. He’d been appointed by the Duke and treated Gevegians like we were trash. “Who’s in charge now? Another Baseeri or a Gevegian?”

“I’m waiting to hear from my contacts there, but so far, nothing.”

“If Geveg’s in full rebellion,” Onderaan said, “then the Duke would certainly want to end it before it inspired anyone else to fight back.”

I nodded. “Like the mining towns.” The Duke invaded us the first time for our pynvium, and he had to need more of it. I’d destroyed his foundry, stolen some, and ruined the rest of his supply of the raw metal. When Baseer revolted, he would have needed more weapons to subdue his own people, more healing bricks for his troops, using up the little pynvium he’d had left. He had to be running low by now.

Was he also running low on Healers?

He’d been kidnapping and experimenting on them for months, but with all the fighting, he had to be using them to heal his troops.

“Do you think Tali is with him?”

Jeatar didn’t hesitate this time. “Yes.”

“Can we—”

“No, you can’t go after her. The Healers will be heavily protected, probably at the centre of the army. Most likely guarded by Undying.”

The Undying didn’t scare me all that much, but the Duke’s Healer-soldiers were deadly to everyone else. How could you stop someone who could heal their own wounds, push the pain into their pynvium armour, and keep on fighting? They cut through regular soldiers like farmers cut through wheat.

“Nya, we’ll find her,” Onderaan said softly. “I owe it to Peleven to keep his girls safe.”

Papa.

He had also been Baseeri, though I hadn’t known that until a few months ago. I didn’t like to think about what that made me. Baseer had always been the enemy, but I had Baseeri friends now, Baseeri family. Baseeri blood.

“What do we do?”

“About Tali?” Jeatar said. “Nothing until we know something solid. Same with Geveg. As for the Duke, we’ll keep watching and wait to see what his plans are.”

I’d never been good at waiting. In Geveg, doing nothing got you killed. You had to find food, find work, find shelter from the soldiers. Keep your eyes open, your wits sharp. You had to move and keep moving, or trouble found you.

But I wasn’t in Geveg any more.

“Perhaps you should stay close to the house for the next few days,” Onderaan said. “Just in case people are looking for you.”

“I can’t. I have food duty.” Besides, lots of folks knew me around here anyway. A spy wouldn’t need to see me to learn I was here.

“I’m sure Jeatar can find someone to fill in for you.” He glanced at Jeatar, who paused and looked at me as if unsure whether or not to agree to that.

I bristled. I liked helping out. At least I was doing something useful and not just waiting for news. “There is no one to fill in for me. People are spread thin enough as it is. If I’m not there, everyone else has to work harder, and that’s not fair.”

“Not everyone else is in danger.”

I folded my arms. “We’re all in danger – mine’s just more personal.”

Jeatar’s mouth twitched, but he stayed quiet.

Onderaan sighed. “Well, as long as you’re careful, I guess it’ll be OK.”

As if I needed his permission. “Jeatar, you’ll let me know if there’s any more news today?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you.” I had a picnic to get back to. I’d promised Danello we’d have fun, and I wasn’t about to let him down.

Even if having fun was the last thing I felt like doing.

I made it to the kitchen garden before Danello, but I found Aylin cuddled up with Quenji on a bench under the orange trees. Thin shafts of sunlight cut through the branches and brought out Aylin’s true red hair beneath the fake black.

I cleared my throat.

They pulled apart and she blushed, but the glint in her brown eyes said I’d get the full story later. At least one of us had got kissed today.

“Oh, hi!” She giggled and glanced at Quenji, who grinned. But then he was always grinning. He’d been the leader of a street pack I’d met in Baseer and had risked his life to help us destroy the Duke’s foundry there. I think he really liked the danger, since he’d volunteered for every mission to go back and look for Tali. He was a good person to have watching your back, so I was happy to have him along.

So was Aylin, apparently.

“Sooo, how was the picnic?” she asked.

“Short.” I told her about the sainters.

“Pfft, nobody pays attention to them,” she said, waving her hand. She smiled. “But tell me, before they interrupted – anything interesting happen?”

“Not as interesting as I’d have liked.” I glanced at Quenji. Potential kisses weren’t something I wanted to discuss in front of him. “Onderaan’s trying to tell me what to do again.”

“He means well,” Aylin said.

“He’s annoying.”

“Nya, he doesn’t know how to act around you. He was probably just as shocked to find out about you as you were about him.”

“Well, maybe.” I didn’t like this conversation any better. Weren’t best friends supposed to side with you no matter what? I changed the subject. “Jeatar says the Gov-Gen might be dead.”

“Does that mean we can go home?” Aylin turned to Quenji before I could reply. “You’ll love Geveg! It’s on the lake, and there are beaches and warm breezes and the best coffee you’ve ever had.”

“And soldiers,” I said, surprised to see how eager she was to go back. To leave before we found Tali. “Don’t forget about the Baseeri soldiers beating people up just for fun.”

She flicked a hand at me again, as if she could brush off the idea of soldiers as easily as sainters. “If the Gov-Gen is dead, then the soldiers are next. They’ll probably be gone by the time we get there.”

“We don’t know what it means yet.”

“Nya!” She gaped at me. “It means Geveg is fighting back, just like you always wanted. I bet they’re kicking the Baseeri out as we speak.” She jumped up and pantomimed kicking people one at a time. Quenji applauded.

“I’ve never been to Geveg,” he said. “I’d love to go.”

“But—”

“Go where?” Danello said, slipping up behind me.

“Home!” Aylin cried.

“Really?” He stared at me with hope in his eyes. “When did this happen?”

I held up both hands. “No one said anything about going home. I’m not even sure if the rumour is true.”

“What rumour?” Danello looked confused. “You went to see Jeatar while I was gone, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but just for a minute.” I sighed and explained the whole thing. The transport ships, the Gov-Gen, not being able to go after Tali.

Aylin plopped back on to the bench. “So we’re not going home.”

I’d never realised how much she wanted to. So did I, but not without Tali. Home was wherever my sister was, and without her, Geveg would be just another city.

“Not yet, but we will, I promise.”

“If there’s a home to go back to,” Danello mumbled.

“What?” Aylin said.

“I want to go back, too,” he said. “My da’s still there. And Halima and the twins ask about him all the time.”

Danello’s little brothers and sister stayed pretty close to the farmhouse, and I’d never seen them out past the main gate. After what they’d been through, I couldn’t blame them. Kidnapped, almost killed by Undying, running from Baseer with the rest of us. They deserved to go home and be with their father again.

“Well, listen,” Danello said, taking my hand. “We have a picnic to finish.”

“We’ll see you this afternoon, right?” Aylin said.

“At the north gate as always.”

We left through the kitchen and out the back door, but Danello didn’t head for the pond again. Instead he led me towards some trees near the front of the farmhouse.

“It’s not as secluded,” he said, “but it’s shady and mostly out of the way.”

“What did you mean when you said, ‘if there’s a home to go back to’?”

He winced. “Nothing.”

“If it was nothing, you wouldn’t have changed what you said to Aylin.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s just, well, if someone in Geveg really did kill the Gov-Gen, and there really is a strong rebellion there, and the Duke is suddenly moving troops, then he might be going after Geveg.”

“That’s what Onderaan said.”

He pulled out the blanket again and spread it under the trees. “You’re not the only one missing family, you know,” he said softly.

“I know.” Shame warmed my face. I’d been so focused on Tali, I hadn’t thought about what he and his brothers and sister were feeling. Their father was out there somewhere too. Maybe he was safe in Geveg, but maybe not, especially if the city was in revolt.

I took his hand and rested my head against his shoulder. “We’ll get them all back, I promise. We’ll get everything back.”

He nodded, but he knew as well as I did that wasn’t true. We’d never get his mother back, or my parents. The people the Duke had already killed were gone forever. All we could do was hold on to what little we had left and hope we could make something out of it.

I guessed we wouldn’t have any fun today after all.

We met Aylin and Quenji at the north gate midafternoon, standing near a dark-brown horse with the wagon loaded with food. The horse nibbled grass, tearing it out of the ground with quick twists of its head. Ellis sat on the driver’s bench in that brown uniform that all Jeatar’s guards wore. We’d met in Baseer when I’d saved her life after a pynvium raid had gone wrong. She’d been one of the Underground’s guards then, had fought with us against the Undying, and even held shifted pain for us. She’d been promoted to captain a few weeks ago, but she still liked to help out with the food, same as I did.

A second guard appeared and waved hello to Danello.

He waved back. “Afternoon, Copli.”

“Do you know all the guards?” I said.

“The ones who come to practise.” The rapier he carried wasn’t just for show. Danello drilled with the guards a few hours every day, working on his skills. “The rest I play cards with.”

“You really should socialise more, Nya,” Aylin said. “There are a lot of people on the farm.”

“Enough people know me already.”

Quenji chuckled. “You can never have too many friends.”

“Come on,” I said, climbing into the wagon beside Ellis. “We have hungry people to feed.”

Folks turned our way when we rolled through the outer camp. Families sat on small stools or on the grass, faces turned down, staring at the campfires. Not every tent had a fire, and those seemed the saddest of all.

Some of the people looked Baseeri, a few entire families with black hair and sad blue eyes, but we met a lot more folks with strong Verlattian features and clothes, and farmers with blonde hair who could have been from Geveg.

I’d seen similar faces after the Baseeri threw us out of our homes. Sad, scared, lost. My guts churned, my own memories tumbling through my head.

“Nya, where we gonna sleep?” Tali had asked, tears on her cheeks, fear in her eyes. No seven-year-old should ever be that scared.

“I don’t know, but I’ll find us someplace safe. I promise.”

No tents for us back then. Just hard ground under scratchy bushes. I’d wrapped my arms around Tali to make her feel safe, but it was years before either of us felt – well, not safe, but safer.

Ellis guided the wagon through the campsites. Folks were already moving towards us when we stopped at a large fire with a heavy cook pot hanging over it. A community pot just like the ones I’d eaten at in Geveg. People brought something in the morning, it cooked all day, and everyone shared it that evening. There’d been days when I’d eaten only because I’d sneaked a few handfuls of flour from the mill to thicken the stew. Wasn’t much, but it satisfied the rules.

Today’s stew simmered, bits of sweet potato and rosemary sticking out of the thickening broth. Cook glanced over at us, his face tough and lined from the sun. He smiled and waved.

“Just in time,” he called. “We could use some bread to go with the stew.”

“We have lots of that,” I said, a little guilty as I climbed off the wagon. None of it was as good as the bread Ouea made. No fruit or nuts, no spices. Just basic bread. But no one seemed to care. Food was food.

The children raced right for Aylin, holding out their tiny hands. She always filled one bag with treats – sugar nuts, candied fruit, even a few bricks of sweet brittle.

“News of the day?” Ellis asked while people lined up. Dinner wasn’t all you got at a community pot. Folks got to talking when they had no place to go.

“Nine new carriages rolled into Little ’Crat City,” Cook said.

Ellis chuckled. “You really shouldn’t call it that.”

“Bunch of aristocrats set up camp and keep everyone else out? What would you call it?”

“Rude.” She smiled and handed him another sack. “Want me to look into it?”

He shook his head. “Nah. No self-respecting Baseeri wants to bed down there anyway.”

Ellis glanced at me and winked. Wasn’t too long ago I thought no Baseeri had any self-respect, and she liked to remind me of that.

“Oh, you might want to send the Healers round,” Cook said.

“Is someone hurt?” I asked.

“Might not be serious, but three families came in an hour ago, and they look like they barely made it here. I told ’em to go up to the house, but they insisted they were fine. I said they didn’t have to pay, but it didn’t change their minds.”

“I’ll let Jeatar know.” We didn’t have many Healers, and most of them were apprentices or first or second cords only, but that was more than most folks had access to these days.

We finished up and headed closer to Jeatown and the nicer camps. Carriages, bigger tents, more dark-haired families. Baseeri aristocrats, even a few rich merchants. Dozens of servants still wearing their house colours hovered about, waiting on orders.

Joke or not, it really was Little ’Crat City. Just like in Baseer, they’d closed off their territory, using the carriages like a wall around the camp. They even had their own guards protecting it. Of course, the guards moved out of our way pretty quickly. Ellis had taught them the first day who gave the real orders around here.

They had their own community fire, but you’d never catch them sharing food, just gossip and opinions. We parked the wagon, and the servants lined up while the aristocrats stayed in their comfy chairs. I couldn’t imagine how they’d managed to get them out of Baseer, but I suspected more than one servant had hauled furniture out on their backs.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” a woman in red and blue silk scoffed. She sat around the fire with a few dozen others as well-dressed as she. They didn’t look at us or the food. “Was the Saints themselves. They reached down and crushed the palace with their hands. No living soul did what I saw happen there.”

My stomach twisted. They were talking about me. No good ever came of Baseeri aristocrats talking about me.

“Don’t be daft – it was an attack. Verlattian retaliation, probably.”

“I heard it was a girl,” said another man. “One of those quirkers.”

“The Shifter?”

“That’s right. Part of a Gevegian kill squad to assassinate the Duke.”

I was what? Danello slipped a hand to my shoulder and leaned close. “Easy, ignore them. It’s just gossip.”

Easy for him to say – they weren’t calling him an assassin. I glanced at Aylin and Quenji, both surrounded by children as they handed out the sweetcakes and cookies. She looked back, worry in her eyes, but Quenji had a sly smile like he approved of the story. Quenji liked to tell his own tales. On the streets, a good story told at the right tavern could get you a meal.

“She’s as bad as the Undying,” a woman said, her voice cracking. “They killed my husband. He wasn’t doing anything wrong! Just trying to bring the carriage round.” The young girl beside her started crying. She looked like the girl from Baseer. The one I couldn’t save.

“Fenda, no!”

Metal clanged against metal, then a girl screamed in pain.

“She’s just a child!” the man cried. “How could you?”

Anger chased away some of my fear. I wasn’t anything like the Undying. They’d murdered an innocent girl who’d only been trying to protect her father.

“We traded my wife’s jewellery for a gate pass.”

A man grunted. “I had a soldier ask me for my wife to get through.”

Some folks chuckled, but most looked around as if unsure if he was joking or not.

“Well,” a woman said, “we’re better off than those left behind.”

I pictured Tali and my guts twisted.

“I don’t know what that flash was, or who caused it,” she continued, “but things aren’t right in that city. They haven’t been right since Bespaar—”

Angry shouts came from behind the tents, then repeated orders to stop. Ellis jumped up on to the driver’s bench, her sword out a heartbeat later. Danello drew his rapier.

“What’s going on?” Aylin whispered. The children who had gathered around her moved closer, their blue eyes wide and scared. Quenji stepped in front and nudged them back.

“I don’t know,” he said, “but it doesn’t sound good.”

Three men burst out from behind some tents. Two were blonde, one dark haired. All wore old clothes and masks covering the bottoms of their faces. One man had a bag clutched against his chest, but it wasn’t one of ours.

“Thief!” someone cried, and the camp guards appeared, chasing down the bandits.

Ellis swore and hopped off the wagon. She went after the thieves and Danello followed right behind her. The thieves ran like chickens, darting this way and that, knocking things over, throwing them at whoever was close. Folks ran everywhere, just as wild, just as scared, no one paying any attention to where they were going.

Elbows jabbed me, jostling me further out into the crowd. A man slammed into my shoulder and spun me around. The second wagon guard, Copli, was on the driver’s bench protecting the food but looking like he wanted to chase after Ellis and Danello. Quenji had his arms around Aylin, keeping her tight against the wagon and blocking her from the panicked mob. The children ran into the crowd, between legs and stomping feet, caught in the chaos.

I struggled through the bodies and grabbed a boy by the hand, yanking him back before a panicked woman ran him down. He clung to me, trembling. I looked for another. Saw one of the thieves instead.

He pulled out a knife, then dodged back and thrust it at the guards. Several people screamed, but only one body stumbled, then fell to the ground.

“Stop right there,” a tall Baseeri said, waving something at the thieves. I almost missed the glint of blue metal.

Pynvium. He had a pynvium rod. A good one, too, the metal pure enough to shine a rich blue.

The aristocrat pointed the rod into the crowd full of scared people – and children.

“Wait, no!” I yelled.

Whoomp.

Pain flashed from the rod, the familiar prickle of blown sand stinging my skin. People all around me screamed and collapsed – guards, thieves, children. Even the horse shrieked and bolted, sending bags of food flying off the wagon and Copli toppling off the bench. Those at the edge of the flash stumbled and fell, tripping over those on the ground. The boy I’d grabbed dropped and lay by my feet.

I stood in a circle cleared by the pain, exposed and alone.

Chapter Three

“Did she just—?”

“Quirker!”

“The Shifter’s here!”

Cries raced through the crowd, then fingers pointed and hands waved, all in my direction. Saints! I should have fallen, faked being affected, but it all happened so fast. I dropped to one knee and took the hand of the unconscious boy at my feet. My hand tingled as I drew in the pain overloading his senses. He woke and looked around, whimpering.

“Go find your mother,” I said, scanning the rest of the people on the ground. Danello, where’s Danello? There! Lying near Ellis and one of thieves. People gasped when I ran towards him, backing away like I was going to hurt them.

“Get her, stop her!” the Baseeri with the pynvium weapon called.

I knelt and wrapped a hand around Danello’s wrist, the other around Ellis’s. Drew in their pain and held it in the empty space between my heart and guts. It simmered there like I’d eaten something that had disagreed with me.

Danello jerked awake, hands out. Ellis woke right after. I let go of them and looked for the guard who’d been stabbed. He’d have real pain – pain I could use if one of these aristocrats tried to—

Someone slammed into me, knocking me to the ground.

“I got her!” a man yelled, practically in my ear.

“Get off her,” Danello said. The weight vanished, and he dragged me back to my feet.

Unconscious people were still on the ground and probably would be for a while. The others surrounded us, fear and anger on their faces. Except for a woman with the boy I’d helped. They looked at me with gratitude.

Be nice if you told your friends to leave me alone.

“Everyone settle down,” Ellis said, sword out. Copli was on his feet again, a gash across his forehead. Danello stayed near me, but still close enough to the others to back them up.

“But that’s the Shifter,” a woman said.

Ellis shrugged. “So?”

“She tried to kill the Duke!”

“No, she didn’t. He almost killed her and she defended herself. So unless you want to see what happens when she feels threatened, I suggest you all calm down.”

Not exactly what I would have said to accomplish that, but they did take another step back. I moved towards the injured guard. He’d been hurt badly, and too much blood pooled beneath him. Dark blood, which meant a pierced organ.

One of the aristocrats jerked and pointed. “What’s she doing?”

“Helping him, you idiot,” Aylin said, “What do you think she’s doing?”

“If I don’t stop that bleeding, he’s going to die.” I reached the fallen guard. No one else tried to stop me, but quite a few fidgeted as if ready to jump on me if I tried anything they didn’t like.

He’d been stabbed low on the side, over his liver. I placed one hand on his wound, the other on his forehead, felt my way in. Winced. Lots of damage, like the knife had sliced sideways and not just stabbed. I focused on closing the tears, sealing the holes. I drew, and pain flowed from him to me, sharp aches that spread through my middle. He groaned and opened his eyes.

“You’re going to be OK,” I said softly. So would I once we got back to the farmhouse and found a Healer who could take the pain from me.

He stood, swaying a bit, and I steadied him. Murmurs slid through the crowd, though they shouldn’t have. Wasn’t like aristocrats had never seen someone healed before. They were the only ones who could afford it these days.

“What did she do to him?”

“Saved his life.”

“She’s a criminal,” the same man said.

Ellis smiled. “No more than you.”

“But she’s—”

“Oh for Saints’ sake,” the woman with the boy said. “She’s a child. Do you really believe everything the Duke says?”

“I believe what I just saw.”

“So do I. She saved a life while you hurt my son and other people’s sons and daughters. Over what? Petty theft?” She shook her head and pulled her son closer. “You’re more criminal than she is.”

A few muttered in what sounded like agreement.

Ellis reached behind her with one hand and pulled strips of rope out of a back pouch. She tossed them to Aylin. “You and Quenji, bind the thieves’ hands before Nya wakes them up. We’ll take them back and let Jeatar deal with them.”

“They robbed us,” a woman said hesitantly. “It should be up to us what to do with them.”

Ellis shook her head. “This isn’t Baseer and it isn’t your property. You want to stay and keep getting fed, you follow our rules and do what we say.”

No one else said anything else, but many watched us with narrowed eyes.

“Wake them up.”

I did, drawing more pain into the throbbing around my middle. The thieves woke, gaped at us, but didn’t try to escape. Quenji hauled them to their feet, and we slowly made our way out of the camp. Ellis and Danello brought up the rear, looking more worried about the Baseeri than the thieves.

The aristocrats followed us to their “gate” but came no further. The man who’d used the weapon glared at us as we walked away.

Ellis shot me a look that said it was my fault, even if she clearly felt bad about it.

I wasn’t worried about a few trinkets getting stolen or that one camp was preying on another. That would sort itself out. But these were Baseeri whose allegiances we didn’t know, and they knew I was here. Some even thought I was a criminal, an assassin, but everyone here was supposed to be against the Duke. They were all supposed to be on Jeatar’s side.

So where did that put me?

I followed the others to the farmhouse, fresh dread churning my stomach.

* * *

Ellis and Copli took the thieves to the barracks. The rest of us went to the room Jeatar had set aside for an infirmary. We’d had more Healers when we’d fled Baseer, but most of them had left, returning to their families or just running further away to where the Duke couldn’t get them again. Only two remained – Lanelle and Tussen. I’d saved both from the Duke and his weapon.

Lanelle was on duty. Aylin immediately turned around.

“We’ll meet you after, OK?” she said, dragging Quenji out.

Lanelle looked hurt for a moment but covered it fast. I couldn’t blame Aylin for not wanting to be here. I’d have preferred it if Tussen had been on today. Lanelle had helped the Duke with his experiments, “taking care” of Tali and the other apprentices who’d been locked in the spire room and filled with pain.

Lanelle had been part of his next experiment, too, but this time as a victim, one of the Takers he’d chained to the weapon. It had surprised me when she’d volunteered to stay on the farm and help heal the refugees, but she probably didn’t have anywhere else to go.

“Is that your blood?” she asked, rising from a chair. She set down the book she’d been reading.

“No, a guard got stabbed in one of the camps.”

“He’s OK?”

“Yes.”

She glanced at Danello, standing stone-still behind me, then held out her hands. I took them. A faint tingle ran up my arms and swirled around my middle, and the pain was gone.

Lanelle made a face. “More than just a stabbing. You could have warned me.”

“Sorry, it was only a few flashes.”

She walked over to a cabinet and pulled a key from around her neck. “To you maybe, but for us regular Healers, that hurts just the same.” She unlocked the cabinet and pulled out a battlefield brick of pynvium. Pure metal, and worth a lot more than anything those aristocrats had in their camp.

She placed one hand on it, pushing the pain into the metal. She usually gave me a sly grin when she did it, taunting me that she could sense pynvium when I couldn’t, but not today. Maybe she was finally getting bored with it. I might not be a “regular Healer”, but that didn’t bother me nearly as much as it once had.

“There are some folks hurt in the outer camp,” I said. Probably some in Little ’Crat City, too, but I wasn’t worried about them. They’d march right up to the farmhouse and demand healing if they needed it. “They might need some looking after.”

Lanelle nodded. “I’ll head over when Tussen comes in.”

“Make sure you take some guards.”

“Always do.” She put the pynvium brick back into its cabinet and relocked it. “You hear about Geveg?”

She couldn’t mean the Gov-Gen. Jeatar hadn’t confirmed that, and even if he had, I doubt he’d tell Lanelle about it. “Hear what?”

“They’re chasing out the Baseeri.” She shrugged. “At least, that’s what I heard.”

“From who?” Danello asked. He sounded suspicious.

“People in the camps. They do talk to me, you know.”

“There’s a lot of talk in the camps,” I said, “but you can’t believe half of it.” Still, if Gevegians really were chasing the Baseeri out, maybe the Gov-Gen rumour was true.

Lanelle huffed. “All I know is that there’s a lot of homeless Baseeri around, and not all of them are from Baseer. They want to go home as badly as we do.”

Strange to hear Lanelle say she wanted to go home.

“Anyway,” she said, rubbing her eyes. I hadn’t noticed the circles under them before. “I’ll take care of the people in the camps.”

“Thanks.” We left Lanelle alone in a room of cots. I shivered, picturing the last room she’d overseen. The cots there had all been occupied. A room filled with suffering.

I sighed. “When did everything go so wrong?”

Danello paused. “The day you helped me.”

“What?” Did he blame me?

“No! I didn’t mean it like that,” he said quickly. “It wasn’t you, it was just that day. The ferry accident. All those people hurt. That’s when it started.”

I exhaled, but my heart was still racing. “OK. That’s when we found out about the Duke’s experiments, but you know, I think it started before that.” I looked at him, and understanding flickered in his eyes. Sadness, too.

“Five years.”

I nodded. “Five years.”

When the Duke took over and invaded our homes. And until he was gone, nothing would ever be right again.

“Nya,” Aylin whispered sometime in the hours before dawn. “You awake?”

“Yes.” The wind had woken me a while back, gusting against the farmhouse like waves on rocks. No forests or mountains to stop it, I guess. Just open farmland.

I missed waves. And water. The caw of lake gulls riding the wind.

Aylin shook me. “Are you listening?”

“I’m sorry. What?”

She blew out a sigh. “I asked how long you were going to look for Tali.”

“Until I find her.”

“What if you don’t?”

I didn’t want to think about that. Or talk about it. Silence stretched in the darkness.

“I’m not trying to be heartless or anything,” she continued, “but if the rumours are true, if Geveg belongs to Gevegians again, well, going home would be a good thing, wouldn’t it?”

I swallowed, but my mouth was dry. “Yes.”

“And I know Danello wants to, though he’d never tell you that. He worries about his father. So do Halima and the twins. They really miss him.”

“Maybe you should go without me.” It hurt to say, but how could I keep them all here, knowing they wanted to go home?

She snorted and thumped me on the arm. “I’m not saying that. I’m just saying, maybe you should start thinking of ways to find Tali that don’t involve putting yourself in danger all the time.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. Hire a tracker? I hear Vyand is good.”

I swatted her with my pillow. “Aylin! How could you even suggest—”

Something thunked against the outside wall, harder than just wind. Aylin popped up.

“What was that?” she whispered.

I slipped out of bed, careful not to rustle the covers or squeak the frame. Jeatar had good furniture, so it rarely made a sound. I was equally quiet on the carpet as I made my way to the balcony doors.

Another thunk, then scraping like metal on wood.

I tugged back the curtains just enough to peek out. Moonlight lit the balcony, reflecting off… a grappling hook?

A hand slapped the railing, then a leg. I turned to Aylin.

“Someone’s there,” I said. “Get out of—”

Glass shattered behind me, then hot pain pierced my back.

Chapter Four

I yelped and dived forward, away from whatever had clawed me. I hit the floor, but something else landed beside me. Small, and it moved, skittering back towards the doors. It snagged on the doorframe but broke through and caught on the balcony rail.

A second grappling hook.

“Aylin, get out of here!” I scrambled back to my feet as the first intruder kicked open the doors. More glass cracked, and a piece grazed my arm. It didn’t sting nearly as much as my back.

“Leave her alone!” Something flew past me. Was that a chair? Wood cracked against flesh and a man grunted. Aylin leaped from the bed, the blankets in her hands. She tackled the man and tangled him in the cloth, knocking him down.

The second man charged in and kicked her. Aylin cried out and flew back with an oomph. She slammed into the mirror, and glass shattered. I lunged at him, hands out, looking for flesh. I grabbed sleeves instead.

Skin, skin, I needed skin.

We struggled, my back stinging. He twisted and his arm slid back, down, then – skin.

Got you.

I pushed, the pain surging up through my shoulder and out my hands. He sucked in a pained breath and staggered back, tripping over his partner and sending them both back to the floor.

Light brightened the room, and I squinted, turning away. “Aylin?”

The lamp on the desk next to her was turned up full, all the shutters open. “I’m OK,” she said, but she didn’t sound OK. She also had one arm pressed against her side.

The door to our room burst open. Aylin screamed and I pivoted, readying myself to dive at whoever was attacking us now.

Danello stood in the door wearing nothing more than sleeping britches and his rapier. He moved in fast, putting himself between us and the two men who were now back on their feet and holding weapons of their own. A knife for one, a short sword for the other.

Sword-man attacked, thrusting the blade at Danello. He parried it, the scratchy ziinng! of metal against metal raising the hair on my arms. Knife-man hung back, his face tight with pain. He had to be the one I had shifted into.

“Go find Jeatar,” I said to Aylin, nudging her towards the door.

She ignored me and grabbed a statue of a prancing horse off the desk. She threw it at Knife-man. He gasped and dodged sideways. Agile, but not as surefooted as Danello. Nor as graceful as Aylin. Who in Saea’s name were these men?

Both had dark hair, but they didn’t look like Baseeri soldiers. Well-made clothes, good boots. Clean-shaven, so not refugees. Trackers? Aristocrat guards?

Danello fought Sword-man while Aylin kept throwing whatever she could grab at the other. I scurried past Danello to the other side of the room, where there was more to throw. I flung a water pitcher. It glanced off his head and dented the wall.

Danello lunged forward, piercing Sword-man’s leg. He screamed and went down on one knee. Danello stabbed at the other leg, and he collapsed.

Fast steps thudded in the hall outside our room, many feet racing up stairs. Guards in brown uniforms stormed in, swords drawn. Sword-man rolled over and held out both hands, fury on his face. Knife-man ran back towards the balcony. Danello and the guards followed, but he was over the side and sliding to the ground before they could grab him.

“You got this one?” one of the guards asked Danello, tilting his head towards Sword-man on the floor.

“Yeah.”

The guards turned and ran out of the room. Danello stood over Sword-man, the tip of the rapier hovering above his throat.

“Don’t even think about moving,” he said. “Why did you break in here?”

Sword-man just glared.

“Are you OK?” Danello asked me without looking away.

“I’m fine.” My heart felt like it was about to thump out of my chest, and I wasn’t sure my knees were going to keep me standing, but both would pass.

“Aylin? Are you all right?”

“I think so.” She was still holding her side.

“I think not.” I hurried over, took her hand, and felt my way in. “Two broken ribs.”

She grimaced. “No wonder it hurt so much to throw those things.”

I drew, mending her ribs. Mine started aching.

“You’re really handy to have around, you know that?”

“Nya?” Jeatar slid to a stop outside the door, two steps ahead of Onderaan. Men with armour and swords were right behind them. Two came in and hauled Sword-man to his feet, then out the door. I don’t think his boots even touched the ground. Jeatar didn’t say where they were taking him but the scowl on Jeatar’s face said I really didn’t want to know.

Jeatar looked us over, his scowl turning to worry as he took in my ripped nightshirt and the blood smeared on my arm. “Who’s hurt?”

“I was, but not any more,” Aylin said. “But there’s a man with a knife out there who’s probably not happy.”

“We’ll find him, don’t worry.” Jeatar looked like he hadn’t been to bed yet, but Onderaan kept rubbing his eyes, his hair sticking out on one side. He came over and squeezed my hand. I squeezed back, pretending he was Papa.

Jeatar stayed by the door. I’d never seen him look so scared before. Or so mad. Hopefully the mad part wasn’t at me.

“Tell me what happened,” he said.

“Someone tried to kill Nya!” Aylin described the whole thing, yelling and waving her arms. She was scared too.

“We’ll post guards outside,” Onderaan said softly, patting my hand. “No unauthorised visits to the house.”

“OK. Thank you.”

I took a deep breath and looked at the broken mirror. Dozens of my own face stared back at me from the jagged glass. I turned and checked my back. A new scar ran along my shoulders, worse than the ones on my legs and chest.

Shifting was different from healing. I had time to think about the wound when I healed, and make sure it closed properly. With shifting, I didn’t think about it, I just did it. I’d shifted into so many. The prison guard. The foundry soldiers. The Undying.

And every shift had left its scar.

Jeatar moved us to a room with no windows at the centre of the farmhouse, and we had to go through two other doors just to get to it. There hadn’t been any guards when we got there, but they were posted now. Lanelle had complained about them hassling her when she’d come to take the broken ribs I’d healed. Aylin ignored her the whole time, making a show out of talking with Danello.

“Who do you think they were?” I asked after no one else had shown up for a while. The guards had orders not to let me out of the room until they had the perimeter locked down. Which seemed to be taking an awfully long time.

“The Duke’s men?’ said Aylin.

Danello shook his head. “More likely sent by that aristocrat from Little ’Crat City. The Duke’s men wouldn’t have been so sloppy.”

I shivered. Never thought I’d be grateful for amateur assassins. “Think they caught him yet?”

“He had a decent head start,” said Danello. “It might take them a while.”

“Does that mean I’m stuck here until they do?”

“You should be happy about that.” Aylin shuddered, wrapping both arms around herself. “I can’t stop thinking about it. I mean, I know people have tried to hurt you before, but not like this. Those were always fights, it wasn’t – personal.”

I knew what she meant. It wasn’t a soldier defending a foundry, or men guarding a room no one was supposed to see. These had been assassins sent specifically to kill me.

“It’s got to be breakfast time by now,” Danello said. “Want me to go down to the kitchens and get you something?”

Aylin jumped up. “You stay, I’ll go. I need to get out of this room anyway.” She left, giving me a wink as she shut the door. Where would she go first – the kitchen or to see Quenji? I was a bit surprised he hadn’t come by yet, but maybe the guards were keeping everyone away.

Danello smiled at me, but he was worried, too. “Good thing you’re not easy to kill.”

No, I was just easy to hurt.

“Healers are always hard to kill,” I said. “In the war, the soldiers would aim for their eyes or their hearts – kill them quickly before they could heal themselves.” You could always tell a Healer’s body by the wound that killed them.

Danello scooted closer and put his arms around me. I leaned my head on his shoulder. “I know the last few months have been awful,” he said. “Saints, the last five years have been awful, but we’ll get through this.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.” He pulled back and took both my hands. “Because we have each other.”

He smiled in a way that made it suddenly hard for me to breathe. He leaned in close, hesitating a whisper’s length away, then kissed me. A hot tingle ran down to my toes, like a flash all over my skin, but a good flash. It was suddenly hard to think too, but I was tired of doing that anyway.

“Wherever you go,” he breathed into my ear, “I go.”

* * *

Aylin returned much faster than I’d have liked, not even bothering to knock first. Her hands were empty, but her eyes were full of fear.

“Something’s going on and I don’t think it’s about you,” she said, not even giving me a sly grin after Danello and I jumped apart. This was serious.

“Any clue what?”

She shook her head. “People are running all over, Ouea doesn’t have any food set out, and I swear the servants are packing.” She paused, then gasped. “Oh! And the guards outside your door are gone.”

“They’re gone? Without telling us?” I rose. That couldn’t be good. “Did you see Jeatar?”

“No, but there were people coming in and out of the library.”

“Let’s go find out what’s going on.”

It was morning already, and sunlight poured through the windows. Servants were indeed running around with crates and carrying objects wrapped in tarps. Faces were tight, pale and worried.

Jeatar stood at the big table in the library, maps spread out before him and soldiers around him. Ellis was there, but I didn’t see Onderaan.

“…down through the plains so we can stay ahead of them,” he was saying, running his finger along something on the map.

I stepped into the room, Danello and Aylin close behind me. “What’s going on?”

Jeatar looked up. “The Duke’s army is mobilising, and it looks like he’s coming here.”

I went cold.

“We received a message from Baseer. The Duke is ferrying troops over to the west side of the river. He’s moving supplies, support staff, everything he needs for an extended march.”

“How many soldiers?” Danello asked.

“Rough estimates – between ten and fifteen thousand.”

“That’s too many.”

A brief smile flickered on Jeatar’s lips. “It is. He’s going to hit us, but we can’t be his only target.”

“You’re sure he’s coming here?” There was no reason to attack us. I’d caused him a mess of trouble, but you didn’t send a whole army after one person. Shiverfeet raced down my back.

Not unless that one person could destroy everything. Someone you thought you’d already killed.

“Yes, I’m sure.” Jeatar looked over at two men entering the room. He held up a finger, and I waited while he spoke to some of his guards. They hurried back out, shouting names. Jeatar turned back to me. “There’s no strategic reason for him to cross the river. The road from Baseer leads to both Verlatta and Geveg and is much more suited to travel. The only things of value on this side of the river are the aristocrats ready to stand against him.”

That wasn’t true. Jeatar was here. And I was pretty sure he was the rightful heir to the throne of Baseer. If I was right and the Duke had figured it out, he’d come after him fast.

“What about the people?” Aylin asked.

“I’m evacuating everyone to Veilig,” Jeatar said. “That should get them out of the Duke’s path and away from the fighting. He won’t chase us.”

“He will if he’s after you,” I said. The Duke had burned an entire city to get to Jeatar’s father and the rest of his family. Everyone who could have claimed the throne instead of him. I didn’t know how Jeatar survived, but he had scars he kept covered up.

For the first time, I could read Jeatar easily.

He was scared.

“He’s not after either of us,” he said evenly, his blue-grey eyes boring into mine. “This farm is where people who want to see him stripped of power are gathering. I knew we couldn’t stay a secret for long. Some secrets you can’t hide forever.”

Like his secret? Did he suspect I’d guessed? I could ask him right here, right now, and everyone would know who he was. Our resistance could finally have the leader it deserved, one who was strong enough to keep the aristocrats in line and get everyone working together.

But that would make Jeatar the biggest target in the Three Territories.

If the Duke knew he was behind the rebellions, he’d destroy every town he suspected Jeatar of being in, just like he’d destroyed Sorille.

I couldn’t put all those people at risk. Not until we were ready to fight.

“Is he going after Geveg?” I asked.

Jeatar let out a held breath and nodded. “That’s a reasonable guess. He’ll want to make Geveg an example, quell the other rebellions, and eliminate any support the aristocrats have gained.”

More guards came in and Jeatar turned away again.

If the Duke was going after Geveg, then the rumours about the Gov-Gen had to be true. Maybe all of them were. Geveg was fighting back, kicking out the Baseeri. Once they were gone, Gevegians would regain control of the pynvium mines, reclaim what was stolen from us.

The Duke would never allow that. He’d do anything to keep those mines, keep the pynvium. Even destroy us.

And when he was through with Geveg, he might go after Verlatta. Then there’d be no safe place to run to in the Three Territories. There wouldn’t even be a Three Territories any more. I tried not to picture it, but the images came anyway. Flaming pitch arcing through the air, splattering against roofs and buildings, fire spreading through the city.

Geveg might not even know the Duke was coming. Someone had to warn them.

Someone like us.

Which meant abandoning Tali again. Stopping my search for her. If you stop the Duke, you can get her back for sure. The odds of that were just as slim as finding her with no idea where to look. But Tali was probably with his army, and his army was headed to Geveg.

“We have to tell Geveg they’re in danger,” I said to Danello and Aylin. “They can’t possibly know the Duke is coming.”

Aylin gaped at me. “You want to go home now?”

“She’s right, we have to,” Danello said. “The more time they have to prepare, the better chance they’ll have of defending the city.”

She hesitated, lips tight, then she nodded. “OK, I’ll tell Quenji. Knowing him, he’ll love the idea of running into certain death.”

“Are you going to tell Jeatar?” Danello whispered.

I glanced over at him, deep in conversation with his soldiers. “I’ll tell him before we leave. He has more important things to worry about right now.”

“I want to go with you,” said Lanelle, cornering me in the dry-goods storeroom.

“Go with me where?” I’d been running around like everyone else on the farm, gathering supplies. I’d sent Quenji after a horse and wagon, since he was the most likely person to actually find one. I did warn him against stealing it from someone who needed one, though.

“To Geveg.”

I nearly dropped a bag of goat jerky. “You do know it’s about to be invaded?”

“They’ll need Healers.”

Even ones who’d betrayed them? Maybe Lanelle saw this as her chance to redeem herself.

“I’m sorry, but—”

“Please, Nya.” She grabbed my free hand. I fought the urge to yank it away. “I can help, I really can. I know people, and I know things about the League you don’t. The Elders talked around me, even about things they shouldn’t have.”

Because she’d helped them. But she did have a point.

“You’re not going to get over there and join the other side?”

She actually looked hurt. “No, swear to Saint Erlice I won’t. Baseeri lie – I know that now.”

Not all of them, but it was a step over the right bridge.

“Please, Nya?”

I sighed. Aylin was going to kill me. “OK, you can come.”

The heat from the forge wrapped around me as soon as I turned the corner. Hammer strikes of metal on metal rang out, mixed with duller thuds and some impressive swearing. I still hadn’t come up with a story as to why I needed pynvium, but since I’d stolen it in the first place, I figured some of it was mine.

Smiths banged away, no doubt trying to get the last of something made before we had to leave. Weapons maybe, or tools. Maybe just metal ingots that would be easier to carry. Onderaan worked in one corner off to the side. I cringed. I’d really hoped he wouldn’t be here.

“Onderaan?”

He turned, frustration on his face. He seemed surprised to see me. “You shouldn’t be wandering around alone.”

The forge was on the farm grounds, but it wasn’t connected to the house.

“I know but I, uh, needed some pynvium.”

“I think the weapons have already been packed, but I’ll see what’s here. There might be some pain-filled scraps left.”

“Any healing bricks?”

“Bricks? Why would you need – oh, Nya.” He sighed, rubbed his eyes. “What are you going to do?”

“Warn Geveg. I know it’s dangerous, but I—”

“You sound like your father.”

“I do?”

“Not the warning part,” he continued, “but the going-where-it’s-dangerous part. Going to Geveg where it’s dangerous, specifically.” He sighed and sat on a corner of the unfinished forge. “But you need to go, just like he needed to go.”

“He went to Geveg?” I’d always thought he’d been born there. I should have known that wasn’t true as soon as I’d learned he was Baseeri.

Onderaan nodded. “When he was nineteen. Our grandfather was governor then, and his ore finders had just discovered a huge pynvium vein in the mountains. Geveg needed enchanters to smelt it, and Peleven wanted to go help. I asked him not to leave, but he didn’t listen.”

“Why didn’t you want him to go?” Geveg was safe back then – no Baseeri soldiers on the streets, no Duke telling them what to do.

“It was a lot of pynvium. Mountains of it, and Verraad was already making a fuss out of claiming it for Baseer, trying to get his family to listen.”

Verraad. The Duke, before he was Duke. Was that when he first started thinking about killing his father and brothers?

“It made Bespaar nervous, and when he was nervous, our father was nervous. Bespaar knew too much about what his family argued over, how different their politics were. Your father should have been nervous too.”

“Who’s Bespaar?”

“The heir.”

I glanced around. The other smiths were out of earshot, the bellows and hammering drowning out anything we’d say.

“You mean Jeatar’s father?” It was a guess, a risk, but I needed to know who the man who should have been duke was.

Onderaan’s eyes widened. “Who told you?”

So it was true.

“No one. Jeatar has the Duke’s eyes and lots of money, and he keeps trying to help people without anyone knowing he’s doing it.” I’d figured that out not long after we’d left Baseer. “And I saw his burn scars when he pulled me out of the Luminary’s office. He was in Sorille when the Duke burned it, wasn’t he? Plus little things he’s said and done. It all filled the same bucket.”

Onderaan smiled at me the way Papa had when I’d done something well. “You have a way of seeing what no one else does.”

My face warmed and I looked away. It wasn’t anything special, just what you had to do to survive. “Does anyone else know?”

“Ouea. She’s been with his family since he was your age. A few others, loyal supporters of his father’s, but they’re all over the Territories now.”

“Causing rebellions?”

“Gathering support for when the time is right to move against the Duke.”

“But that’s now!”

He shook his head. “No, it isn’t. We have no army, no defensible base.”

“So we’ll tell everyone who Jeatar is and we’ll get their support. We build the army, we march back to Baseer and take over, save Tali, then free Geveg and Verlatta. It’s a good plan.”

Onderaan looked at me, a sad smile on his face. “Nya, that’s not a plan, it’s a wish.”

“Maybe not.”

We could do it. How hard could it be to raise an army? The Duke did it, and no one even liked him.

“Nya, one day we will stop the Duke, but not now.” Onderaan stood and looked around the room. “Let me get you what pynvium I can. No bricks, but I think there are some orbs left.”

“What about Jeatar?”

“I’ll tell him you’re leaving after you’ve gone. He won’t be happy about it, but he’ll understand. Once we get the refugees settled in Veilig, I’ll come meet you in Geveg.”

“How will I find you?”

He paused. “Be in Analov Park at sunset in six days. Right under Grandpa’s statue.”

We decided to leave at night. The man who’d attacked me still hadn’t been found, and we agreed it was safer to travel when no one was watching. Quenji found a horse and wagon – which I suspected Onderaan had something to do with by the way the wagon was stocked – and had it tucked away at the edge of the woods down the road.

“Why can’t we come with you?” Jovan asked. His twin brother, Bahari, had been the one asking all afternoon, but he’d given up. Or they were taking turns.

“Because it’s not safe,” Danello answered, same as he’d done all day. He hadn’t snapped, hadn’t yelled, hadn’t done any of the things I might have done if my little brothers had been pestering me for hours. “Stay with Ouea. She’ll take care of you until we’re done in Geveg.”

“And then you’ll come back for us?” Halima asked, twisting one blonde braid around her finger.

“Promise.” He knelt and hugged her tight. “I’ll always come back for you.”

Was being able to say goodbye harder or easier than just losing someone? I didn’t know if I’d have had the strength to let Tali go, knowing I might not ever see her again.

“Find Da,” Bahari said, hugging him when Halima was done. “Bring him back with you.”

“I will, I promise.”

We all got hugs too, and Ouea herded the little ones back inside the house. I took Danello’s hand. It trembled, and he grabbed mine tighter.

“They’ll be OK, right?” he whispered.

“Safer than we’ll be. Ouea won’t let anything happen to them. And Quenji’s pack is staying, too, so Zee and Ceun will look after them as well.” So much more than Tali ever had.

He took a shaky breath and nodded. “OK, let’s go.”

“We’re all loaded up,” Quenji said, smiling from the driver’s bench of the wagon. “How far to Geveg?”

“Two or three days.”

He made a face. “Sounds boring.”

We climbed in the wagon and took seats on the wooden benches on both sides. Not the most comfortable ride to Geveg, but we’d manage.

Quenji snapped the reins, and we rumbled down the road, everyone quiet save for the occasional cough. I watched the farm fade away in the night, unable to shake the feeling I was leaving family behind.

Chapter Five

We rolled into Dorpstaad, one of the few places in the marshes big enough to be called a town. It sat on the edge of the lake, with blue-reed marshes on one side and rich farmland on the other. Wasn’t much more than a few dozen trader posts, but it did have the ferry dock to Geveg Isles, a traveller’s house, and one coffeehouse – a welcome sight after two days on the road.

Beyond the buildings the lake sparkled, but Geveg was hazy, and thin tendrils of smoke curled above the rooftops. Fires.

“Jeatar did say they were rebelling.” Danello sounded calm, but he had to be worried about his father. “Doesn’t look too bad though. No worse than the riots a few months ago.”

It had to be worse than that if the Gov-Gen had been killed. But I knew hope when I heard it.

Quenji parked near the stables and arranged for a paddock and a place to store the wagon. It was too expensive to ferry them across, and there were few places to store them in Geveg if we did. Between what Quenji had no doubt stolen and what Danello had won from the soldiers playing cards, we could afford a few days’ keep.

I stretched my sore muscles. “Let’s find out when the next ferry is.”

The ferry dock was empty. Not even the usual beggars crouched by the pilings or resting under the mangrove trees. The ferry itself sat empty at its berth at the far end of the dock.

“Maybe it’s not running?” Aylin shielded her eyes with her hand and gazed over the water. It was flat today, barely any breeze to stir the surface.

“Or they’re not letting it dock at Geveg,” Danello said. “That’s the easiest way to keep people from leaving the city.”

“Or coming into the city,” I added.

This would be a problem. Without a boat, we weren’t getting into Geveg. A few fishing boats were docked at other berths, plus one skiff that looked fancy enough to belong to an aristocrat.

“If you know how to sail it, I can steal it,” Quenji said, following my stare.

I’d had enough of jails and cages for a while. Besides, we needed to draw as little attention to ourselves as possible. “Let’s see if someone is willing to take us across first.”

Lanelle snorted. “No one is going to risk their neck to help us.”

“Us, maybe,” said Aylin, “You, no.”

“Let’s look around.” I sighed. You’d think after two days of baiting each other they’d be tired of it.

We left the dock and headed for the main street. People were out and about, but the town lacked the usual bustle. No one was looking for work, and no day vendors had set up carts on the streets. It made sense if no one could get out of Geveg, but it was still eerie.

The scent of coffee lured us to the coffeehouse on the opposite side of the block, down near the traveller’s house.

“Anyone hungry?” Danello said.

My stomach rumbled. Breakfast had been a long time ago – and not much of it at that. “Sounds good. We might be able to find a fisherman there too and ask about paying him for passage.”

Aylin linked her arm through Quenji’s. “I haven’t had good Gevegian coffee in months, so let’s—”

A soldier in pynvium armour walked out of the coffeehouse.

Lanelle gasped. “Undying!”

“Be still.” I looked away fast, keeping my face down. My heart raced, and my feet wanted to follow, but running would get me noticed.

A regular soldier in Baseeri blue walked out next, and a boy in Healers’ League green followed.

Soek? He was one of the apprentices Vinnot had been experimenting on in the spire room along with Tali. He’d helped me escape, even tried to help free me when the tracker captured me, but we hadn’t seen him since that day.

The same day I’d lost Tali.

Soek stared at me, his eyes full of fear; then he looked away and shot a nervous glance at the soldiers escorting him.

What were they doing to him? He had to be a prisoner; he’d never help the Undying or the Duke. But why here and not the League?

Folks stepped aside, their heads down, and let them pass. The Undying walked with the same arrogance I’d seen in Baseer, as if he knew nothing could hurt him.

For a moment I wondered if there was any pain in that armour of his. If so, I could hurt him plenty.

“Eyes down,” Danello whispered into my ear. “You’re glaring at him.”

Was I? I looked away, face flushed, but I couldn’t help peeking again.

Soek and the soldiers walked to the traveller’s house. Soek glanced helplessly at me once more before following them inside. A plea.

People started moving again, and I caught a few loud sighs of relief. We darted into the coffeehouse and grabbed a table in the back where we could watch both the door and the dining room.

“Was that Soek?” Aylin asked, keeping her voice low.

I nodded. “We have to save him.”

“No, we don’t,” Lanelle said, face pale. “We have to get out of here right now. There are Undying here.”

I leaned closer. “We knew there was a chance we’d see Undying,” I half lied. I’d figured we’d see them once the Duke got there, but not this soon. Had he sent some in advance? “It’s just one, and he doesn’t seem to be doing anything but guard duty.”

“Who’s Soek?” Quenji asked.

“A friend of ours. He was an apprentice at the League. Nya, he looked really scared,” Aylin said to me.

“He did.”

“You think he’s the only one here?” asked Lanelle.

“I don’t know. The League comes out to the marsh farms once a month for heals. They could be here for that.” I used to join Mama on those trips. Folks would ride in from all over Geveg proper for a chance at real healing.

The server headed over and we fell silent.

“Excuse me,” I said after he set our plates down. “Did I see a Healer leave here a few minutes ago?”

The server hesitated but nodded. “There’s a League group at the traveller’s house. Been here a few weeks, ever since things got bad over there.” He tipped his head towards the Isles.

“What is going on over there? I noticed the ferry wasn’t running.”

He glanced around and leaned a little closer. “I hear the whole city revolted, Baseeri and Gevegians. Each of the Geveg islands belongs to a different group now. The commander, the dockworkers, the aristocrats. Anyone willing to grab a sword and guard a bridge could take an island.”

“What about the Governor-General?” I asked, fishing for more information. “Isn’t he doing anything to stop it?”

“They say he died the first day. That’s what set off the riots.”

But why would Baseeri revolt against the Gov-Gen or the Duke?

“Are there a lot of those soldiers in that blue armour?” I said. “I’ve never seen them before.”

The server gulped. “Just the one. He came over with the Healers. That was the last ferry out of the Isles. Lots of smaller boats docked after that, but nothing since last week.”

Danello looked puzzled. “The Healers are just staying here?”

“Seems like it.” He shrugged. “They’re making good money, and it’s not safe to go back to the Isles.”

I’d met plenty of folks who’d take advantage of such a situation and see it as a way to earn some fast money, but not Soek. Maybe the soldiers were forcing him to do it.

“Is there any way into Geveg?” I asked.

“Not unless you wanna swim.” Another customer called, and the server hurried off.

“Did you see his face when you asked about the Undying?” Aylin shuddered. “I think finding someone willing to take us over there just got harder.”

We’d be fools to wander in blindly. We had no idea which isle belonged to who, or who we needed to speak to and warn about the Duke.

“We need more information about what’s going on over there,” I said.

Danello nodded. “How do we find out?”

“Soek? We need to rescue him anyway.”

Everyone looked at each other as if they hoped someone else had a better idea.

Danello sighed. “Yeah, we can’t leave him there. And he’ll probably know what’s going on better than anyone else here.”

“We’ll need a boat too,” I said. “Quenji, see if you can trade the horse or wagon or both for one, even for a day or two.”

“Can’t we steal one?”

“As long as it’s not a fisherman’s boat. He can’t support his family without one.”

Quenji rolled his eyes but nodded.

“How do we talk to Soek?” Danello asked. “They’ve got him guarded pretty well.”

Aylin huffed and added more sugar to her coffee. “He’s a Healer. We hurt somebody.”

“Help, I need help!” Danello carried me into the common room at the traveller’s house, blood running down my face. I groaned and feigned delirium. My scalp stung from the cut Aylin had made, but heads bleed easily, and we needed to put on a good show.

People gasped and pointed. A woman behind the bar called out to a boy who was washing mugs.

“Go get the Healer, hurry.”

Patrons cleared an old couch near a window and Danello set me down. He paced, wiping his upper lip and brow like he was afraid I was about to die right in front of him.

“I can’t help if you won’t let me through,” Soek grumbled.

He shoved through the gathering crowd, shooing them back with a sharp twist of his hand. He looked at me and his eyes widened, but he covered his surprise quickly. “What happened?”

“She fell,” Danello said, waving his hands about as he spoke. “I told her not to walk on the fence, but she did it anyway and she slipped and fell and hit her head on, oh, I don’t know what but it was hard. Her head made this awful cracking noise.”

“That’s bad.” Soek turned to the crowd. “Stop gawking at her. Go back to doing what you were doing before she got here.”

The Undying was also in the room but standing back watching the crowd. I didn’t see the other soldier or anyone else.

“Now, let’s take a look.” Soek pulled over a chair and sat down beside me. He put one hand on my wound and the other on my forehead. My scalp tingled and the cut hidden in my hair closed, but he frowned.

“She cracked her skull,” he said. “Some brain bruising there as well. You’re lucky you got her here in time.” He turned to the Undying. “I’m going to need the brick for this. The orb won’t be enough.”

The Undying hesitated, glancing at his pynvium armour as if debating whether or not to use it rather than go back upstairs. It was either full or he wasn’t allowed, because he sighed and headed for the stairs. “I’ll be right back.”

Soek nodded, then turned back to me, dragging one hand through his red hair. “Saints, Nya, you gotta get me out of here,” he whispered.

“We will. What’s going on?”

He took a deep breath. “I was over here on a farm run when the fighting started. The soldiers wanted to go back, but Keeper Betaal wouldn’t let us. She’s selling heals at twice the cost and pocketing the money. She’s paying off the soldiers, so I don’t think she plans on going back.” He swallowed. “Or letting me go.”

“Who’s Keeper Betaal?”

“One of the Luminary’s new ‘administrators’. Glorified thug is more like it.”

“Is anyone else with you?”

“No. Just soldiers and Betaal. When I questioned her, she said she had an Undying and wondered if she really needed two Healers.” He gulped. “I stopped asking questions.”

Thumps sounded on the stairs. “He’s coming back,” Danello said. The Undying appeared. A woman followed him, also in Healer’s green, but not a uniform I’d seen before. Two additional soldiers walked behind her.

Soek’s expression changed to grave concern like any good Healer’s. He took the battlefield brick of pynvium and placed his hands back on my head. No tingle this time with nothing to heal, but he made a show of it anyway. He pretended to push the pain into the pynvium and handed the brick back to the Undying.

I fluttered open my eyes and sat up, swaying a bit.

“There you go – all better now.” Soek stood and stepped away from me.

“Wait,” the woman in green said. I held my breath. “She didn’t pay.”

I looked at Danello. I didn’t know how much he had, but if heals were double now, it couldn’t possibly be enough to cover what Soek had pretended to heal. It probably wouldn’t even have covered healing the actual cut.

“It was an emergency,” Soek said. “She would have died otherwise.”

“Then you should have let her die.”

“Keeper Betaal—”

“You know the law, Soek, and I’m tired of you bending it. This stops right now.” She folded her arms and scowled at me. “Taking a heal you can’t pay for is stealing – and punishable same as any other theft.”

Chapter Six

Danello fumbled through his pockets. “I have some money, not a lot, but you can have it all.” The gratitude in his voice was utterly faked.

Keeper Betaal glared at him. “A pittance won’t buy your way out of this. Arrest them,” she told the two soldiers.

The Undying was still holding the battlefield brick, and odds were it held lots of pain. Could I reach it before the Undying stopped me?

Flashing that pynvium would alert the Duke I was here. So would shifting. He was on his way anyway, so it might not matter, but if more assassins were looking for me, they’d find out exactly where I was. I had no idea if Quenji had a boat yet, so we might not be able to escape even if I did flash it.

“Keeper Betaal, please,” Soek said. “She was dying.”

“So? She would have died if we weren’t here. And now you’ve wasted pynvium on a freeloader, so someone who could afford it won’t be able to get the help they deserve.” She sneered. “You probably just cost someone else their life.”

The soldiers grabbed Danello and me. They checked us both for weapons, took our knives, then hauled us out of the traveller’s house and towards a small brick building sitting by itself not far from the docks. Bars lined the windows. It was probably the only jail in the marsh farms. The farmers tended to take care of criminals in their own way.

Lanelle was sitting outside the coffeehouse. She rose when we approached, but I shook my head. She stopped, watching us with worried eyes.

The soldiers took us into the guardhouse. One guard sat at a worn table, eating lunch. Shaggy hair a bit too long, worn uniform. Perhaps a local, one of the farmers’ sons. He glanced up, then looked again and jumped to his feet.

“Afternoon, sir.”

The soldier holding Danello’s arm frowned. “Prisoners.”

“Yes, sir.” The guard hurried over to a rack by the door and pulled a key ring off a peg. A reward poster hung on the wall next to it. My reward poster, the same one Vyand had nailed up in Geveg to flush me out. It wasn’t the best drawing, but it was accurate enough. Heart pounding, I angled my face away and let my much shorter and blacker hair fall across my cheek.

What if they recognised me? What if they’d been told to look for me?

The soldier glanced around the room, his lip curling in distaste. “Where’s the other guard? Betaal told you to maintain two at all times.”

“And I keep telling her we only have two.” He unlocked the cell and stood to one side. “She wants to send some of you soldiers over to help us out, I’ll be happy to take a day off.”

The soldier grunted and pushed Danello forward. He stumbled into the cell, a typical ten-foot-square box with two cots. The soldier on my arm let me go, and I walked inside. If they saw that poster and looked at me closely…

“What did they do?” the guard asked, his gaze on my bloodstained shirt.

“Theft.”

A puzzled frown. “What’d they steal?”

“Healing.”

“You arrested them for—”

The soldier stepped close to the guard. “That’s the same as stealing pynvium.”

The guard gulped. “Yes, it is.”

“Stay with him,” the soldier told the other.

“Yes, sir.”

I sat on one of the cots, my back to the soldier and guard. Danello sat next to me. The guards had no reason to look at that reward poster. It was at least four months old. As long as I didn’t do anything foolish, we could bide our time and wait for a rescue.

By now Lanelle had told Aylin and Quenji what had happened. The cell lock would be easy for Quenji to pick, but getting him inside and the guards outside wouldn’t be. All three were probably studying the jail right now, looking for weaknesses, ways to get inside, tricks to play on the guards. Well, maybe two. Lanelle was probably trying to get them both to run.

I took Danello’s hand. This time it was up to Aylin to come up with the plan.

Unless Lanelle didn’t tell her.

I jerked, every muscle tense. What if Lanelle had run? What if she hadn’t even tried to find Aylin or Quenji? They might not even know we’d been arrested.

My guts twisted. Were our lives really in Lanelle’s hands?

Saea have mercy on us all.

Rumbling of dozens of wheels broke the silence. The light had left the windows hours ago, and an orange sunset lit the trees I could see. The soldier rose and looked outside.

“What’s going on?” asked the guard.

“Horses. Go see what’s going on.”

“Me?”

“Or stay here and deal with whoever attacks if that happens to be a distraction.”

The guard rolled his eyes. “I’ll be right back.” He slipped outside.

The soldier stood by the door, hand on his sword. Mere feet from the reward poster.

“Doesn’t sound like the Duke’s men,” whispered Danello. Didn’t to me, either.

“Refugees?”

“On horseback?”

Voices rose and fell, not arguing, but more than simple conversation. Maybe the guard was telling them they had to leave.

The door opened a few minutes later and the guard returned. He looked nervous.

“Well?” the soldier asked. His hand still hadn’t left his sword.

“Undying,” he said, voice quivering. My heart stopped for a beat.

The soldier glared at him, his blue eyes narrowed. “You mean the Wardens?”

So the Undying had an official name. I was surprised I’d never heard it before.

The guard nodded. “Wardens, yes, that’s what I meant. Six of them, plus a dozen soldiers.”

Saints, no. If Lanelle hadn’t run, she sure as spit would now.

“What did they want?”

“They didn’t tell me, they just demanded to see my commander. I sent them to the traveller’s house.”

I looked at Danello. Hoped I didn’t look that scared.

“What do we do?” the guard said.

The soldier frowned and glanced over at us. “We follow orders and guard the prisoners.”

Sunset turned to dusk. I couldn’t see what was going on outside, but the noises came and went. After a while, the door opened and another soldier came in, sergeant bars on her collar. The guard leaped to his feet; the other soldier rose casually.

“We have trouble,” she said. “Looks like the Shifter might be in the area.”

Shiverfeet raced down my back.

“Coming after the Healer?”

“Wouldn’t be the first Healer she’s killed.”

Danello squeezed my hand. They thought I was here to kill Healers? What in Saea’s name had the Duke said about me?

“She didn’t kill them, she saved them,” the guard said. Both soldiers turned their gazes on him. He stepped back. “Well, that’s what I’ve heard.”

The woman snorted. “Tell that to the dead.”

The guard said nothing. I wanted to say something to defend myself, foolish as it was.

“The Wardens told Betaal that the Shifter was seen at a farm a few days’ ride from here,” the woman said, “but the place is abandoned now. They’re convinced she came this way.”

They must have arrived at the farm right after we’d left. Someone must have told them I was there, one of the aristocrats who’d seen me. A spy in Little ’Crat City with some message birds maybe. They couldn’t have got there so fast otherwise.

“I’ll keep my eyes open. What am I looking for?”

“A girl, short black hair, sixteen or so.” She paused, then reached over and yanked the reward poster off the wall. “Like this, actually. Memorise this face, but do not approach her on your own.”

“She’s really that dangerous?”

“Ask Gemid. She almost killed his whole squad.”

“Of Undy – I mean, Wardens? I thought they were invulnerable.”

“No one’s impervious to everything.” She glared at him and slapped the poster against his chest. “You see this girl, you find us. Clear?”

“Yeah.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, Sergeant.”

The guard sank on to his stool the moment the door thunked shut. “I like my sergeant better,” he muttered.

Danello looked over, but his it’s-all-going-to-be-OK smile didn’t make me feel any better. The guards had looked at the poster. As soon as they looked at me again, they’d recognise me.

I had no pain to use unless we hurt ourselves. Even if we did, they might see me before they came close enough for me to shift it. And if one of them got away and told the others…

Hurry, Aylin, hurry.

* * *

Dusk turned to dark. Nervous murmurs and the occasional scream drifted in through the window. The Undying were probably questioning everyone in the town. Folks had seen me in the coffeehouse and when we’d gone to see Soek. If they told the Undying about a dark-haired girl who’d been arrested…

“I can probably handle the soldier if I catch him by surprise,” Danello whispered. “Can you take out the guard?”

“Maybe. Definitely if he stabs me.”

“Are you allowed to play cards?” the guard asked the soldier. “Or will your sergeant disapprove?”

“You got coin?”

“Enough.”

“Deal then.”

On the third hand of cards, the door flew open. The soldier was on his feet in seconds, his sword out. Aylin jumped and squealed, her surprise faked. The guard nearly fell out of his chair.

“I saw her!” Aylin cried, flapping a hand out the door. She was dressed as nice as a merchant. Where had she got the clothes? “The Shifter, she’s out by the blacksmith’s, doing something to the forge, I think.”

The soldier looked her over – her black hair, her fancy dress. I doubted she’d have his attention if she looked like she normally did. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, she looks like that poster they’re showing everyone.”

“Did you see anyone with her?”

“Maybe a man and another girl. Come on, I’ll show you.”

“No, stay here.” The soldier turned to the guard. “You, too.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice.”

The soldier raced out. Aylin glanced out the door, concern wrinkling her brow for a moment, then it was gone. She heaved a sigh and dropped both hands on to the back of one of the chairs.

“You really saw the Shifter?” the guard asked.

She nodded fast. “I did! Nearly scared me to death. It was the flames that made me look over there. Blue, can you believe it?” She gripped the chair back.

The guard made a face. “Blue?”

“Blue as the sky. Look…” She tipped her head towards the window next to her. “You can see them from here.”

The guard went to the window. Aylin lifted the chair and smashed it down over his head. He groaned and slumped to the floor.

“Hurry, we don’t have much time,” Aylin said, stepping over the unconscious guard. “It won’t take that soldier long to figure out there’s no one by the blacksmith’s.”

“Do they even have a blacksmith?” I said.

“I have no idea, but I figured farmers have horses, and horses need shoes, right?” She pulled out some lock picks and knelt by the cell door.

“When did you learn to pick locks?”

“Quenji taught me.”

The lock snicked open.

“You’re both geniuses.” I slipped to the guard’s side and placed a hand on his arm.

Aylin pushed her hair back. “I didn’t hurt him much, did I?”

“He’s fine. He’ll have a headache and some bruising, but it’ll heal on its own. Where are the others? Is Lanelle still here?”

She rolled her eyes. “Barely. They’re at the docks. Quenji got us a boat.”

“What about Soek?”

“He’s in a building full of soldiers. I don’t think we can help him.”

“We can’t just leave him here.”

Danello put a hand on my arm. “Nya, she’s right. We have to warn Geveg. We can’t lose any more time. If we stop the Duke, we save everyone.” He picked up the guard’s sword and cracked open the door. “No soldiers, but there’s a lot of people out there. They look pretty angry.”

“The Undying hurt someone,” Aylin said, “an older woman. People are complaining.”

The familiar dread came back. Undying didn’t care for those who complained.

“Keep Nya between us,” said Danello, slipping out. “Less chance of her being spotted that way.”

We stayed close to the buildings and out of the yellow circles of the streetlamps. The marsh folks were gathered in front of the traveller’s house, yelling and shaking their fists.

A woman cried out, and the crowd parted not far ahead. Soldiers emerged, their eyes scanning faces as they passed. Behind the soldiers, an Undying. Danello and Aylin closed tighter around me.

“Everyone line up over there,” the Undying said, pointing against the side of the market building.

“We don’t have to listen to you,” one man shouted.

The Undying drew his sword and marched towards him. The man held his ground, but apprehension flickered across his face.

“You’ll move, now,” the Undying said.

“I’ll move when someone who isn’t eating from the Duke’s table asks me.”

The Undying backhanded him, sending him flying into the crowd. People screamed, some shouted, others charged the Undying. He braced himself but toppled under the surge of bodies.

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