The Glass Arrow(28)

“We lived that way for a while, just the three of us. My ma trained us to hide from Trackers. And when Lorcan visited, he’d teach me to fight. Salma hated that he was mute and couldn’t bring her news from the city.

“Then one day, I think I was eight or nine, I found a woman sleeping by a nearby brook.” I smile a little at the memory. “She was all swollen up with babies. Two of them.” I motion to show her belly. Her feet were thick too, and bleeding from all the walking they’d done to get away from town.

“Her son jumped out of the bushes while I was watching and he hit me with a stick, right between the eyes.” I laugh at the memory now, but at the time, I was so mad I shoved him into the stream and held him under until Metea pulled me off.

“Bian,” I say. “A year older than Salma.”

It feels better to remember him at ten than the last time I saw him.

“It wasn’t long before Metea’s labor started. We worked all night, Ma and me, cleaning her, cooling her. We made her tea from baneberry roots to ease the pain. The twins were born just before dawn. Tam and Nina, she named them. Nina after her ma. Tam after the man she loved—Trackers had raided her town and killed him.”

I take a deep breath, remembering the night of Tam and Nina’s birth as though it has just happened. Blood and sweat. Metea’s silent struggles. Bian’s crying. And my ma’s reliance on me. How proud she was of me. How proud I was of myself.

I’d never been so scared in my life. I think about telling Kiran this—but for some reason, I don’t.

My stomach begins to hurt at the next part of my story. I want to stop, but the words just keep coming.

“I was eleven when she got sick. My ma. Fever.”

My voice cracks. But this time, Kiran does not encourage me on. He’s watching me intently, mouth closed around a long piece of grass he’d been chewing.

I remember how she told me that this was the way of things. That to have life there must be death. To have joy there must be sadness. And that I must not be angry with Mother Hawk because of it.

But I was angry. I’m still angry.

“Metea and I gave her herbs for the fever, but the sickness took her eyes, made her see things that weren’t there.” It makes my heart pinch to remember my ma’s crazed words during those last hours.

“I tried to remember the fever cures, but none of them worked. And when Metea said Ma couldn’t take any more we made her a strong sleeping draught from bloodroot. So strong she didn’t wake up again. I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I finish suddenly.

I’m exhausted. The story has left me with a hollow feeling inside. I don’t care that Kiran is still here. I don’t care if he wants to kill me even. I just want to lie down and sleep. And for the first night in some time, I don’t want to dream about the mountains.

I lay my head on Brax’s neck. He’s already passed out, and his steady heart calms me. I close my eyes. I must fall asleep quickly, because I don’t hear Kiran leaving.

Maybe he stayed a while. I don’t know.

*

THE NEXT MORNING I see that the Watcher is no longer wearing the key to my bracelet. I stop looking at his chest strap because it’s such a disappointment. I don’t know where he keeps it—somewhere inside, but unless he opens the door with his hand scan, there’s no way to get in.

The days grow shorter, not just because winter is coming, but because Kiran begins visiting every night. With the motions of his arms and his pointing fingers, he tells me he’s got some kind of plan in the works to get me out. I don’t know what it is exactly, but he seems confident. At first I’m skeptical, but every day brings new hope, and every night he shows up empty-handed, more disappointment.

But it’s not all disappointing. We talk a lot.

At least, I talk a lot.

A Pip comes by on my eighth day and gives me a few changes of clothes and two wool blankets—my only shelter against the rain that pelts me half that afternoon. I find myself reluctant to change out in the open, because on one side of my yard the Watcher can surely see, and on the other, Kiran might.

Not that he’d be looking.

During the daytime I can’t help but glance over towards the barn. Sometimes I see Kiran outside doing his normal working routine. He wears his riding pants, his boots, sometimes a button-down shirt. His clothes are always filthy, but his handkerchief, rolled and tied in a loose knot around his neck, always seems clean. I remind myself to tell him to mess it up later so that no one will catch on to his disguise, but I always forget once he arrives.

Occasionally our eyes will meet and we’ll both look away quickly, to check if anyone else has seen us. No one ever does.

On the tenth day the yard is unusually quiet during rec time. Drawn by the Governess’s voice, I stretch my chain to its limit and squint at the back of the building, where she’s called the girls into a line. From here I can see Daphne’s red hair in the middle of the pack. It puts me at ease that she’s around, for some reason.

A man steps out from the building and says something to the Governess. He wears a suit the color of eggplants and a floppy-brimmed hat, which he takes off as he makes his way down the line.

I cringe and fall back a step.

It’s Mercer the Pimp. He comes sometimes after all the paperwork is done from the auction to pick up the stragglers for the Black Lanes. Most of his girls are Virulent, but every once in a while he’ll buy a few First Rounders to sell them to his own clients in the Black Lanes. It’s everyone’s biggest fear.