The Glass Arrow(44)

“—to the mountains. I know.” She throws herself dramatically back onto her cot. “Such a waste, you are.”

“I … I am not,” I counter, wishing I had something smart to come back with. She only glares at me, and behind the anger I can see the misery. I’m reminded of Salma, fighting with my ma about being brought up into the mountains against her will. It was obviously the safest place for her, but Salma didn’t see it that way. And now Daphne doesn’t get it either. All she sees is what she knows. The tiny box of a world. A world that has let her down.

“Who is he, anyway? Some plastics worker, probably. Or, no, a maintenance man.” She grumbles through several more undesirable positions before I interrupt her.

“Amir Ryker,” I say.

She lifts her head.

“Ryker. The mayor?”

“His son,” I say.

“But his son…” She smiles. I can see the laugh building inside of her before it finally breaks free. “His son is a boy. A child.”

“I know that.” I look at the edge of the office, knowing that around the corner is the poisoned stream and Brax’s sewer. And the Driver barn.

Because I’m exhausted, I sit on the other side of the cot.

She quiets as she realizes what this means. “You won’t have to be with him, will you?”

“Not for a few years,” I say. “That’s what his keeper says, anyway.” But I think of Mr. Greer’s threats and double over, elbows on my knees, face in my hands.

“A servant brought him? Not his father?”

When I don’t answer right away, Daphne pinches my arm. Her chain makes a clinking noise as it draws across her lap. “You have to tell me everything, Clover. You owe me that much at least.”

“Don’t call me that,” I say. “It’s not my name.”

She groans. “Tell me.”

I exhale. The air reeks of oil and waste. The incinerator’s been used lately, probably to burn all the excess from the auction preparations.

“The boy came with a man named Greer. He’s got an X on his face.”

Her eyes widen. “He’s Virulent? You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Greer is the mayor’s brother,” she says. “He never leaves their house in the city. I overheard my father once say that the mayor was ashamed of him. I never knew he was marked.”

She taps her fingers together like this is prime gossip and waits for me to say more, but I have nothing else to add.

“What is wrong with you?” she asks. “If your paperwork goes through, you’ll have the best placement in the city. You’ll get whatever you want and you won’t even have to share anyone’s bed.”

I don’t tell her Mr. Greer’s plans.

“For now,” I say. “If I’m lucky.”

We’re both looking out now, in opposite directions. Her, towards the Garden. Me, towards the city gates.

“You’re the luckiest person I know,” she says quietly. “You’re so blunt you can’t even see it. Good thing they’ve got you chained in, otherwise you might pull the same stunt as that other girl.”

I can still see Straw Hair stuck to the fence, her dead body dancing, her yellow hair catching fire. The smell, it’s still right there in the back of my throat.

And even now I wonder if she was luckier than all of us.

I feel a growl inside of me, but it doesn’t have the strength to rise up my throat. I can’t stand being near Daphne any longer, so I walk away. Back around the side of the office, behind my sheltering plaster wall. The chain drags behind me, catching on the rocks and grass and weighing down my arm. I stumble as close as I can to the poisoned water and fall to my knees. But I still can’t pray.

Dark thoughts whisper to me. They say I will never go home. Tam and Nina are dead. Salma has abandoned them. I will be sold and bred and sold and bred until I don’t remember that my name is Aya, and I came from the mountains.

At sixteen, I have lived all that I will ever live.

I pull up my dress sleeve and look at the silver bracelet on my wrist. It doesn’t even shine in this sorry excuse for a sunset. I think about drinking the poisoned water. Wonder if it would kill the pain inside of me. Or if it would just make it worse, add a new sickness, like the one that’s now stealing my hope. I wonder if Straw Hair pondered these same questions.

The sky grows dim, then dark—as dark as it will get here. I hear the bass from the Black Lanes pick up. Auction Day is closing, and the Virulent will make lots of money tonight from any drunken merchants or disguised Magnates who want to gamble or hit the brothels.

I hate them. I hate everyone within these walls. And I hate everyone outside of these walls because they have what I can’t. Freedom.

And then, finally, there is peace.

Out of the sewer comes Brax. He trots up the outside of the Garden, past the office, to join me in the yard. His face nuzzles mine, warm and wet and wild. It’s his low whimper that finally breaks me down.

I cry into Brax’s soft silver neck, and he lets me, panting while my hands fist in his fur. Every so often he licks my face, cleaning the salty tears away, and then I cry some more.

Above my choked-off sobs I can still hear the club music. Boom, boom, boom. Mocking me. I can see the man from the auction who grabbed me in the crowd. See Mr. Greer’s scar. My ma’s scar.