The Glass Arrow(64)

“Brax!” I cry, louder than I mean to. I push off the back of Dell, and hear another seam pop in the side of my dress.

Brax races towards me, whining high like I’ve never heard him do before. He must know I’m leaving for good this time.

I bury my face in his soft neck, and he paws closer into me, punishing me for leaving, begging me not to go.

“Thank you,” I tell him, an ache in my chest. “I won’t ever forget what you did.”

“Kill it!” I hear Daphne order Kiran. “It’s biting her!”

I stand up sharply. “Shut up!”

Kiran motions me towards the wall, but there’s pity in his eyes. We have to go.

I give my friend one more hug. One last hug.

“Brax, you have to go home,” I say.

Brax doesn’t move.

“Home.” I point towards the Driver barn, towards the sewer where he lives. He whines again and turns the direction I’ve pointed, as though I’ve thrown a ball for him. A second later, he spins back, realizing he must have been tricked. His mouth is open, his tongue lolling out. He crouches low and pounces up towards me in our favorite game. But I push him away.

Kiran comes up beside me.

“The gatekeepers’ll shoot him,” he says in a low voice. I figured this. I don’t need him to say it out loud. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from telling him so.

“Home, Brax.” My voice breaks, right along with my heart. Brax is my best friend. He’s kept my soul alive these past months, kept the mountains alive in my mind. His ice blue eyes are burning me now, the question in them clear.

Because I don’t want you to die, I want to tell him. Because I don’t want to see you shot like Bian.

Brax steps closer, tentatively this time.

“No!” I grab a pebble off the ground and throw it at him. “Go home!” He yelps when it hits him, and edges back. I want to break down in sobs, but I can’t. I pick up another pebble, and this time when I throw it, he growls at me. Dell sidesteps, and Daphne tries to calm her.

The next pebble hits Brax in the neck and with a yelp, he turns and finally scampers away. A weakly thrown pebble is scarier to Brax than a full-grown Watcher. I cling to this thought because it’s so much easier than the fact that he’s running away from me in fear.

When I turn back towards the horse, Kiran is standing very close.

“It’s better—”

“Don’t,” I tell him. Without waiting for his help, I shove my foot into the stirrup, and heave my body upward. Kiran does end up hoisting me most of the way, but I don’t look at him, not even when I feel his stare.

Brax will live because of me. I couldn’t save my ma. Or Bian or Metea. But I’m going to save the twins and Salma. And I saved Brax.

We move on to the edge of the alleyway, and by the time Kiran leads us around the corner, my tears have dried, and my body feels like stone.

Kiran has hunched, his chin buried in his handkerchief. I see the gate station up ahead where there’ll be one or two Watchers on guard through the evening. There is a scanner just above the booth, arcing in slow half circles towards the alley, and it makes the breath catch in my throat.

I’ve only been here one time—when they brought me to the Garden. I’d been bound by the hands and carried in a black jailer’s carriage that was complete with thick metal bars. But I recognize this place as though I’ve visited it every single day.

I steel myself as we approach the decider of our fate, and lean forward to whisper in Daphne’s ear, “If you say a word about Kiran talking, it’ll be your last.”

She sits as stiff as a board.

And with Brax torn from my heart and the dead Watcher seared forever into my memory, she had better know I mean it.





CHAPTER 16

THE INTERSECTION OUTSIDE THE city gates is silent and cold as death. Crumbled pieces of trash stir in the gusts of wind that sneak between the rungs of the heavy steel exit. A large rat with matted fur stalks us. When Dell stomps her front hoof, the creature slips between the iron grates of a sewer and disappears into the darkness below.

Beside the gates is a green-glass box with a Watcher sitting inside. This is the last barrier. The final test.

There’s a pressure in my chest; it feels like someone’s sitting right on my ribs. My life waits just outside. I can feel its grip on me, pulling me right off the back of this horse. I keep my eyes down—I can’t even look through those narrow metal rods. If I do, I will ruin everything. The desperate truth will show on my face, plain as day.

Kiran leads us to the glowing pool of an overhead streetlight. He hesitates at the edge, ever so slightly, as though the brightness will burn his eyes, and once again I marvel at how perfectly he plays a coward. We stay just outside the beam, keeping to the shadows.

“Hold,” comes a deep voice from within the booth.

My grip on the small dagger beneath my dress skirts is slippery with sweat, but firm.

A Watcher steps out into the light.

I stare at him for a moment. He’s wearing the traditional Watcher uniform. Black jacket, high-laced boots. The leather strap running across his chest that holds a messagebox, a wire, and whatever other torture piece he’s been issued. His smooth, hairless face is so similar to the Watcher from the solitary yard, I can’t help but imagine him with a rock-bruised eye and a knife handle sticking out of his neck. It’s enough to make my stomach churn.