The Glass Arrow(85)

PART FOUR

THE GLASS ARROW





CHAPTER 21

MIST SEEPS THROUGH THE trees well before sunrise, lowering the sky, leaving droplets of dew on each tree limb and pinecone. It chills me to the bone.

Today is Trader’s Day. The day of a thousand maybes. Today I might finally be reunited with my family. I might be captured. I might be brought back to the mayor’s house in shackles, drugged until I can’t move, and made the plaything of Amir and his uncle.

I might not even make it that far.

So I breathe in the pine and the damp leaves. My fingers memorize everything they touch: the patterned bark on the trees, the rough surfaces of nearby boulders, the yellow-speckled grouse eggs we’ve gathered, and the freezing, clear water. And though it brings an ache to my chest, I say good-bye, because I know how it feels to be ripped away without that chance.

Our plan is simple: We’ll go to the gates with our wares—the thirty-three trinkets Daphne and I have been staying up late to make and the two bulging sacks of furs Lorcan and Kiran have gathered from the other Drivers. The gatekeepers will grant us a business pass to set up a booth beside the auction stage—used today just for the livestock—but we won’t be going downtown. We’ll be going to a pharmacy in the residential district of the Merchant class. Lorcan saw Salma there two months back. Three days ago he went back to try to see her again, but did not. I try not to think too hard about what this might mean.

He came back with something else, though: two posters from the city. One with Daphne’s body shot from the Garden—the head-to-toe picture that appeared in the leather book the Governess kept in her office. Kiran told us the caption below said that she’s wanted for the Watcher death in the solitary yard and that she’ll probably be in the Black Lanes hiding.

I didn’t know until then that he could read. I pretended I knew what it said too, but I think he knew I was lying.

The other poster was of me.

It was the photo the Magnate had taken during my capture, with a close-up of my face and my bared teeth, my wild eyes, the sticks and leaves in my hair. I imagined this is what the Governess, Greer, and even the mayor must have thought I looked like again after even such a short time away. “Property of Mayor Ryker,” Kiran had said. “Generous Reward.”

I know the poster said more, but he crumpled it up and threw it in the fire before he told me. I wasn’t too upset; it wouldn’t have stopped me from going back to that city anyway.

We’ve gone over the rest of the plan ten or more times. Kiran’s going to find some more Virulent costume makeup like he used to mark me when we escaped, and we’ll use the same Skinmonger dress—assuming Salma’s not already wearing one—to sneak my cousin out. The twins will go in the sacks in place of the furs, and we’ll be gone before anyone knows any different.

I don’t dwell on the obvious: that Amir’s family is looking for me, that the dead Watcher may mean our stretched necks. I don’t let myself think too much about Lorcan, who is still here even though he’s had plenty of opportunities to disappear, or how whenever he’s around I’m silent as he is, because this connection that hangs between us seems to have taken my voicemaker, too. And I definitely don’t let myself think about the danger Kiran is putting himself in to help me. But every time I look at him my hands tremble and I’ve got to fight the urge to beg him to stay behind.

He already told me not to get sore about it, so I won’t.

Daphne, wrapped in a fur mantle, comes to sit beside me in front of the pulsing white coals. Her red hair is growing out; it’s actually more yellow, like Kiran’s. Two nights ago she made me cut it short, almost to the skull. She said it was because of her picture on the posters, but I think it’s because she doesn’t want any more reminders of the Garden.

She’s quiet now, rubbing the line that’s formed between her eyebrows.

“You’ll be all right, Daphne,” I tell her. “The Trackers will all be in the city for Trader’s Day.”

Which doesn’t exactly bode well for me and Kiran.

She scrunches her nose, drawing attention to the explosion of freckles that seem to be multiplying by the day. I feel guilty for leaving her here with no one but Brax for protection, but there’s no need for her to take the risk of going in.

“If I don’t come back…”

“Shut up Clover,” she says. “It’s bad luck to say things like that.”

I snort. “I would have thought those Magnate scientists would’ve proved there’s no such thing as luck.”

Her eyes narrow on me. “Well if you catch me screeching to some mother hen, you’ll know I’ve really lost it.”

A smile quirks my lips. Daphne’s been growing on me these past few days.

“You’ll have the horses ready?”

“I’ve got one job, I think I can remember it.” Her face falls. She begins drawing circles in the dirt with a narrow twig.

“Clover?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you really think I could have stopped the new girl from frying herself?”

Straw Hair. Who ran through the electric fence at the Garden the day she was sold. I cringe, remembering the smoke and the sounds and the smell of it all too clearly.