Thin Lines (The Child Thief #3)(63)

Before she could answer me, Jace came to an abrupt stop ahead of us, and I saw that we’d reached the wide, flat plateau that sat right above the sheer face of rock we’d climbed to get up here.

He turned and stared right at me.

“Moment of truth,” he said. “Are you going to be able to make it down on your own?”

“Yes,” I said without thinking. I didn’t want him worrying about me—not when there was more pressing business. Like what we were going to do at the bottom.

“I got up it on my own, didn’t I?” I asked. “And I’ve had your magical leech treatment since then. It’s bound to be easier.”

He nodded without even responding to my joke. “I’m going first, to draw the attention of anyone who might be at the bottom. I want you between Ant and Kory.” Then he turned to those two. “I want each of you with a hand on her shoulder. If she starts to wobble, stop her immediately and pick her up. Throw her over your shoulder if you have to.” He turned to look at Nelson and Jackie next, and lifted an eyebrow. “Are you two going to be okay?”

Nelson just snorted at him, and he gave them both a quick nod, then turned and dropped over the edge onto the ledge of the stone.





23





Kory dropped quickly after him, and then it was my turn. I made my way toward the edge and gazed out at the view, then reminded myself not to look over it. Just look at the rock, just look at the rock, I told myself again and again.

“Get on the ledge and then turn to the side,” Nelson suddenly said from behind me. “Face the rock rather than facing forward. It’ll be easier.”

I glanced at her, remembering that that was how she’d come up, and nodded. I turned so that my back was to the drop, took the hand Ant offered me, and stepped backward onto the ledge.

The footing wasn’t any slicker or shiftier than it had been yesterday when we came up, though I wasn’t sure why I’d expected it to change. I took a deep breath, coughed at having inhaled dust right off the rock face, and then nodded to Ant, who was leaning over me, still holding onto one of my hands. Kory reached back from the path ahead of me, put his hand on my right shoulder, and gave me a reassuring squeeze. Then he started scooting down the pathway sideways. I followed him quickly, sliding my feet along the ledge so they didn’t lose touch with the ground and picking them up only when I came across a large rock. A second later Ant had joined me on the ledge and had his hand on my other shoulder. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nelson follow us, and then Abe. Jackie came last. Abe put his hand on Nelson’s shoulder, and then Jackie’s, even though Jace hadn’t told him to, and my heart squeezed a bit. It had been so long since I’d seen him in action that I’d forgotten how very like Ant he was. They were two peas in a pod, which meant that if Ant’s heart was overwhelmingly in the right place, Abe’s was as well.

Jace was striding confidently down the path as if he were walking along the broadest street in the world, although I thought that the path downward might have been more difficult than going up had been, given the danger of falling due to too much momentum. Still, it was also a lot faster, and within ten minutes we were at the bottom, each of us jumping down to the ground with relief.

Jace turned and nodded at us once, then whirled around and started striding quickly through the trees, his compass in front of him. “I was doing some figuring last night,” he said, “and based on the way we came through the trees and how we got to the rock face, I think I know which direction we came from. If my calculations are correct, we’ll be coming to that thick bit of forest in about five minutes.”

None of us argued with him, having very little idea how he had come to those conclusions, and when we did in fact get to a part of the forest that I recognized as the area where we’d first come into contact with the wolves, I shook my head in amazement. I didn’t know how he’d done it, but he did seem to have found the right path. To this bit of woods, at least.

Suddenly the wolves materialized around us, looking at first as if they were part of the shadows themselves, but then melting further and further into the light until they were solid creatures, and I gasped in surprise. I wasn’t sure what they were doing there, whether they were seeing us off or running with us to try to ward off any outsiders. I couldn’t imagine that they were heading right toward danger—it just wasn’t their way—and that made me think that perhaps we were in safe territory, rather than an area where Authority soldiers were waiting for us.

Then we walked through the thick tree line and came right to the clearing where Jace and I had been blown into the air by whatever weapon the Authority soldiers had been using. I stopped abruptly, as did Ant, and stared at the grass in front of us. It felt dangerous here, though I hoped the Authority soldiers would have been long gone by now. Even so, I felt exposed. Vulnerable.

“We need to be more careful,” Kory said quietly. “Just because we assume the Authority has cleared out doesn’t mean they actually have.”

“You’re right,” Jace agreed. “We’re getting too close to Robin’s house to be sloppy now. From here on out, single file. I’m in the lead, Robin second, Nelson third, Jackie fourth, and Ant, Abe, Kory, you bring up the rear. Before we go, though, this is where we’re leaving our remaining supplies.”