Glass Sword (Red Queen #2)(52)
“Mare Barrow, if I catch you dozing one more time, I’ll report you to the outpost.” He mimics our old teacher, the one we shared until he turned seven and left to apprentice with a fisherman.
I look up at him, grinning at the memory. “Then I’ll sleep in the stocks, Miss Vandark,” I reply, sending him into a bout of chuckles.
As I wake more fully, I realize I’m covered in something. Soft, worn fabric, dark in color. Kilorn’s jacket. He pulls it away before I can protest, leaving me cold without its warmth.
“Thanks,” I mutter, watching him pull it back on.
He just shrugs. “You were shivering.”
“It’s going to be a haul into the Bay.” Cal’s voice is loud over the roaring engines, still spooling down from the flight. He never takes his eyes off the runway and guides the jet to a halt. Like Nine-Five Field, this so-called ruin is surrounded by forest and totally deserted. “Ten miles through forest and outskirts,” he adds, angling his head toward Farley. “Unless you have something else up your sleeve?”
She laughs to herself, unbuckling her belts. “Learning, are you?”
With a snap, she lays the Colonel’s map across her knees. “We can cut it to six if we take the old tunnels. And avoid the outskirts altogether.”
“Another Undertrain?” The thought fills me with a combination of hope and dread. “Is that safe?”
“What’s an Undertrain?” Nix grumbles, his voice faraway. I won’t waste my time explaining the rattling metal tube we left behind in Naercey.
Farley ignores him too. “There aren’t any stationed in the Bay, not yet, but the tunnel itself runs right under the Port Road. That is, if it hasn’t been closed up?”
She glances at Cal, but he shakes his head. “Not enough time to.
Four days ago, we thought the tunnels were collapsed and abandoned.
They aren’t even mapped. Even with every strongarm at his disposal, Maven couldn’t possibly have blocked them all by now.” His voice falters, heavy with thought. I know what he’s remembering.
It was only four days ago. Four days since Cal and Ptolemus found Walsh in the train tunnels beneath Archeon. Four days since we watched her kill herself to protect the secrets of the Scarlet Guard.
To distract myself from the memory of Walsh’s glassy, dead eyes, I stretch out of my seat, bend and flex my muscles. “Let’s get moving,” I say, and it sounds more like a command than I would like.
I’ve memorized the next batch of names. Ada Wal ace. Born 6/1/290
in Harbor Bay, Beacon, Regent State, Norta. Current residence: Same as birth.
And the other, also listed in Harbor Bay— Wol iver Galt. Born 1/20/302.
He shares a birthday with Kilorn, identical down to the year. But he is not Kilorn. He is a newblood, another Red-and-Silver mutation for Kilorn to envy.
Strange then that Kilorn shows no animosity toward Nix. In fact, he seems friendlier than usual, hovering around the older man like an underfoot puppy. They talk quietly, bonding over the shared experi-ence of growing up poor, Red, and hopeless. When Nix brings up nets and knots, a dull topic Kilorn adores, I turn my focus toward getting everything else situated. Part of me wishes I could join them, to debate the value of a good double-bone loop rather than the best infiltration strategy. It would make me feel normal. Because no matter what Shade says, we are anything but.
Farley is already on the move, pulling a dark brown jacket over her shoulders. She tucks her red scarf into it, hiding the color, and starts packing up rations from our stores. They aren’t low yet, but I make a mental note to lift anything I can during our journey, if I get the chance. Guns are another matter—we only have six total, and stealing more will be no easy feat. Three rifles, three pistols. Farley already has one of each, the long-barreled rifle across her shoulder and the pistol at her hip. She slept with them attached to her, like they were limbs. So it comes as a surprise when she unlatches them both, returning the guns to the storage locker on the wall.
“You’re going in unarmed?” Cal balks, his own rifle in hand.
In response, she pulls up a pant leg, revealing a long knife tucked into her boot. “The Bay’s a big city. We’ll need the day to find Mare’s people, and maybe the whole night to get them out. I won’t risk that carrying an unregistered firearm. An officer would execute me on the spot. I’ll take my chances with villages, where there’s less enforcement, but not the Bay,” she adds, hiding the knife again. “Surprised you don’t know your own laws, Cal.”
He flushes silver, the tips of his ears turning bone white in embarrassment. Try as he might, Cal never had a head for laws and politics.
That was Maven’s domain, always Maven’s.
“And anyways,” Farley continues, her eyes slicing at us both, “I consider you and the lightning girl much better weapons than guns.”
I can almost hear Cal’s teeth grinding together, in anger and frus-tration. “I told you, we can’t—” he begins, and I don’t have to listen to his muttered words to know his arguments. We’re the most wanted people in the kingdom, we’re dangerous to everyone, we’ll jeopardize everything. And while my first instinct is to listen to Cal, my second, my constant, is not to trust him. Because sneaking is not his specialty—it’s mine. While he debates with Farley, I quietly prepare myself for the tunnels and Harbor Bay. I remember it from Julian’s books, and slide the map away from Farley. She doesn’t notice the smooth action, still busy badgering Cal. Shade joins, intervening on her behalf, and the jabbering three leave me to sit silently and plan.