The Gender War (The Gender Game #4)(40)

The shed door opened all the way to reveal Ms. Dale and Henrik—Henrik’s expression openly amused, Ms. Dale barely managing not to smirk.

“How’s it going?” she asked casually, and I shrugged, trying to remember what I’d come out here for. I felt great—for the moment—but the supply hunt wasn’t going well, that was for sure.

“Well enough,” I responded. “We were just about to start looking for some of my old camping gear. It might be useful if we have to hide out.”

Ms. Dale nodded and held out a piece of paper to me—the pardon. I grabbed it, reluctantly coming back to the real world as I scanned Maxen’s tight writing. It was everything I had asked for, signed and dated, with Henrik acting as a witness. I folded it up and tucked it into my pocket, surveying the group of people who had gathered outside. I decided it was the right time to ask a strategy question.

We’d made everybody else check each other for trackers similar to mine during the drive back to the house last night. There was no way that I was letting Desmond, Elena, or anyone have their damned technology anywhere near my property. But there had been no traces of them on anyone but me. The wound on my back twinged at the memory.

“Can either of you,” I asked Henrik and Ms. Dale, “tell me how Desmond managed to place a tracker on me while I was in the castle? And why it was only on me? Why not on Violet? Or… you?” I nodded at Ms. Dale.

I remembered how our drive away from the Matrian palace had felt too easy. Of course, the subsequent near-death-by-drowning had driven that notion from my head, but it had surfaced again the moment Amber’s group had commenced their attack on the king. Had Desmond just been toying with us? Had the heloship sent to hinder our escape just been filled with expendable tools, just used to help us feel like we had real foes to fight, so that her agents could tail us to Maxen’s location? But in that case, why try to drown us in the river?

Henrik and Ms. Dale, each a former agent of the groups to which we were now opposed, considered the question.

“I can’t tell you how she got it there, but I do know that the tracker on you was our backup option for finding the king,” Henrik said musingly. “We were waiting on intel from a palace insider for the king’s location until he deviated from his schedule to meet you at the hideout in the tunnel. Then we got new instructions and were able to lock onto the signal from your tracker. We had to wait until you’d reached the tunnel to move in, however, because we had to leave our tech behind when we went in…”

I digested this information. “So she’d already had a plan to get to the king…” That was, in a way, almost a relief.

“Palace insider?” Violet asked.

“We weren’t given the name,” Henrik said, “so this is mostly speculation. But I would bet on it being Chancellor Dobin.”

“That guy again,” Violet said, her face serious. We all remembered Dobin’s visit to The Green, especially since Violet had just educated Maxen about it earlier. That piece of the puzzle fit almost too well. “I wonder why he’s doing it,” I murmured. But no one seemed to have an answer to that.

Ms. Dale spoke up, however. “I may have the answer to why the tracker was on you, Viggo,” she said. “At one time when I was working at the palace, it was standard practice to place tracker beads on all males who were caught for committing crimes, even for being suspected of committing crimes, in Matrus. I believe the practice was discontinued for those who were only suspects—but I’m pretty certain it would have been reinstated after the murders of Queen Rina and Alastair Jenks.”

Even though the government had placed the blame for that on a woman. And Matrians thought Patrian society was backwards… Well, okay, I’d long since recognized that both societies were backwards as hell. But it was still uncomfortable to think I had been subjected to extra scrutiny simply for being a man.

Beside me, Violet nodded, parsing the new information. “Desmond would have known the wardens put a tracker on Viggo when he was arrested. So maybe she just took advantage. That sounds like her.”

I considered these things. I felt better for the conversation—it meant that Desmond and Elena weren’t all-powerful strategists, as I’d almost begun to fear—merely brilliant women with many resources at their command. We could work with that. We could fight against that.

I stood there for a moment, and then sighed. “Thanks for your input, everyone,” I said. “At least we know that we’ve finally thwarted those plans. Now let’s gather everyone up for a meeting—we need to discuss our next move.”

Within minutes, the ten of us were gathered in my small living room, every available seat-like space taken up and then some.

“All right,” I said, clapping my hands together and cutting through the side conversations that were being whispered all around us. “We need to discuss our next steps. This place is not going to be secure for much longer. You can bet that Desmond and Elena haven’t forgotten about us, and they still need the king dead for her plan to be the most effective. So… we need a place to go, and we’re going to need to start collecting supplies—more than just food, but also weapons and vehicles. Thoughts?”

King Maxen furrowed his brow, smoothing his goatee with a hand. “I’m not sure what to suggest, to be honest. Several of the bombing locations they talked about on the ticker report were clearly targeting my military leaders and advisors, so it’s clear that we can’t rely on them.”