Gates of Thread and Stone(17)

“Unless they’re losing fighters,” I finished. I looked to Avan, who seemed to have drawn the same conclusion.

“But even if the Rider does exist,” Avan said, “we’re not at war.”

“What makes you think Kahl Ninu would tell us if we were at war?” DJ asked.

“Who would we be at war with?” I countered. “The gargoyles? There’s no one but us, and the Black Rider is one person.”

“Don’t be stupid. He wouldn’t be able to kidnap all those people by himself.”

“But we would know,” I insisted. “War isn’t something you can hide.”

“Being that naive is going to get you killed,” DJ said. “Keep that up and you won’t last a day outside the walls.”

I was not naive. Everything this guy said impressed me less and less, and I wasn’t very impressed to begin with. But I was desperate, and he was our only lead.

“So we’re at war,” Avan said simply.

DJ nodded at him and continued, this time without the patronizing tone. “The Black Rider has already slipped through the cracks of the wall—her brother and all the others who’ve gone missing are proof of that. He’s amassing a force strong enough to overtake the city. For years now, Kahl Ninu’s been sending out his sentinels to find the Rider’s base, but they’ve never found it.”

“The Black Rider has taken Reev to join his army?” So that was why DJ congratulated me. He thought my brother had been conscripted. It sounded ridiculous, though. How could that ever work?

I guess conscription was better than being taken as gargoyle food. Although, if the Rider was real, then who knew what other rumors might be true.

“Reev would never cooperate,” I said.

I knew my brother, and if DJ’s information was even partly right, then what worried me most was that Reev would never give in. He’d fight the Black Rider to the end.

“How would he convince a bunch of kidnapped people to fight for him?” Avan asked. I couldn’t tell if he believed DJ or not. “With threats?”

DJ’s eyes gleamed with a manic enthusiasm. “Consent isn’t necessary. Those taken are turned into hollows: empty soldiers with no sense of self or will.”

My guts twisted, but my mind rebelled. It couldn’t be possible. The threads shimmered as if to mock me—what did I know about what was possible?

“How do you know all this?” Avan asked.

“I’m the Rider’s gatekeeper into the city.”

That got my attention. I jumped forward, fists clenched on top of the counter. “Then you saw him take my brother!”

“Into the city,” he repeated, regarding me with an unimpressed purse of his mouth. I didn’t intimidate him. “His hollows leave when and how they please, and never by the same route.”

I didn’t want to trust his information, but we didn’t have any other choice. Reev was gone—that wasn’t a lie, no matter how much I wanted it to be. And no one who disappeared had ever come back.

I would change that.

“Fine,” I said, and then repeated it louder. “Fine. So how do we find the Rider?”

DJ spread his arms wide. “That’s the question, isn’t it? First, you’ll need to get to the Void.”

Dread swelled inside me. I held my breath. The last thing I wanted was to show DJ how his words affected me.

Beyond the outer wall lay the Outlands. Beyond the Outlands was the forest. And beyond that, the Void.

“And then?” I asked.

“And then you lose yourself.”





CHAPTER 9




AVAN TOLD ME he had a plan. Seeing as how my own plan involved stealing a Gray I didn’t know how to ride and hoping we could outrun the gargoyles, I was open to it.

We headed for the river and the nearest bridge. When we passed the post marking the path down to the docks, I had to pause to run my fingers along the wood. Reev’s numerous Ks. My Rs. And then the single mark Reev had left yesterday. It had been only a day, but already so much had happened. It felt like ages since I’d last seen my brother. My chest hurt with missing him.

Avan walked ahead, his shoulders relaxed and his stride casual, as if he knew exactly what he was doing. He was so good at pretending to be okay that I often let myself believe it because it was easier.

He was a much better friend to me than I had ever been to him.

I should leave now. Slip away and disappear into the Labyrinth until he gave up. A good friend would have done that.

I didn’t. I didn’t want to do this alone. How could I be so selfish?

Like we promised, Avan and I stopped first at the bank. Once they checked my ID with the registry, I arranged for twelve hundred credits to be transferred to Dusty Jax. I hated losing so much money, but I didn’t regret it. And I didn’t bother removing Avan’s access to my funds.

We headed to Avan’s shop next. He said he had something that would get us across the Outlands.

Light from the shop cast dim blocks on the sidewalk and outlined the pole of a broken lamppost. I headed for the front door, but Avan’s hand on my arm stopped me.

“This way,” he said, and we cut around the shop through the alley.

A shed was nestled in the back beside the trash bins. Avan undid the padlock and pulled open the door. The rusted hinges screeched so loudly that I expected Avan’s dad to come rushing out the back door in search of burglars.