Gates of Thread and Stone(34)

“Of course you’re human,” I said. Because Reev was human, too.

G-10 looked as if he wanted to smile, but he smothered it behind a spoonful of soup. After swallowing, he said, “The collars also connected us to Ninu. He sent us commands with a thought, and if we disobeyed an order, he could kill us immediately.”

“Charming guy,” Avan said.

“Disobedience was rare. Most sentinels exist only to obey Ninu,” G-10 said bitterly.

“My brother, Reev, who we came here to find, has a collar like yours. He never told me what it meant,” I said.

G-10 looked impressed. “I’ve never heard of anyone escaping Ninu before, not without the Rider’s help.”

Reev had possessed a collar for as long as I could remember, which meant he’d been a sentinel since before he’d found me. He must have been so young when Ninu found him the first time. Then, somehow, he had escaped the Kahl on his own.

“If he was already one of them, what’ll they do to him now that they’ve caught him?” The possibilities made me ill. If I’d known that Reev was in hiding, I would have been more careful. I would have used my powers less. Why hadn’t he trusted me?

“Since he’s already escaped once, Ninu will probably brand him with a new collar, one that’ll completely burn his mind.” G-10 said it so matter-of-factly, as if his words hadn’t just shattered me. “Your brother will no longer exist.”

The flimsy wooden spoon snapped in my hand. I dropped the broken pieces. Avan grasped my hand before I could hide it in my lap. He rubbed his thumb against the stinging skin—another mark to add to my collection—and I closed my eyes, letting the motion soothe me.

“But how did they find him again?” Avan asked. “Reev was pretty well hidden in the Labyrinth.”

“Ninu found most of us through blood donations,” G-10 said.

I grew still. “What?”

He gave me a shrewd look. “Ninu’s energy drives. I didn’t find out until I came here. The blood is used to create energy stones, but Ninu also has it tested for traces of magic. We have just enough magic to identify us, nothing we’d notice on our own.”

My head spun. “But Reev has never . . .”

The day I was attacked, Reev mentioned an energy drive. But he wouldn’t have— He promised not to— I covered my face, my breath coming fast and broken against my fingers. He promised. Why would he do it after promis—

And then it hit me. He’d done it for the same reason I had considered it: to pay the tax. The tax notice I couldn’t find, because Reev had gotten it first.



I finished eating on autopilot. Avan noticed the shift in my mood, but I brushed away his questions. Keeping my promise to the prostitute, I asked G-10 if he knew anyone named Tera, but he said he didn’t. It made sense. If Reev wasn’t here, then there was little chance the other kidnapped people were—unless, like G-10, they’d been rescued from Ninu’s ranks.

After lunch, G-10 offered to give us a tour of the fortress. The tour lasted hours because G-10 lost his bearings in the new wings that were constantly popping up at the edges, like what we’d seen earlier with Irra. Once G-10 found a familiar hallway again, he scratched his head, embarrassed, and took us to the dormitory floor above the mess hall.

He gave us neighboring rooms. Mine felt like a cave. The walls were rough stone, and only a few tattered rugs covered the floor. Against the wall were a narrow bed and a standing lamp. A sliver of a window had been set too high up for anyone to look through, but it brought in some natural light.

The room was half the size of my place in the Labyrinth, but it felt far emptier.

I grabbed my bag and left. Avan opened his door after the first knock.

“Can I stay with you?”

At first, he didn’t react. Then his mouth curved into a slow smile that made my heart jump to attention.

“Not like that,” I said. “I just . . . I . . .” I felt stupid admitting I didn’t want to be alone.

Still looking amused, Avan swung the door wide. His room was identical to mine, including the narrow bed against the wall.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” I said.

“You can have the bed.” He pulled some clothes out of his pack and wadded them against his stomach. “I’m going to wash up.”

I waited until he’d left before digging out my own clothes and heading for the girls’ bathhouse on the floor below. There was an aisle with private stalls on either side, closed off with sliding curtains. The bathhouse had a pleasant humidity from all the steam and was filled with the raised voices of girls trying to have a conversation above the sound of running water.

A girl wrapped in a towel with dark-red hair piled on top of her head was coming down the aisle. I moved aside, but she stopped when she saw me.

“Hey! You’re the new girl,” she said. She had pretty golden skin and a warm smile. “I’m Hina.”

“Kai,” I said. Apparently, word of new arrivals spread quickly.

“Nice to meet you, Kai.” Hina propped her arm against a stall divider, looking perfectly comfortable talking to a stranger in nothing but a towel. “You and your friend are the first people to make it out here without Irra’s help.”

“Really?” I tugged at the collar of my tunic. The humidity was beginning to make my clothes stick to my skin. “Does that mean we’re the only ones here who weren’t . . . you know, sentinels?”