In another life, would Priscilla and I have become friends? Probably not. She was sweet and kind, but too timid by far. As hard as I struggled to remind myself that she had not chosen her place in the world, I couldn’t help but feel guilty niggles of contempt when she twittered about the refugees at the gate, telling me they had escaped into the night, as her father told her. There was no reason to correct her. It would only turn her against me.
For the next three days, I accepted all her invitations, both to meals and quiet times together. Did she see me as a friend? Perhaps. But I think, in truth, I was more of a pet. An exotic pet in a world where children made cages for mice because anything larger was a source of food, not companionship.
On the third evening, when I was supposed to meet her in the square to watch a rare dramatic performance, I did not show up. She found me in tears behind my quarters. Hearing her, I leaped up and wiped my cheeks.
“Wh-who’s there?” I squinted into the twilight. “Oh, Priscilla. What are you doing—?” My eyes widened, mouth dropping open. “Oh! I was supposed to—” I looked up at the stars. “The performance. I missed it.” I hurried over to her, tripping as I did. “I’m so sorry.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Wrong?” Another wipe of my eyes as I cleared my throat. “Nothing. I was just”—I pointed up—“admiring the night sky.”
“You’ve been crying.”
I denied it. She pushed. I continued to deny. This went on for a few minutes before I blurted, “I heard a rumor.”
Thus far in our relationship, while Priscilla was the Second’s daughter, she’d treated me as an equal, more recently as someone she looked up to. I was a year older. I was more mature. I was certainly more worldly. And then, of course, there was the matter of my recent estimable “bravery.” When I said this, though, she pulled herself up tall and smiled, shaking her head as a mother might with her child.
“There are always rumors, Rayne. You can’t pay them any mind.”
“But this—this was about Braeden.”
“Oh.” She paused, as if uncertain how to react, then reached to grip my hands. “I know you must feel some guilt, but you shouldn’t. You really and truly shouldn’t. You did the right thing, and I’m sure he’s fine. He grew up Outside, remember?”
“It—it’s not that.”
“I know it is.” She enunciated each word carefully, as if I truly were a child. “You did the right thing.”
“I didn’t do any—” I sucked in breath. “It doesn’t matter. What I heard was about the interrogation. When they forced him to transform.” I paused. “Who witnesses that?”
She frowned. “Hmm?”
“When an alleged supernatural is forced to reveal his or her powers, who is there to witness it? Is one of the Six present?”
“Oh, no.”
“So it’s . . . just a prefect.”
“And a regulator, of course,” she said.
“But no one else?”
“No. Why?”
“I heard—” I stopped myself. “Nothing. I heard nothing. I’m sorry.”
I broke from her grip and fled into my quarters.
I avoided Priscilla for the next two days. It wasn’t easy, but I stuck with others or in places where I knew she wouldn’t follow, like the whores’ quarters. Then on the second evening, I was playing ball with a group of young people in the square. Priscilla was there, watching us. Partway through the game, I started hesitating, as if overcome by my thoughts. Finally, I made my excuses and fled. She followed.
I raced behind the dining hall to a stairway that led to the wall platform. This section was blocked off—it had been unstable for years, and we couldn’t yet retrieve enough material to fix it. I climbed over the barrier and ran up the stairs. At the top, I grabbed the wall and stood there, leaning out.
“No!” Priscilla shrieked.
Her dainty boots tapped across the platform as she ran.
I turned and waved her back frantically. “It’s not safe!”
She kept coming. “Whatever you’re thinking of, Rayne, don’t do it. Please don’t do it.”
“Don’t . . . ?” I looked down and stepped back with a wry smile. “It’s twenty feet, Priss. At most, I’d twist my ankle. I wasn’t going to jump.” I took another step from the wall to reassure her. “I was just . . .” I looked out at the setting sun. “Thinking, I guess. Of him. Of what I did.”
I stared out until she got a little closer, then wheeled and blurted, “I didn’t turn him in. Not on purpose.” I took a deep breath. “Braeden and I. He was . . .”
“Your boyfriend.”
I nodded. “One night, we were out together, and he told me that there were werewolves in his family. I—I went a little crazy. We’d been together for years and he’d never said a word, and now he tells me he could turn into a wolf? That we could be alone together, and he could suddenly transform? Kill me? Eat me? He insisted it was no big deal—it might never happen. Might? Might?”
I stopped and gulped breath.
Priscilla came over and patted my back. “That must have been terrible.”
I nodded. “It was. We fought. Really fought. I yelled at him and I think—” Another gulp of air. “I think someone heard. Someone told the regulators.”
“But not you.”
I shook my head. “No. But when they came, I didn’t . . . I didn’t stand up for him. I didn’t defend him. I knew it was right—that he needed to be taken. To be tested.”
Lies. All of it. I’d known about the werewolf blood since Braeden and I became more than friends. I had been the one who’d informed on him—as part of the plan, our plan.
“I thought—I thought he’d be fine. I told myself that he needed to know for sure. Then . . . when they said it was true—he did transform—I knew there was nothing I could do, nothing I should do. He had to leave. For the sake of everyone, he had to leave.”
“Of course. A werewolf cannot be allowed—”
“But he’s not a—” I clamped my hand over my mouth, eyes going wide. “I-I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say anything. Just . . . just leave me, Priss. I know you mean well, but I can’t involve you in this.”
“What did you hear?”
“Hear?” More feigned terror and horror. “I didn’t hear anything.”
Once again, I let her press, and I pretended to resist until I finally blurted, “They say he didn’t transform. That the prefect lied. I overheard the regulator—the one who was with Braeden—and he said that after the last two accusations, when they didn’t find anything, some of the Six were angry with the prefect. They thought he wasn’t doing his job right. So he . . . he lied.”
“But if Braeden didn’t transform, he would have said something.”
“Accuse a prefect of lying? What good would that do? Every accused denies they manifested powers. They’re beaten for the lie, then cast out.” I looked beyond the wall. “I need to get to him.”
“What?”
I turned back to her. “I need to get Braeden and bring him back. I could tell what I heard, but they wouldn’t believe me. I need proof. I need Braeden.”
“You—you—” She sputtered for a minute, unable to find words, then took my arms again. “You’d never find him out there, Rayne.”
“No, I can. I know where he’d go. We talked about that, in case something ever happened to either of us. Where we’d go. What we’d do. How we’d survive. We had a plan. It made us feel safer.”
She looked confused.
“Everyone has a plan, Priss. Everyone who isn’t the Second’s daughter. What they’d do if they were accused of having supernatural blood. If they were accused of a crime. If they were cast out. How they’d kill themselves quickly or how they’d survive. Braeden used to live out there, and he traveled with the voyagers, so he had a good plan. He told me about a spring where I could camp and wait for a tribe to come by, then join them. That’s where
