“Or better yet, ask me, Erik. Ask me what it was like to see it happen.” Jost’s voice drops down and trails off. None of us speak. “I watched it. I saw her slip away piece by piece. I watched as they took her away from me.”
“I’m sorry,” Erik offers. He sounds sincere, but even I know his words are far from enough.
Jost shakes his head slightly as if to clear his thoughts and looks out into the dark. “Rozenn was better than any of us. You or me. So was our mother.” He pauses. “And my daughter.”
Erik’s shock registers like a slap across the face. “Daughter?” he mouths. No actual sound comes, but the heaviness of the word presses on my chest, and judging from their expressions, they feel it, too.
“You missed out on a lot when you took off.” Jost’s words are dismissive, but he doesn’t look away from Erik.
“You could have telebounded me,” Erik insists. Now he’s the one who sounds accusatory.
“And what?” Jost asks. “You would have come to visit? You didn’t come when Dad got sick or I got married. I knew where we stood with you when you left to serve the Guild. Your family couldn’t help you move forward politically, so we were of no use to you.
“You wouldn’t have cared,” Jost continues. “You were busy cozying up to Maela, following her orders like the perfect Spinster’s errand boy. Just like you’ve been busy weaseling your way into Adelice’s heart.”
I should put a stop to these accusations before they kill each other, but part of me wants to see how Erik reacts. I know how Erik feels about Maela, the power-hungry Spinster he worked for at the Coventry. Erik and I both counted her as an enemy. Jost’s charge sends a thrill through me, because deep down I always suspected Erik’s reasons for getting close to me were about more than friendship.
“But that backfired when Ad brought you here. All that work you did to get to the top is gone. You’ll never convince them that you’re loyal again. You’re through with the Guild,” Jost says.
Erik’s face contorts into a mask of rage. “You barely know me or why I came to the Coventry, but don’t let that stop you from making unfair accusations. It’s rather entertaining, and it doesn’t look like there’s much else to do around here,” he spits back.
“There
“What do you have in mind? Rebuild the city?” Erik asks. “Or should we skip to the repopulating part?”
“Shut up,” Jost commands. “You aren’t funny.”
“Why? That’s the nice part of getting stuck on a completely forsaken piece of dirt.”
“You better hope that you find someone to help you do it then, because she’s taken. I’m sure there’s a nice dog around here somewhere. Maybe you should stick to your own species,” Jost says.
I’m between them before Erik releases his fist, and I barely cringe when I see it moving toward my face.
Jost catches Erik’s fist, and Erik freezes. But his surprise at my near-disastrous intervention is quickly replaced by a glare, leveled directly at his brother.
“We’re going to check things out,” Jost says through gritted teeth.
“Suit yourself,” Erik says. “I certainly don’t need you here, moping about the joint.”
Jost grabs my arm, a bit more roughly than usual, and drags me from the shack. I pull out of his grasp, my hand flying to rub my throbbing skin.
“That hurt,” I inform him.
He stares at me for a moment and then his eyes soften. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Erik just—”
“I know,” I say quietly, “but I’m not Erik. Don’t take it out on me.”
He nods his apology and I take his hand to let him know we can drop it. We have more important things to worry about right now.
The metro is still several miles away if I can trust my generally poor sense of direction. The ocean now lies far enough behind us that although I can make out its glassy surface, I no longer hear the beat of its waves. We stand between this world and the one we left. Between the danger that lies ahead of us in the metro and the abyss behind us that will swallow us whole. Every choice we make now will have a consequence I can’t foresee, because I don’t understand this world yet.
The quick crunch of approaching footsteps makes it seem as if someone has made a choice for us. We’ve been caught. A handlight blinds us to our approaching captor.
“Who’s there?” Jost calls. He pushes me behind him, but I step back out. He doesn’t try again.
“I should be asking you that.” The voice is rough, but feminine. The light fades away, and I blink against spots of phosphorescence left in my vision. A girl blurs into view. She wears no cosmetics but is still quite beautiful. Not in a Spinster way though. Her features are angular, sharp and chiseled, and her dark hair cascades down her back. There is nothing artificial or stylized about her. Her clothes are practical—leather pants that lace up the side, a belt slung low on her hips, and a thick silk tunic. This is a girl who doesn’t belong in Arras.
“We saw the ship go down. We came out to see what happened,” I lie, hoping against everything I’ve been led to believe about Earth that the metro ahead of us is populated.
“And you had nothing to do with bringing the ship down from the Interface?” She gestures up to the raw weave that covers the sky.
The girl’s eyes sweep over us. Jost might pass her inspection. His clothes are as utilitarian as hers, but there’s no denying that I look out of place in comparison, in my lavender suit, stockings, and pumps. Nothing about me, down to the emeralds clipped to my ears, correlates to what I’ve seen of Earth.
“Let me see your necks,” she says.
“Why?” I ask.
“Credentials.”
I hesitate for a moment but then acquiesce. I don’t know what she’s looking for, but I know she’s not going to find it. I pull my hair up, Jost does the same, and when we turn back around to face her, a rifle is leveled at us.
She utters one word: “Fail.”
Time seems to slow as her finger presses against the trigger, and I scream, “Wait!” It surprises even me, and the girl takes a step back. She’s checking for a mark, and I have one—a techprint burned into my wrist by my father, who was hoping I would escape the retrieval squad.
Shoving my sleeve up, I thrust my arm out to her and point to the pale hourglass imprinted on my skin like a scar.
The rifle slips in her hand, the barrel now pointing at the ground.
“Your left hand?” she whispers.
“Yes.”
She’s shocked, but as quickly as the rifle appeared, it disappears across her back. She pushes my sleeve down to cover the techprint.
“Go to the Icebox,” she says, “and lie low. We’ll find you. You aren’t safe here.”
“What’s the Icebox?” Jost demands.
“The Icebox is the city ahead of you,” she says. “It’s Sunrunner territory and outside Guild control.”
“Where are we?” I ask.
“The remains of the state of California,” she says. “The Icebox is the only inhabited city in this territory. You’ll be safe from the Guild there—for now. Stay put and stay hidden. Don’t go out after hours and don’t let anyone see that techprint.”
“Sure,” I mutter, and the girl’s hand seizes my arm.
“Your life depends on it,” she says.
I nod to show that I understand, even though none of this makes sense. What does my father’s techprint have to do with Earth? What’s a Sunrunner? But I know she’s right about one thing: the Guild is coming for me, and we aren’t safe here.
She strides away without giving us her name. Her warning hangs in the air. I don’t watch her, even though she’s not headed to the metro but back toward the ocean.
“Why would she care about your techprint?” Jost asks, but I ignore him as we start to jog back to where we left Erik. We need to get out of here, and if there are people in this Icebox, we can blend in and hide until I figure out how my techprint is linked to this girl.
