Frozen

listless as they had been. A team of guards searched every cage and stripped down every captive but found nothing. The cages were empty. Every crumb and every seed had been eaten.

Nat was worried the pirates would punish their captives, but the arrival of a new batch of pilgrims focused their attention elsewhere.

That was the routine: Every day the slavers scoured the surrounding area in a small black inflatable. Some days they returned with captives, some days, none. Nat, Wes, and the rest of the prisoners were on deck, watching as the next batch of victims arrived. From afar, the captives—a group of smallmen—looked strangely peaceful, hopeful even, but as the boat neared the slave ship, they began to react violently. One drew a dagger from his pocket, while two others attacked the slavers, kicking and punching.

The pirates quelled the little rebellion soon enough, throwing one of the smallmen overboard to drown so the rest fell into line, the sight of their sinking comrade taking the fight out of them.

Nat learned how the slavers worked; in the morning they filled the inflatable boat with food and supplies. They sent out their better-looking men, clean-shaven and decently attired. They would circle the dark ocean until they caught sight of a pilgrim boat.

The slavers would coast alongside the pilgrims, greeting them warmly, offering aid and guidance. More often than not, the pilgrims had been lost for days and were likely starving. The slavers would tell them they were from the Blue, and were there to offer them safe passage through the strait; all the pilgrims had to do was ditch their boat and climb on board theirs. The doorway was not far, they told them.

It was only when they reached the hulking slave ship that the pilgrims realized they had been lied to, and that far from finding the refuge of the Blue, they had been turned into prisoners, and enslaved. Hence the sudden violence.

The smallmen were hustled onto the ship, their faces pale and frightened, noses broken as well as their spirit. Two of them were placed in the cage on the other side of Nat and Wes’s.

Later that night, Nat knocked on the wall. There was a tentative knock back.

They knew the Layman’s Code! Just like Brendon and Roark did.

Where did you come from? she knocked.

—We are from Upper Pangaea. There were more of us.

—Yes. We know. We picked them up. Brendon Rimmel and Roark Goderson.

There was a long pause and then:

—Brendon is our son. Is he safe?

—He is alive. As for safe, we do not know. He is on a different slave ship. We were separated upon capture.

—Thank you.

With new captives to torture for their entertainment, the slavers didn’t bother with the rest. “How do you think they’re doing—Donnie and Roark and Shakes?” she asked.

“Shakes will take care of them as best he can,” Wes said. “He won’t leave them.”

Nat nodded. That sounded about right.

“Another game?” He yawned.

“Sure.”

They played poker for a while, Nat beating him easily. “Your scar moves when you have a good hand,” she told him. “That’s your tell.”

He wiggled his eyebrows. “Tell me more.”

“Wes, I do have something to tell you,” she said. “I just . . . I haven’t been honest with you.” She had to do it. She had to tell him, even if it meant he would hate her, even if it meant they could never be friends again.

He rubbed his eyes. “Yeah, what is it?”

“The night your sister was taken . . .” She couldn’t do it, she thought she could, but she couldn’t tell him.

Wes raised his eyebrow. “The night my sister was taken . . . ?”

“When I worked for Bradley, I . . . I was part of a repatriate team . . . we would take things . . . without anyone knowing . . . secrets, weapons . . . but our specialty was people.”

He clenched his jaw and tossed his cards to the floor. “No. No. Don’t tell me that. You had nothing to do with Eliza!”

“I’m a monster . . . I . . . hurt people . . . your sister . . .”

He shook his head, tears coming to his eyes.

“Your sister is dead, Wes. Because of me. I killed her.”

“No!”

“The night you described, the fire that came from nowhere, the fact that there were no remains . . . Oh god, Wes, the things I used to do . . . the things they made me do . . . the things I can do . . .”

“NO, NAT, NO! You had nothing to do with that!” He took her hands in his fists. “Look at me. Listen to me! It wasn’t you. You had nothing to do with that!”

Nat was sobbing now, and Wes was holding her so tightly. “They would send us out—to do exactly what you described—to take children! When people wouldn’t give them up to the repo men, we would take them, to keep everyone in line. To remind people they couldn’t break the rules. If that guy hadn’t dropped Shakes like he had . . . they would have sent a team for him. I did it! I know it was me who took Eliza. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she cried. “I didn’t know. But when you talked about it—it all came back . . . everything . . . we would destroy things . . . bomb things . . . the fires . . .”

“No,” he said miserably, releasing her from his grip. “No. Listen to me. It wasn’t you, Nat. You might . . . you might have done those sorts of things in the past . . . but you didn’t kill Eliza.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I know what really happened that night.” He leaned against the wall of the cage and closed his eyes. “Because the fire was Eliza’s idea. She was behind it all along,” he said quietly. “Eliza was marked. She had blue eyes, and a spiral on her arm.”

“A weaver.”

“Is that what you call it?”

“She could create illusions, couldn’t she?”

“Yeah. She . . . made this fire . . . I still don’t remember what was real and what wasn’t. But here’s the thing about Eliza . . . she wasn’t . . . she wasn’t . . .” He sighed. “She wasn’t very nice. She was . . . scary sometimes. I don’t know where she is or what happened to her, but I need to find her, Nat. So I can save her . . . from herself.”

Nat stared at Wes.

“It wasn’t you, okay? I know. Because . . . I know my sister. And all those things you did . . . they’re in the past . . . you couldn’t help it . . . you were just a kid. They used you. They use all of us,” he said.

She didn’t know what to feel then. Relief?

It didn’t seem like enough. She just felt empty. Even if she hadn’t been the cause of Eliza’s disappearance, she still felt guilty.

“Hey, come on now, don’t look like that,” he said. “Come here.”

She leaned against him and he folded her in his arms.

“So your sister was a monster,” Nat whispered, feeling safe as she leaned against him, their bodies creating a small space of warmth in the cold room.

“I didn’t say that,” he said, his nose almost in her hair, his soft breath on her ear.

“She’s a monster . . . like me.”

“You’re not a monster.”

“There’s a voice in my head, and it’s the voice of a monster.”

“You mean like the way you understand animals?” he asked, and she could feel him smiling.

“No, it’s different.”

“Do you know what it is?”

She shook her head. “All I know is that it was the voice that told me to escape, to go to New Vegas, and go to the Blue. And it sends me dreams. Dreams of fire and devastation, dreams of flying, like it’s preparing me