C. Redwine - Deception

“I’m sorry about your family,” I say.

She leans her cheek against my shoulder as we step around a woman whose small child has stopped to chase a shower of flower petals teased from the branches by the late afternoon breeze. “And I’m sorry about your family, too. But I have Smithson, and you have Logan. We have more than most.”

The bouncing, irrepressible Sylph of my childhood is gone. In her place, forged out of fire and loss, is a woman-girl with steady eyes and clear vision. Talking to her is like coming home and finding the furniture in every room rearranged. The same pieces are there, the same sense of comfort, but nothing is exactly where you’d expect.

Ahead of us, a woman struggles up the hill alone, her gait unsteady and her steps slow. Sylph and I lean against each other the way we used to as children when we’d walk through Lower Market, plotting how to get extra sticky buns from Oliver or how to get Corbin Smythe, the cutest boy our age, to notice us.

More apple blossoms whirl through the air as we approach the woman who can barely manage the hill. I’m about to remind Sylph of the time we bribed Corbin to eat lunch with us by promising to give him an entire loaf of raisin bread, but the words shrivel in my mouth as we flank the woman, and I look in her face.

It’s Melkin’s wife, Eloise, waddling slowly up the hill, her hands cupped beneath her swollen belly as if to keep the baby safe inside of her for just a little longer. Her thin brown hair falls down her shoulders in limp strands, and her eyes are puffy with exhaustion or tears. Probably both.

“Let us help you,” Sylph says, and gently wraps her arm around Eloise’s waist.

“Thank you.” Eloise’s voice is a timid, caged thing hovering uncertainly in the air before drifting away. Everything about her seems washed-out and weary. Everything but her eyes.

Her eyes are full of misery and knowing . I look away, my cheeks burning as if she’d slapped me.

“Rachel, put your arm around her and help me,” Sylph says.

I can’t touch her with the hands that ripped her husband away from her. I can’t .

She looks at me with her tired eyes as if waiting for me to tell her something she already knows, but I can’t speak.

“It’s okay,” Eloise says in her pale, whispery voice. “I know you tried to save him.”

Who told her that lie? I shake my head and try to find the words to contradict her, but my lips stay closed, protecting my secrets even as they rise up to choke me with bloody fingers.

“Rachel?” Sylph sounds baffled. Maybe worried. I can’t look at her to see which is true. I can’t look at either of them.

Melkin’s dark eyes burning with fury, his knife pointed at the ground. The rage that blistered through me when I knew he wanted to take the device and leave me with nothing—no way to destroy the Commander and make my father’s sacrifice count. The flash of silver as I attacked him. A confusion of blows. And Melkin dropping toward me, his face a murderous mask, his sword arm hidden.

My knife. His chest. Blood covering me as I sat horrified. As I let him believe I was Eloise. As I pretended he’d saved her, when neither of us had saved anyone.

“Rachel!” Sylph’s voice cuts through the memory, and something tugs on my arm.

I look down to see Eloise’s small white hand pressing against my arm. My stomach surges, and I snatch my arm away before the bile reaches my throat.

“Are you okay?” Sylph asks, but I’m already moving—striding past citizens, crushing apple blossom petals beneath my boots, and pretending I can leave the ghost of Melkin behind as easily as I can leave his wife.

Ispend the evening monitoring the machine’s progress, helping maneuver the wagons down the slick basement steps, which are barely wide enough to accommodate them, and pressuring Jeremiah to hurry up and finish drawing a map of the northern territory.

I also spend it straining to hear any change in the constant rhythm of the battering ram. Any indication that our narrow window of opportunity is gone.

Through it all, I answer innumerable questions— How will we get the animals through the tunnel? Blindfold them and lead them. Are you really going to let girls carry weapons and help guard the camp? Absolutely. Shouldn’t we leave now? Too dangerous. What if the tunnel collapses? What if the Commander finds us? What if the Cursed One attacks?

What if?

I can’t assure them enough. I can’t explain my plans, argue my points, or reason with panic-stricken people. Not if I also want to make sure the camp is locked down, the wagons are ready, the map is completed, and the tunnel reaches the surface in the right place. My patience feels like a stripped wire ready to snap.

When I find myself tempted to pull a page out of the Commander’s rule book and tell a woman that if she doesn’t like my methods she can stay behind in the dungeon, I ask Drake to keep everyone but the tunnel crew away from me, and I hide in the tunnel’s depths, calculating distances, replacing batteries, and reconfiguring trajectories while the rest of the camp goes to sleep.

The battering ram is still pounding at the gate in regular intervals when I make my way up the basement stairs again. The majority of our people have settled down on bedrolls in the main banquet hall. Most of my inner circle are already sleeping, taking the opportunity to get some rest now in case they’re called upon to handle a crisis later. Even Rachel is sleeping, her bedroll snugged up beside Sylph’s. Their hands are clasped tightly, and I hope it’s enough to keep Rachel’s nightmares away.

Quinn has a pair of guards stationed by the compound’s front door and another pair in the watchtower that rises above the kitchen like a castle’s turret. All of them have one duty: to listen for the battering ram to fall silent.

I pace through the compound checking locks, supplies, wagons, and animals. Making sure the last of the Commander’s explosives are mounted in the right places throughout the basement. Thinking through every possible scenario and doing my best to come up with a solution for each.

The pile of weapons resting against the basement wall catches my eye. Every piece is lined up and ready for one of the survivors to grab it on the way into the tunnel tomorrow. Long swords for the men. Short swords, daggers, and knives for everyone else. Even a few walking sticks for those who need the help. Rachel is proof that a walking stick in the right hands can be a formidable weapon.

At the end of the row, a walking stick in black ebony nearly blends into the dark wall behind it.

Melkin’s staff.

The one he was given when he was on a mission to another city-state.

The one that can call the Cursed One.

I’m willing to bet Melkin was in Rowansmark when he received his gift. Did he know what he had? Or was James Rowan just hoping to get lucky and have Melkin accidentally call the beast to destroy Baalboden?

The metal is smooth and cold beneath my fingers. I should leave the staff. Shove it into a shadowy corner of the basement where it will be overlooked and then bury it when I bring down the ceiling.

But what if in burying it, I activate the sonic pulse that calls the Cursed One? My people would be in the tunnel. Even with the completed power booster attached to the tech I carry, I can’t risk it. Besides, if the staff is capable of calling the monster, maybe it’s capable of other things as well. You never know when something like that could come in handy.

Laying the staff in the back of the supply wagon, behind my extra jars of glycerin and acid and my bags of tech supplies and scrap parts, I return to the tunnel and consider the one scenario I don’t have a solution for.