C. Redwine: Deception

“Maybe she hadn’t,” I say. “Certainly she never thought about it until the city burned. Have you already forgotten Baalboden had a protocol that required girls to be dependent on male Protectors?”

He looks away. “I was just trying to help.” Reaching his hand out toward the girl, he says, “I’m sorry. You can take a free swing at me if it will make you feel better.”

“I’m fine,” the girl says as she picks up her stick and lets Ian help her to her feet. “He’s right. I know better than to drop my weapon.”

“Sometimes I forget that all Baalboden girls aren’t as experienced as Rachel and Willow. Plus, you’re beautiful, and that’s an unfair distraction,” he says, and she returns his smile.

Ridiculous. Between the girls throwing themselves at Ian’s feet and the boys panting after Willow, you’d think we were at a Claiming ceremony instead of learning how to fight.

“I’m not a Baalboden girl,” Willow says softly, and her voice carries an edge I don’t often hear from her.

Ian winks at her. “You are now.”

I watch to see if Willow’s golden skin will turn pink as well, but she seems impervious to Ian’s charms. Instead, she hefts a sword, hands it to Adam, who stands beside her, and says, “I didn’t say we were finished for the day. Back to sparring.”

Slowly, the twenty-three recruits regroup, some with practice sticks and some with swords. I keep my eye on Ian as he faces off with Quinn, but the skill he displayed earlier is nothing compared to the lethal force of Quinn’s movements. Maybe Ian only looked good because he was sparring with a girl who can barely manage to hold on to her weapon.

Or maybe he has more experience than he wants to let on.

Either way, I decide Logan needs to know that Ian might be hiding something from us, and that Adam isn’t going to stop causing trouble in camp until he accepts Logan’s leadership.

I hope Logan has a plan for how to ferret out secrets and stop rebellion with typical Logan-ish practicality, because if he doesn’t, I might suggest giving me and my Switch five minutes alone with each of them. We have to worry about the Commander lurking somewhere in the Wasteland, Rowansmark’s bounty on our head, and gangs of highwaymen who will surely see us as easy prey. We shouldn’t have to add idiots from our own camp to that list.

Striding into my tent, I toss my cloak onto my bedroll and crouch beside my tech bag. The machine I built to dig the tunnel is down.

Again.

This time, it’s a stripped gear and some broken teeth. Last time, the battery cables were pulled loose. The time before that, I found my stash of spare parts strewn across the basement floor. Either some of the younger kids are getting a thrill from messing with me, or someone is disgruntled with my leadership but lacks the courage to say so to my face.

It’s childish nonsense, but still, it takes time. Time we don’t have. I want to tunnel at least one thousand yards into the Wasteland before we surface so that the trackers who come to Baalboden won’t have any signs to follow. I can’t do that if my machine keeps breaking down.

Snatching my tech bag, I flip the latch open and look inside. I need another battery, and I only have a few left from the stash I kept at the armory with my barrels of glycerin and acid and my extra wires. I can make more, but I’m not sure I have all the supplies I’d need, and another salvage expedition through the ruins would slow me down further. The extra batteries are near the bottom of the bag. I shove my hand inside and my fingers scrape the edges of something smooth and soft.

Parchment.

Frowning, I pull out a square of parchment the size of my hand. Bold black letters across the center read, “How will you make things right?”

Swearing, I crumple up the note and toss it to the side of the shelter just as Rachel ducks beneath the flap.

“What’s that?” she asks as she unties her cloak and tosses it on top of mine.

“Just another stupid prank.” I reach into the bag and this time grab the battery. “Machine’s down again.”

“This is getting old. I thought you put someone in charge of the younger kids.”

“I did. Jan Nelson. Used to be a cook at Jocey’s Mug and Ale, remember? Tall, skinny—”

“Eyes in the back of her head.” Rachel pretends to shudder. “Yes, I remember her. She never let Sylph and me get away with anything when she caught us in the alley between Jocey’s and Oliver’s.”

I laugh. “I imagine you gave her plenty of trouble.” I step close to her and run my fingers lightly across her arm. “I’ll let her know the prankster can read and write. That should exclude the youngest in the bunch.”

“And the girls,” Rachel says. “Unless they had parents like mine, none of the girls were taught to read and write.”

“Something we’ll have to remedy once we make it to Lankenshire,” I say, and lean in for a quick kiss. “I’m going to grab my lunch ration and go fix the machine.”

I’m nearly out of the tent when she says, “Before I forget, you might want to keep an eye on both Adam and Ian. After today’s sparring practice, I learned a few things. For one, Adam isn’t willing to accept you as his leader. I don’t know why he didn’t just go east with the others, but he’s our problem now. And Ian fights like he’s been trained. I don’t know why he’d hide that and pretend that he’s a beginner. If you want, Willow and I could question him and have your answer in two seconds flat.”

There’s no softness in her eyes as she offers to torture Ian for answers, and I wonder if the loss of Oliver, Jared, and our city is slowly turning us into the kind of people we always swore we’d fight against.

I close my fist around the wire-wrapped surface of the battery as I see Ian walking toward the food wagon, surrounded as usual by several girls. “I’ll handle it. In fact, I think I’ll have a talk with him right now.”

I walk quickly through my row of shelters and catch up to Ian just as he’s accepting a portion of roasted pheasant from Thom. Frankie stands beside Thom, his eyes on the sky, clutching a lunch ration even though Quinn is clearly standing in front of him waiting for the food.

“May I have the food, please?” Quinn asks. I can tell by his tone that this isn’t the first time he’s asked.

“I don’t serve leaf lovers.” Frankie’s wide mouth curls into a sneer.

“When you’re on lunch duty, you serve every member of our group,” I say.

Frankie looks at me, his expression mutinous, and then slowly hands the food to Quinn. He jerks his fingers back before Quinn can touch him, and I roll my eyes.

“We have bigger problems on our plate than worrying about whether someone used to be a Tree Person, Frankie.” Before he can reply, I clap my hand on Ian’s shoulder and say, “I’m off to fix the machine. I’d like your help.”

Ian’s brows rise. “Are you sure I’m the best person for the job? I don’t know much about tinkering with things.”

My hand tightens on his shoulder. “You’ll do.”

He shrugs and follows me in silence.

The iron gate at the compound’s entrance stands open, and we hurry up the cobblestone drive and into the main hall. The brilliant noonday sun pours in the front windows, glowing on the white marble floor and then fading against the dark stone walls. If Ian is afraid to enter the Commander’s personal residence, as so many of the group are, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he strides down the hall like he owns the place and doesn’t bat an eyelash when I wrench open the door that leads to the tunnel.