C. Redwine: Deception

“I know you said to leave the last message in the middle of the road, but it’s a clue. After seeing the wristmark on that tracker, I figured we needed all the clues we could get,” Willow says as she thrusts a piece of parchment at me.

It hasn’t survived the night very well. It’s stained with damp, and the ink is smudged in several places. I wish I could go back and reverse my decision to leave it where it lay, but wishing won’t solve the problem.

“Spread it out,” I say, and pull the small table beside Rachel’s bed over to me. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

Willow lays the parchment on the table’s surface and secures two opposing corners by placing a mug on one and a jar of salve on the other. I peer at the words scrawled across the page and try to force it all to make sense.

Traitors d erve to ie. You h ve b n dged.

“The first sentence is obviously ‘Traitors deserve to die.’ Not quite sure about the end of the second sentence, though.” Adam taps the parchment lightly.

“Traitors deserve to die. You”—I draw my finger in a line beneath the other words and go for the obvious—“have been . . . what? You have been—”

“Judged?” Adam asks.

“Sounds like the same pile of self-righteous idiocy he’s been saying all along.” Willow waves her hands in the air with more drama than I realized she possessed. “Your debt is unpaid! Traitors deserve to die! You’ve been judged!” She looks at me. “Wait until we catch him. Then I’ll show him what it’s like to be judged.”

“Judge and be judged.” Rachel’s voice shakes as she struggles to sit up.

A finger of ice slides over my skin. I’ve heard those words before. Where? When?

“What are you saying?” Adam asks her.

“The killer. When he had me during the fires. He said . . .” Her fingernails scratch lightly at the bandage on her arm. I reach across the bed and take her hand in mine.

“He isn’t going to hurt you again,” I say.

“He is if he gets the chance,” Willow says.

“Does it ever occur to you not to say whatever comes into your head?” I ask.

She shrugs. “Tell me I’m lying.”

Lying. The killer’s been lying to me all along. Maybe instead of concentrating on trying to find him by what we know of his past, we need to focus on what actions he took to make his lie seem like the truth to me.

I rub my thumb across Rachel’s knuckles and say, “The killer needed us to trust him. Accept him. The best liars use as much truth as possible. He’d have a convincing story. One that could explain away anything we might find worrisome.”

“He’d make sure his actions gained your trust as well,” Quinn says from across the room. “He’d confide in you. Fight for you. Maybe make it seem like he’d risked his life for you, because who would believe the person determined to destroy you would be willing to die for you?”

“Maybe he’d find a way to have an alibi during the murders—or something we’d believe to be an alibi—to deflect suspicion,” Adam says.

“Judge and be judged.” My blood hammers through my veins, and my breathing scrapes my lungs in harsh bursts. I remember where I’ve heard that phrase before.

“Logan?” Rachel leans forward. “Are you okay?”

“He said it was something his father used to say.” I look at her, but I’m not seeing her. I’m seeing the boy who fought better than he should’ve been able to fight and explained it away with a convincing story about his former occupation. I’m seeing the boy who argued that it was morally wrong to give the Rowansmark device to any other city-state.

I’m seeing the boy who looked me in the eye as we stood in the tunnel beneath the Commander’s compound and told me he wouldn’t rest until the man he held responsible for his father’s death was punished. I’d assumed he meant the Commander.

Now I realize he meant me .

“It’s Ian,” I say, and Rachel’s face goes white. “He told me he could fight because he’d been apprenticed to the Brute Squad, but that was a lie. He also said his father was loyal to the Commander and that it cost him his life. I think he was telling the truth about his father dying. Everything Ian’s done . . . this was personal to him. If James Rowan punished Marcus for his treachery, and Marcus didn’t survive his pain atonement, that would be enough to push his son over the edge.” I don’t say that this makes Ian my brother. I don’t have to. I can see the horrified realization on everyone’s face.

Ian, with his easy charm and his courage against Carrington. Ian, with his false loyalty and his dedication to no cause but his own desperate need for revenge.

Ian, with his knife to Donny’s throat. With his syringe full of poison in Sylph’s room. With his hands on Rachel.

“I’m going to kill him.” I let go of Rachel’s hand and stand. “I’m going to find him and kill him.” My eyes meet Willow’s dark, feral gaze. “And I’m going to make it hurt.”

She smiles. “Let’s go.”

“You can’t go without a plan,” I say, but what I mean is they can’t go without me .

“I have a plan: Kill Ian,” Logan says. In his voice I hear the furious need to avenge Donny, Sylph, Thom, and the others who died under his watch because of his brother.

Because of Ian.

The boy who saved me from the Cursed One so he could gain my trust. So he could forge an alliance with me behind Logan’s back. So he could try to use me to get his hands on the device.

Nobody uses me and gets away with it.

“I’m coming too,” I say, and push the blanket off myself with my left arm.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Logan says.

“Logan, he killed Sylph. I’m going with you.” I give him a don’t-bother-arguing look and grasp the little table beside the bed so I can stand without falling.

“You’re in no condition to go anywhere,” Quinn says, and I glare at him.

“Neither are you, but that isn’t stopping you, is it?” I ask as Quinn sits on the side of his bed, pulling on his boots with shaky fingers.

Logan mutters something under his breath, and Willow says, “You’re both insane. Get back in bed.”

Quinn meets her eyes. “No.”

Willow shakes her head and looks away.

“Neither of you should come with us. You’ve been injured, and you’re still weak. You don’t even have a weapon in case he tries to hurt you,” Logan says.

I pull a pair of pants on under the loose tunic I’m wearing. “So give me a knife, and let’s go.”

“You are so predictable,” Logan says. “How are you going to use a weapon? Your right arm is injured.”

“Nothing wrong with my left.”

“You can barely stand.”

“Which will make my facade of weakness even more convincing,” I say. “You aren’t going to stop me. If you leave me behind, I’ll follow you anyway.”

Logan closes his eyes for a moment, and then says, “You can come because I don’t see any other option. But Willow and I are the ones who will capture him.”

“And me,” Adam says.

“And me. For Thom. For all of us.” Fury and grief breathe power into Frankie’s words.

“That’s fine. I’ll be your backup plan,” I say.

“He knows you’re weak from your injuries. He’ll exploit that if he has the chance,” Logan says.

“I certainly hope he tries.”

“I refuse to bring either of you if you aren’t protected by more than your instincts.”

“Where are the weapons?” Quinn asks.

“Are you planning to carry one?”

He shakes his head. “Rachel needs one. I can find her something easily concealed. Seems to me you, Willow, and Adam need to check this floor. Ask around. See if anyone knows where Ian is before we rush through the city looking like a mob ready to burn someone at the stake. Wouldn’t hurt to have a few more people with us when we find him.”