C. Redwine - Deception

Easily.

Another slash. Another parry. Fighting him is like sparring with one of our newer guards. It takes very little effort on my part to keep him at bay.

A quick glance behind me shows that Adam, Frankie, Drake, and Nola are holding off the trackers easily as well. Which means they aren’t trying to kill us. They’re just trying to slow us down enough to let Ian get away.

“Rachel!” I yell her name and cough as acrid smoke burns my throat. The tracker lifts his sword for another attack, but I’m done playing cat and mouse. Turning on my heel, I run toward the southern corner of the square—toward where I last saw Rachel and Quinn.

I lunge forward, holding my cloak to my nose, but I can’t see more than a yard in front of me. The bell keeps clanging. Bodies brush past me in the smoky haze, but I can’t tell if they’re trackers or my own people. A hand grabs my cloak, and suddenly Willow is in my face, her dark eyes lit with fury.

“They’re gone.”

“Who’s gone?” I ask, though the terrible fear coursing through me is answer enough.

“Quinn, Rachel, and Ian.”

“The gate,” I say, and she doesn’t wait for more explanation.

The smoke is a thinning haze as we hurry out of the square. My people are all still standing, but most of the trackers are gone. Whether they left with Ian or just disappeared back into the depths of Lankenshire to keep an eye out for any perceived disloyalty toward Rowansmark, I have no idea.

We leap out of the square and onto the pale stone road that leads toward the gate and start running. It takes less than three minutes to race from the square to the gate. I spend the entire time alternately praying that Rachel is okay and thinking of terrible things to do to Ian.

We skid around the last curve of the spiraling road and find the gate locked. Coleman Pritchard, along with fifteen of his guards, stands in our way.

“Move,” Willow snaps.

He acts like he didn’t hear her.

“Did a tall boy about my age just come through the gate with a red-haired girl and a dark-haired boy?” I ask Coleman.

“No one’s come through this gate in over an hour,” he says, and there’s something heavy in his tone.

“They used the tunnels,” Willow says. “I know where those let out.” She turns back to Coleman and snarls, “Get out of our way.”

“I can’t do that,” he says.

“I’ll make it easy on you.” Willow nocks an arrow and whips it toward his face. “Move or die.”

“You can kill me, but that gate isn’t opening. We’re on lockdown. No one can open the gate except the triumvirate, now.”

“Lockdown? Why?” I grip my sword so hard it hurts. “We need out of that gate, Coleman. Ian is a killer, and he has the only people we can still call family.”

He nods as if he’s sympathetic, but there’s something dark in his eyes. Something that worries me.

“I’ll tell you why we’re on lockdown, Logan McEntire of Rowansmark.” He steps aside and gestures toward the gate. “Because you have yet another powerful enemy you neglected to tell us about, and now you’ve endangered all of Lankenshire.”

I step past him as the other guards part to let me through, and despair washes over me as I see the Commander’s army surrounding the city. It’s a sea of red uniforms mixed with the blue of Baalboden guards as far as the eye can see, and near the front, the Commander sits astride his horse, his face turned toward the gate.

“That man is really starting to get on my last nerve,” Willow says, and shifts her arrow to point through the bars of the gate at the distant Commander.

The Commander spurs his horse forward a few steps and shouts, “People of Lankenshire, this is Commander Jason Chase of Baalboden. I have no quarrel with you. Give me the Baalboden citizens you have sheltered within your walls, along with their belongings, and you will remain unharmed. You have until dawn. If you choose not to comply, we will attack you with intent to destroy.”

“You can give the Commander anything you want, but Logan McEntire and all of his belongings come with us.” The tracker with the dark skin and shaved head who first spoke to me in the square approaches the gate, flanked by two other trackers. He holds a folded sheet of parchment in his hand.

Coleman draws himself up straight and speaks with enough authority to rival Clarissa. “Logan McEntire, you are under arrest. You will go before the triumvirate by nightfall. They will decide what to do with you.” His voice leaves little doubt as to what he thinks they’ll do to someone who managed to invite enmity with their Rowansmark keepers and embroil them in a war with Carrington all in the space of one day.

“You can’t arrest him,” the tracker says, his voice full of baffled indignation. “We’re taking him. He’s wanted for crimes against Rowansmark.”

Coleman looks straight at the man. “Then you will be called as a witness when he goes before the triumvirate. You may be here to protect us from the tanniyn , but every person inside our wall is subject to our laws. Unless you wish to claim that your word is now law inside Lankenshire—which would, of course, potentially incite our thousands of people to protest and riot—you will stand aside and let me arrest this man. Your case against him will be heard by the triumvirate.”

All things being equal, I’d rather be taken into custody by the tracker, because at least his goal to force me to bring the device back to Rowansmark lines up with my goal to arrive at Rowansmark with a means to destroy Ian and rescue Rachel.

Actually, all things being equal, I’d rather not be taken into custody at all, but that isn’t an option.

The tracker sneers as if he smells something rotten, and steps toward me. Instantly, Coleman’s guards surround me, their swords gleaming beneath the sunlight. The tracker’s laugh seems to say that all the Lankenshire swords in the world couldn’t keep him from me if he truly wanted to take me.

I figure his orders are to keep me alive and unharmed until I lead him to the device, the booster pack, and any designs I’ve drawn based on their tech. Coleman’s orders are to keep me alive and unharmed until I can meet with the triumvirate and help them decide how to placate their Rowansmark keepers without inciting the army at their gate into declaring war against them.

The tracker shoves the folded parchment at me. “One last message from your brother. Better be sure to follow it to the letter. No one dies easily under pain atonement. Especially pretty little girls like your Rachel.”

I match his sneer with one of my own. Rachel is stronger than he thinks. She isn’t going to make the journey back to Rowansmark easy on Ian or the trackers helping him. She’ll slow him down, sabotage his progress, and do her best to make his life hell.

Ian won’t kill her, because she’s his only leverage against me, but he’ll wish with every fiber of his being that he could.

The tracker steps back as the guards begin dragging me toward the square. I look at Willow. “Go see Drake,” I say. “Make sure our people have enough food. If they don’t, go hunt for small game.”

The guards on either side of me look at me like I’ve suddenly lost my mind, but I can see that Willow understands I’m telling her to let Drake know what’s going on and then go retrieve the device.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Coleman says from behind me. “She’s under arrest, too.”

“Why? She had nothing to do with this. She isn’t even from Baalboden.” Desperation sharpens my voice. I need her freedom. The only person left inside Lankenshire who knows how to get out of the city and who can help me rescue Rachel and Quinn is Willow.