Bluewing (7 page)

Laina released me, and I grabbed my scarf to make sure it was still in place. She peered at me, her shoulders rising and falling with her rapid breathing, her lashes coal-black against her white face. “Are you all right?”

I pushed away from the wall and looked for an exit. We were in another back room of another shop. Rows of barrels stood beneath the windows.

“You betrayed us,” I spat. “The deal’s off.”

“We didn’t! I don’t know how they found us!”

Two other figures materialized from the darkness. Yoel Tanner and the Blackcoat with his face obscured. Laina turned. “Where’s Sam?”

“They got him,” Yoel said, his eyes shifting from hers to mine.

Laina covered her mouth with one hand. She blinked, shook her head, and her expression smoothed as she turned back to me.

“We have to speak quickly. You see now how it is here, what we must endure. Will you help us?”

“We can hardly believe you now,” Gabe snarled from his place beside me. “Especially him.” He gestured at the Blackcoat with the concealed face. “He could be anyone. He could be Raine himself.”

“You’ll just have to trust us—”

Trust. Ha. I headed for the door with Gabe following me.

“Wait,” the unknown Blackcoat called.

We stopped.

“As a show of good faith...” He reached up to undo his scarf.

The other Blackcoats tensed. I held my breath. And as the fabric fell away, I leaned back hard against the wall.

Before me stood the Mayor of Iceliss.

JONN STARED AT me. “The Mayor is the new leader of the Blackcoats?”

“I saw it with my own eyes.”

He ran both hands through his hair. “What does this mean?”

I sighed. “It means people are finally getting fed up with Raine, all the way to the top of the chain of command. And...I think it means we can really do this. With the Mayor on our side, we’ll have access to everything.”

“But can we trust him?” Gabe interjected. “He’s not exactly the most reliable of people. He’s the one who betrayed the village in the first place, isn’t he?”

“I know,” I said. “And you’re right. Whatever reason he has for doing this, it’s probably solely for his own benefit. But if there’s one thing that’s true about the Mayor, it’s that he looks out for himself. We can count on that, at least.”

“So what is the plan?” Jonn asked.

“We meet them again in a week to discuss it. For now, I need everyone working on ideas,” I said. “Jonn, I’m putting you in charge of coordination of our part of the project. Everiss, you know the craftsmans’ quarter of the village better than the rest of us. You can help Jonn draw up a map. Pay special attention to any back alleyways or unused buildings that we might be able to take advantage of. Gabe, you know the most about the Aeralian perspective. How they fight, how they strategize...what makes them tick.”

Everyone nodded solemnly.

“What about me?”

I turned. Ivy stood in the doorway, her cloak wet with snow, a bundle of supplies dangling from her hand.

“You and I,” I said, “need to talk.”

She followed me out of the common room and into the hall, but I didn’t stop there. I climbed the winding staircase until we were alone in one of the upper corridors of Echlos. The air around us smelled like dust and dirt, and I could hear the wind blowing far away.

Ivy crossed her arms and pressed her lips together. She knew what was coming.

“I’ve been busy with this Blackcoats business,” I said. “But I haven’t forgotten about you.”

“It isn’t—”

“Listen to me,” I said. “You cannot fool around with the Watchers. They are not the same thing as a wounded bluewing or a baby rabbit. They are not even the same thing as a Farther fugitive. We’ve indulged you our entire lives, Ivy, but this is the end of the line. This is insanity.”

“You don’t understand.” Tears had begun to seep from her eyes. “He won’t hurt me.”

“That’s because you’re a Weaver,” I hissed. “Your blood keeps you safe from attack. They won’t harm
us
. But you could get someone else killed. They are not safe. Don’t ever let yourself be fooled into thinking they are.”

“But they feel. They think. They learn...”

“Sophisticated,” I said. “But not capable of caring about you. So stop fooling yourself.”

She shook her head. “You just don’t understand.”

“Ivy...” My patience was beginning to fray. I stepped toward her, but she brushed my hand away and moved farther down the hall.

“I’ve been studying them,” she said. “Learning more about them. We know next to nothing except what has been handed down in rumors and folklore. The more information we have, the more we can do with it. Don’t you see? Besides...they are fascinating.”

“It isn’t safe.” I had to work to keep myself from shouting. Why did I have to keep reminding her of this?

“For instance,” she continued, ignoring me, “I’ve learned that they are not so dangerous in daylight. They’re calmer. They don’t attack automatically, and they don’t roam aimlessly or hunt on their own. Like you saw yourself, they
can
move in daylight hours—but they have to be summoned. Otherwise, they shut down automatically. But if they are summoned, they move and explore and can be taught. They’re...curious.”

“Summoned?”

“Awakened, I guess.”

“So you are voluntarily awakening Watchers in the day time? Do you understand how dangerous that is? How many lives you’re putting at risk?”

“They aren’t as dangerous in the day, I promise. They can be, if they are provoked or threatened, but they are also curious about people, even friendly. In sunlight they aren’t killers without provocation. I suppose if someone pulled a gun on them they might attack, but if you are unarmed and nonthreatening—”

“Ivy,” I said. “Listen to yourself.”

“You see things so narrowly, Lia. Not everything in the world is a threat.”

“But the Watchers are!”

She turned and vanished without responding.

Exhaustion pulled at me. I was too tired to go after her. At least she would be protected from her own foolishness by her blood. And I couldn’t control her anymore. She lived apart from us and went where she wanted.

Not everything in the world is a threat.

Sometimes I had a hard time accepting that.

~

“You opened it?”

I stared at the box that lay on Jonn’s table, then at the strange devices that had been housed inside. Long, metal shafts protruded from the ends of clear tubes. Inside them, a silver liquid simmered and undulated as if alive.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Jonn said. Frustration seeped into his voice, and he leaned forward as if he could determine the answer by staring long enough.

I picked one up gingerly and poked the end of the shaft. It was sharp. I winced and withdrew my finger. “A weapon?”

His brow furrowed. “Actually, I don’t think so. I’ve seen something like this before, in a book perhaps.” He took the object from me and placed it back on the table in a row with the others. They glittered like knives. A shiver slipped down my spine.

“Should we lock them up again until we figure it out?”

He nodded, absent already, pondering the puzzle as he picked them up one by one and placed them back in the box, where they nestled together on a bed of padding. He flipped the lip shut and put the box beneath his chair. “I’ll keep it safe. I’m going to figure out what they are.”

I gazed at the box until he covered it with a cloth.

What could they be?

~

“And this,” Ivy said, tapping her finger over a large square, “is where the soldiers usually patrol at night.”

We all studied the crudely drawn map unfurled on Jonn’s table. It depicted Iceless down to the rambling back alleyways and the garbage dump behind the market. I didn’t know how Ivy had gotten her hands on such a thing, and when I asked, she said a Blackcoat had given it to them.

I wondered if it had come from the Mayor. If anyone would have a detailed map of the village, it might be him.

“So essentially,” I said, “the only way to get into the village undetected is through that weak point in the wall. How are we supposed to move a large number of people inside that way? It would be a tactical nightmare.”

“Sister,” Ivy said. “You are not thinking creatively.”

That comment earned her a glare.

“We have to be clever,” she continued. “We have to stop thinking like soldiers and start thinking like sneaks.”

“Enlighten me, then.”

She crossed her arms. “Think about it. We have a lot of strange faces, as well as some familiar ones who might need a disguise. Lots of strangers, lots of disguises... What’s something that might enter the village that meets that description but won’t arouse any suspicions?”

“A supply train?” Gabe guessed, looking from her to me.

I shook my head. I knew what Ivy was getting at now. “A traveling caravan.”

It was a good idea. Caravans occasionally roamed the Frost, moving between the isolated villages and settlements, bringing letters and news and stories from place to place. They were the bravest among us, the ones who dared to travel through the wastelands amid dangers of snow, ice, and Watchers. Iceliss hadn’t had a caravan since the Farthers came. Perhaps it was time for a little diversion. And surely even Raine would be ready for some entertainment.

I smiled slowly. “This might just work.”

JONN AND I were in charge of all the weaving for the costumes. Jullia brought us dyes—bright yellows, reds, purples. I taught the fugitives how to make the yarn, and Jonn taught them how to shape the finished product into scarves and cloaks and masks. Ivy helped whenever she was visiting to bring us supplies and news.

“I thought I was done with this cursed weaving forever,” she muttered as she worked.

Even Gabe contributed his efforts. He struggled with a bright blue scarf until I took pity on him and assigned him to the task of sorting through the scraps of fabric Jullia had brought us to find pieces large enough to be used for masks and to make patchwork cloaks and dresses.

“Are you sure this will work?” he asked, holding up a piece of red fabric embroidered with blue flowers. “Will Raine let a caravan of traveling performers into the village?” He glanced at Jonn, who was practicing a song on his flute.

“The caravans have always traveled from village to village providing entertainment and bringing letters and news from the other towns,” I said. “They are rare here, but cherished. I think even the Farther soldiers might welcome us. But we’re going to need to provide that entertainment I mentioned. You don’t happen to know how to juggle, do you?”

“No,” he said.

I gazed around the room at the fugitives, and I was struck by how few of us there were. This was our army? We were mostly children and young people.

I left Gabe to sort the scraps of fabric and joined Jonn at his table, where he was pouring over some of the medical books I’d brought him from Borde’s lab.

“Look at this,” he said, shoving the book he was reading at me. “Look.”

I looked. Depicted on the page was a black-and-white sketch of a cylindrical object with a sharp, slender line protruding from it. Understanding dawned on me.

“It’s the same device as those things we found in the locked box, the one in Borde’s closet.”

“It’s called a syringe,” Jonn said. “They were once commonly used to administer medicine.”

“Do you think it has something to do with the Sickness? A cure?”

“I thought Borde said there was no cure.”

“Well, there wasn’t at the time. I have no idea when those things originated. It could have been years after I left.”

Jonn nodded, thoughtful. A restless look crossed his face and quickly vanished. “Maybe. But we don’t have the Sickness here, do we? So...so it hardly matters. We should just get rid of them.”

It seemed incredibly ironic, almost a cruel twist. A cure too late, come to people who didn’t need it. But perhaps I could still use this, somehow.

“Well, there’s no reason to dispose of them,” I said. “They could be valuable. Perhaps someday when we are no longer living in this ruin, a merchant will want them. We could barter with them.”

He nodded and resumed reading the book, his brow furrowed. I stared at an empty spot on the table between us, my mind working. Had I really found a cure for the Sickness? Was it possible such a thing had been discovered after all? Adam had seemed to think there hadn’t been one.

But I had other things to worry about at the moment.

“We don’t have enough people,” I said to Jonn.

“What?”

“For this plan to take back Iceliss. We don’t have enough. Look at us.” I gestured at the room behind me. “We have a bunch of half-starved fugitives, some of whom are children, most of whom have never seen a day’s combat in their lives. How are we supposed to fight seasoned soldiers?”

“Isn’t that where the Blackcoats come in?”

I sighed. “Oh wonderful, so in addition we have a bunch of half-starved villagers, most of whom have never seen a day’s combat in their lives. I repeat, how are we supposed to fight seasoned soldiers?”

“I suppose the People for the Freedom of the Frost have a plan,” he said.

“I sincerely hope so. Or we need to find some other people to help us fight this war.” I sighed. “And I need to find a way to contact the Trio.”

~

Branches slapped my face as I slipped between the trees. I stopped for a moment and squinted at the path ahead, trying to remember. Trying to picture in my head what the forest had looked like 500 years ago. In my hand, I clutched a rough sketch of the Frost that I’d made with the help of my mother’s Frost quilt. I’d drawn marks where I supposed various former Compound buildings should be.

But I only saw wilderness.

I stepped around a weathered stone and into a clearing. Snow blanketed the ground. A throbbing blue patch of azure sky showed through the spot where the trees thinned. Rabbit tracks made little dots across the crust of white, the shadows in them a deep blue. The surrounding forest lurked silently, as if the trees were holding their breath.