Green Jack (35 page)

“Thank you,
Liang.” Caradoc stopped at the mouth of the tunnel leading to the
courtyard. “Get them out. I’ll get the Jacks.”

“I’m going with
you,” Roarke said through clenched teeth.

“What are you
going to do? Bleed on them?” Saffron snapped.

“She’s right,”
Caradoc said. “You’re wounded. And it has to be now. Cartimandua
will keep the Trials going because she can’t admit we got out.
She’ll pretend it was planned that way. She’ll send soldiers, but
she won’t be able to spare as many as she’d like. Go. I’ll meet you
at the tree on Charles Street.”

“Don’t go
south,” Saffron said. “They blocked most of those roads during the
last riot.”

“I’m going with
you then,” Jane said, separating from the group.

“Like hell you
are.”

“You need me,”
she said simply, before darting away. Caradoc followed. There was
no time to argue. No time to get out if they didn’t hurry.

Saffron wanted
to follow them on principle, to know that a Green Jill had helped
release the Directorate’s precious Green Jack prisoners, but she
also knew she wasn’t quite fast enough. She might trip over her own
feet and stab herself in the face. Magic chained her, dragged her
down, and she couldn’t fight it with her fists or her knives. She
tasted anise, like she had the first time she’d worn the leaf mask,
and more alarmingly, salt. Roarke slid his good arm around her
waist. “I’m fine,” she mumbled.

“I’m the one
losing blood and I still look better than you,” he said. “Take the
help, Foxfire.” She did, mostly because she didn’t have an option.
They held each other up, stumbling after Liang. Livia and Jane’s
friend Kiri were close behind. Liang shoved them into a small
closet just as more soldiers raced past.

“Clear,” he
said. “But grab those tunics behind you. With any luck you’ll look
like amphitheatre groundskeepers.”

Saffron pulled
the uniform over her head. It smelled like disinfectant and animal
sweat. Roarke hissed when the movement pulled his wound open. They
climbed stone steps up into a small alcove. A soldier glanced at
them from the archway leading to the courtyard. Liang nodded.
“Cerberus got loose again. Just taking them to the healers.”

The soldier
turned away, more interested in the fight beginning on the sand.
The crowd stomped their feet. The noise shivered through Saffron’s
teeth. Liang took them though a hidden door and they slipped out
onto the road. There was no one to see them or to cry the alarm.
The streets were deserted. Even the birds were silent.

They turned
down a lane littered with acorns from a nearby oak tree. Saffron
wanted to curl up into the branches. She knew it was a consequence
of the leaf mask, knew no oak tree could help her without it. And
then the oak tree surprised her.

Killian,
knowing her shortcuts as well as she did, came around the other
side. He had a black eye and a broken hand wrapped with a makeshift
bandage. Relief flooded through her so deeply she felt sick with
it.

The others
reacted somewhat differently.

Killian wrapped
himself around Saffron like a turtle’s shell, until she was tucked
against the alley wall and protected from the various knife and
spear points digging into his back. She turned her head slightly to
look at him, slurring slightly.

“Took you long
enough.”

Chapter
60

Jane

“Stay close,”
Caradoc whispered, as if Jane had any intention of being anywhere
else.

There were
gates and alarms blinking in the wall and the gleam of glass
windows. There were more servants and scientists in this section of
the hypogeum, so close to the labs. “To the left,” Jane told him.
“There are stairs leading up to the courtyard.”

She plucked the
gold leaves from her hair before they caught the light and gave her
away. She couldn’t do anything about the chiton, it was too
obvious. She’d have to hope they didn’t recognize her, that they
saw just another Oracle. She rubbed the back of her neck. Her
tattoo felt bruised.
A crow, red dus
t. Her numen was
petering out, showing her the red dust of an attack that had
already happened.

They darted up
the stairs, peering into the bright courtyard. Soldiers milled
about, more interested in the cheers coming from the open archways.
A Cerberus in a cage snarled. They slipped into the shadow of a row
of storage sheds for weapons, tools, and water barrels. Several
yards away were four Green Jacks in a painted carnival cart. It was
festooned with ribbons, but the bars were iron and the lock closed
tight. Jane grabbed Caradoc’s arm. “Duck when you hear the
crow.”

“Stay here.”
Caradoc climbed onto the roof of one of the sheds lined against the
wall. He walked the line, staying crouched low. She slipped inside
the nearest shed. His footsteps sounded on the roof above her. Her
muscles tightened like bowstrings. She wanted to do so much more
but she’d lost the connection, her numen finally sputtering
out.

A crow landed
on the cart’s roof, cawing loudly. The nearest soldier glanced
back. Caradoc was already slipping beneath it, clinging to the
underside. One of the Green Jacks slapped the bars. He had
shoulders like a bull. His companions were thin as saplings. “Oi,
can I get some water?”

It distracted
away from Caradoc but only to turn the attention on her. The
soldier sighed and turned to the water barrels. Jane didn’t have
time to move. She could only duck deeper into the spider-thick
darkness, wedging herself between two barrels inside her shed.
Light fell like an arrow, touching the hem of her chiton. She held
her breath. The soldier filled a pitcher, muttering to himself.
When he turned away, Jane sagged, finally inhaling.

Caradoc had
already lowered himself to the ground, and he wriggled out,
grinning up at the Jack. “Ready to get out of here?”

“Born ready,
mate.”

One of the
Jacks pressed against of the cart. “I have to stay. I volunteered
for this to protect my family.”

The others
leapt out, following Caradoc to the storage sheds against the wall.
Jane met them there, adrenaline making her feel both electrified
and ill. A blond soldier blocked their way. Caradoc lifted his
short sword. She only tapped a button on her cuff, showing the
faint lines scratched there. They could have been marks of wear,
weren’t. “Use the door under the eaves there. I’ve just left my
post.” She turned away, raising her voice. “Need help at the
western gate!” she called out, breaking into a run that pulled
soldiers after her.

“You have a lot
of secret supporters,” Jane said.

“Cartimandua’s
not the only one who knows how to use sleeper agents. But that
soldier will die,” he added tightly as they slipped out the gate.
“And she knew it. Anyone manning the gates will be executed once
Cartimandua realizes we escaped and took three Jacks with us.”

They’d finally
made it out of the amphitheatre but Caradoc didn’t relax. “There’s
something else going on,” he muttered as they turned into an alley.
“She has a plan.”

“More than
breeding programs and arena fights?” Jane asked.

“Much more,” he
said grimly. “Everything today was pageantry. And she uses
everything like a weapon. So what is she distracting us from?”

Jane didn’t
have an answer, especially not when they turned a corner to find
Saffron lying on the ground, too pale. Roarke and Killian were
fighting, yelling in low savage voices. Kiri watched uncertainly.
Livia wiped blood off her face. If she’d tried to stop them she
wasn’t going to try again. Roarke shoved Killian hard. He hit the
wall, his pack falling off his shoulder. “You sold us out.”

Saffron eyes
fluttered as she lost consciousness. “Um, guys?” Jane asked,
kneeling beside her.

“I saved your
life,” Killian said.

“You gave us up
to the Directorate.” Roarke shoved again. “To Cartimandua.”

Killian dodged,
this time shoving back. “I was on watch when it happened. So I
played along.”

Saffron’s eyes
were closed, coppery skin too pale. Jane remembered her vision. She
chafed Saffron’s hand but nothing happened.

“Played along
for what?” Roarke insisted. Violence boiled between them.

“Little boys,”
Jane snapped loudly, her voice like a whip. “Shut the hell up.
She’s dying.”

“For this,”
Killian answered Roarke, even as he tossed his bag to Jane. “The
leaf mask,” he explained.

The leaf mask
was as brittle as Saffron was limp, crumbling to dust at the edges.
An ivy tendril draped itself around Jane’s wrist. “Saffron,” she
urged, placing the leaf mask over her friend’s face. “Wake up. Wake
up.”

“You’re letting
the Directorate win,” Roarke added. “Time to wake up and kick some
ass.”

Killian took
Saffron’s other hand, leaning to whisper in her ear. “You can’t
leave your Oona alone.”

Saffron
twitched. Jane pressed the leaf mask harder onto Saffron’s face.
“It’s not working.”

She called up
her numen, feeling it travel up her spine and tried to force it
down her arms instead of up to her skull to show her images of
things that would break her heart. Her fingertips went numb. She
curled them into the leaf mask, willing it to get stronger, to heal
her friend. The professors at the Collegium would have told her
this wasn’t how numen worked, but they didn’t know Jane had been
conceived by a Green Jack, and they didn’t know Saffron. She held
onto that hope, channelling so much numen. Sweat dampened her
forehead. The oak tree beside them pelted them with acorns. Slowly,
so slowly, the leaf mask began to respond.

Jane tasted
green things as the edges of the leaves curled instead of crumbled.
The dusty goldenrod shook itself and the dandelions turned into
little suns. She trembled with the effort of forcing her numen into
parts of herself she hadn’t realized it could travel. She was an
overgrown road, a faded map.

The ivy moved
from her wrist, curling around and around her arm, creeping into up
her hair. It changed to mint leaves and white tea roses and glossy
blackberries. The inside of her skull was traced with green
lightning. The leaf mask was abandoning Saffron, clinging to Jane
instead. Saffron would fall apart into dark fertile earth.
“No.”

She lifted a
hand to rip it off her head. The ivy tightened, until her fingers
turned blue and cold, even as they burned from within with the
power of her numen.

But it was
still ivy. It was still a leaf from Saffron’s mask.

Jane tore roses
and peppermint off her living crown. She tucked and braided them
into the faded leaves still draped over Saffron’s brow. “I need
iron.”

Caradoc passed
her a knife from his belt and she pressed it to the ivy vine above
her elbow. The lighting in her head intensified, until she had to
blink green sparks out of her vision. Encouraged, she cut through
the vine, tangling it immediately into Saffron’s mask. She hoped to
confuse it, force it to latch back onto Saffron to save itself and
therefore Saffron as well.

“In the old
stories, green magic is broken by iron,” she explained to the
others. “Like they use in the tag tattoos.” Caradoc had told her
that. “Kiri, convince the mask to stay with Saffron.”

“How the
jacking hell am I supposed to do that?”

“It’s kind of
like a seed,” Jane said desperately. “Or at least a strawberry
plant sending off runners. Try.”

Kiri knelt
beside Jane, placing her fingertips on the mask and pressing it
against Saffron’s skin. She closed her eyes, singing a soft song
like a lullaby. She smelled like wet earth suddenly, like dark loam
and rain. Already exhausted from Cartimandua’s beating, blood
dripped from her nose.

The ivy
unfurled, touching Saffron’s braided hair, and the blood on her lip
from where she’d bitten through it. Jane scooted back out of its
reach. The perfume of mint and rose petals wafted around her. “It’s
working,” she whispered.

Kiri kept
singing, insistent but still soft.

Saffron shifted
slightly, so slightly they all froze, staring at her. She finally
cracked one eye open. “Ow.”

Jane made a
strange sound, somewhere between a sob and a laugh. Roarke stared
at her. “I’ve never seen that before. What did you do? Can you do
it again?”

She smiled
wanly. “I have no idea.” She steadied Kiri when her friend slumped.
They clung to each other. “You did it, Kiri.”

“I’m awesome,”
she mumbled, not opening her eyes.

“You really
are,” Saffron croaked. She looked at Roarke and Killian. “Um,
guys?”

“What do you
need?

“Are you in
pain?”

“Yes, in fact.
You’ve got my hands clamped tighter than Protectorate cuffs.”

They released
her so abruptly her knuckles bounced lightly on the ground. She
smirked at Roarke. “I told you Killian didn’t betray us.” She
turned to Killian. “And you’re a dumbass, by the way.”

She pushed up
on her elbows. Roarke and Killian hovered beside her, hands
extended uncertainly. She slapped them both away.

“I thought I’d
feel worse after dropping dead.”

Chapter
61

Saffron

“Just a little
dead.” Jane smiled faintly. “I told you the moon had plans for
us.”