Threading the Needle (11 page)

When he'd stopped trembling, he began to explore the shard, looking for anything they could use in the Hollow to survive, anything like the apothecary they'd raided the night before. He moved swiftly, entering buildings, taking stock, then passing on. The first shard had little to nothing, mostly a park. In the second, it was raining, so he didn't linger. The results varied after that. In one, he found a small mercantile, the shelves already raided, but there was a hidden trapdoor with steps down into a storage basement that hadn't been disturbed. The food on the shelf was still good, time frozen here. In another, a fabric shop had survived the blast, colorful bolts lining the walls. The candlemaker next door had thousands of candles in a back room. Before the Shattering, the candles would have been oddities, since everyone used ley globes. Now, candles were more precious than erens.

He traveled through ten shards, marking out locations on a makeshift map using a scavenged piece of paper and some charcoal. He tried to indicate where the fractures cut through the streets and buildings as he went, but it was difficult, since the planes of reality were skewed in all directions and intersected at odd points.

He had nearly decided to return to the safe house when he stepped through a plane into the next shard and halted abruptly. A breeze brushed past his face, chilling after the summer warmth of the last shard. Something was wrong, though. Something he couldn't quite—

He gasped and reached a hand up to empty air. He'd stepped out of the distortion. Except that wasn't possible. He was nowhere near its edge.

Unless—

“Kara?”

His voice sounded too loud and hollow in the space. No one answered.

He stepped forward, out into the middle of the street he'd been following, turning as he did so. The windows of the surrounding buildings, only two stories high, were all empty.

His hand settled on his sword as he edged further down the street. “Dylan? Cutter?”

The street emptied onto a marketplace. Allan halted at its edge, staring up to where the facets of the distortion loomed directly overhead, to where the distortion ended three blocks distant beyond the square.

Kara and the others would never have been able to heal this much of the distortion in one night. Which meant—

“Someone else has been here. Someone else is healing the distortion.”

“W
HAT DO YOU MEAN
someone else has been healing the distortion?”

Allan ignored Dylan and Kara, who had both leaped to their feet at his announcement upon returning to the safe house. Instead, he motioned to Glenn and Adder, and they stepped into the hallway and headed up the stairs. Allan halted at the door, one hand raised toward Kara, who had moved to follow them.

“Stay here. I'll tell you all about it once I deal with this.”

The stairwell was dark, but Allan was familiar enough with it that he trotted up to where Glenn and Adder had paused inside the door leading to the roof. They didn't step outside.

“We may have a problem.”

“I'd say so,” Glenn said, “if someone else is messing around with the distortion.”

“It's not that. It's the Rats.” He told them what he'd seen from the roof—the Rats' leader, the prisoners, their deaths. “Whoever the pup is—and he's just a pup, no more than fifteen—he's managed to organize the Rats into something deadlier than they were before. They aren't cowering in the darkness and seizing opportunity when it appears safe anymore.”

“What can we do about it?”

“Make certain we don't run into any of them. I want to move farther away from their island. We're more vulnerable than the Temerites, and they managed to grab five of their guardsmen.”

“They were probably scouts.”

“I don't care. They still managed to snatch five of them, hold them
prisoner until they returned to their nest, and then slaughter them. The Temerites aren't going to sit back and let that slide. We need to move.”

“We don't have a safe house further west than this.” Realization dawned and Glenn's shoulders sagged. “You want us to scout one out.”

“As fast as you can. I want to be out of here within two days.”

“Why not leave Erenthrall altogether?”

“I'm going to try to convince Kara and the Wielders to do that, but we came here for supplies, and right now we have almost nothing. The raid on the apothecary's shard barely filled the back of our cart. What I found looking tonight will help a little, but it's mostly cloth and some food. We need seed for planting, if we're going to feed everyone in the Hollow this coming winter, and raw metals for weapons, if we're going to try defending ourselves against those brigands on the plains.”

Both Glenn and Adder considered this in silence.

Then Glenn scrubbed at his face, the sound scratchy. He hadn't shaved since they'd reached Erenthrall, nor slept much with their rotating watches. None of them had. His eyes looked bruised. “We'll start looking today, while the rest of you sleep.”

Allan patted his shoulder, then turned and headed back down the stairs, the other two following. When they reached the main room, both of them wasted no time gathering up their supplies and heading out.

The Wielders, Gaven, and Aaron watched in silence. Allan didn't think Kara had moved since he left.

“What was that all about?”

“Nothing to be concerned about right now.”

“Who's healing the distortion?”

“I don't know.”

“Are you certain it wasn't what we healed earlier tonight?” Artras asked. “We did clear a significant section, but we ended a little early after a minor scare.”

“Did you clear away a few blocks?”

All of the Wielders looked startled. Kara looked sick. “No, we didn't.”

Allan turned to Kara. “We need to get out of Erenthrall altogether. The situation here is changing. We have no idea who is healing the distortion, and it's obvious that the tension between the rival groups here is escalating.”

Kara held his gaze, but he couldn't read her expression. The other Wielders were watching her.

“It has to be other Wielders,” Artras said. “Or Primes. It's stupid to think that we're the only ones who survived.”

“But Allan's right. We don't know who these other Wielders are, or what their purpose is. Until we do, we should back off.”

“No!” Carter threw up his arms in disgust. “Are we going to return to the Hollow with practically nothing and tell them we ran because someone had already started healing the distortion? Who knows when they freed that section. It could have been months ago. For all we know, they got what they wanted and are now gone.”

Kara turned at that. “Do you really think they've left Erenthrall with only a few blocks released from the distortion? Don't forget the node. Someone placed those barriers around Tinker, cut that node off from the network. Someone is already messing around with the ley system here, and I don't think they're finished.”

“Don't forget those people trapped in the shard today. Are we going to abandon them?”

“No. We aren't going to abandon them. We can't.”

Allan stepped forward. “Why haven't you freed them already? And what do you mean someone cut off Tinker from the network? I didn't think there was a network left in Erenthrall.”

“There is a network here, it's simply chaotic at the moment. We were going to heal the distortion and then try to stabilize the network, once all of the old nodes were free. The main reason it's so chaotic now is that the ley keeps trying to reestablish its old lines and can't, because the distortion is cutting it off. So the ley gets backed up, creates the pools, the geysers, or simply gouges out new ley lines where it can. But from what we've seen so far—”

She halted, brow creasing in concern.

“What?”

“This Wielder—or group of Wielders—is trying to stabilize the ley by working around the distortion, bypassing the old nodes. They sealed off Tinker so that the ley would be forced to flow into new lines. One in particular, out toward the west.”

“Don't forget the old node in that town we passed on the way here,” Artras added, “in that abandoned town.”

Kara's eyes widened.

“What old node?”

She looked at Allan. “Remember? We passed an active ley line on our
way here, in one of the towns before we hit the city. It was attached to an old node, a stone formation near the town. At the time, I assumed the ley had reached out toward some of its old nodes naturally. But maybe it didn't. Maybe someone reactivated that node.” She spun back toward Artras. “And that old node was funneling the ley toward the west as well.”

“Not quite the same direction.”

“No, it was angled farther south than this one. But that would make sense if—”

“If they were funneling the ley toward the same location.”

Behind them all, Carter's eyes were following the conversation, although he was frowning in confusion. “What are you saying?”

“Someone is trying to create a new focal point for the ley. A new Nexus.”

The young Wielder's eyes opened in shock. “After what happened with Erenthrall? Are they insane?”

“They may simply be trying to end all of the chaos in the ley. I doubt they plan on causing another Shattering.”

“Augustus thought he had the Nexus in Erenthrall under control, and look what happened.”

No one responded, all of them no doubt thinking about those horrifying moments trapped beneath the broken Amber Tower, or wherever they'd been when the Nexus had exploded.

A rustle snatched Allan from his own grisly reverie and he found Gaven holding up a flask of water. Aaron was putting together a small plate of food behind him. He'd forgotten the Hollowers were even there.

“You should eat something, and drink. You didn't stop for anything once you returned.”

Allan's stomach growled and everyone nearby smiled. He reached for the flask and took a long swig, Aaron ready with the plate when he was done. A hard biscuit and a hunk of meat from what looked like a rabbit, along with an apple.

He took a huge bite out of the meat, then glanced toward the Wielders again. “You never said why you didn't release those people caught in the shard.”

“Because of the Wolves. Also, the edges of the shards cut right through some of the people in the wagon, so we couldn't open a face
without killing one or all of them. The only way to release them is to heal the entire section all at once, but if we do that, then we release the Wolves as well. There are three of them.”

Allan paused in his chewing, then swallowed. “We might be able to handle them, with all of us there.”

Kara caught his arm before he could take another bite. “Could you go inside and pull them out? Like you did with those of us caught after the distortion quickened?”

“I could. But you know more than anyone how long that took. We don't have that much time.”

Kara's arm dropped. “Then we'll have to face the Wolves.”

“Not right away.” Allan forged on as Kara drew breath to protest. “We should get all of our supplies first, then free those people right before we leave. There's no reason to free them now and have them hanging around the safe house the entire time. They've been trapped in the distortion for months, a few more days won't matter.”

“Is that how long we'll stay? A few more days?”

“I don't want to stay much longer.” Allan took another bite, rising so that he could wash the plate using the small barrel they'd rigged to collect rain.

Kara suddenly appeared at his side. “What were you discussing with Glenn and Aaron?”

“I should have known you wouldn't let that drop.” He kept his voice low, like Kara's, although he could hear the other Wielders arguing behind them and didn't think they'd overhear regardless. “Before scouting out some of the shards, I checked up on the River Rats. They're more organized now, and more dangerous. I saw them kill five Temerite guards after interrogating them.”

“What were they trying to find out?”

“Do you think I was close enough to hear? I have no idea.”

Kara considered in silence, turning so she could lean up against the wall.

“I didn't think the others needed to know. I've sent Glenn and Aaron out to find us another safe house, somewhere farther west, away from whatever's happening between the River Rats and the Temerites.”

“I'll tell the Wielders that we're moving.”

“I'll have Gaven and Aaron begin packing up the wagon. Then we should all get some rest. It will be a long night.”

Grant stalked forward through the bright sunlight toward the chunk of distortion that remained in the center of the street. Two of his Wolves padded along beside him. He halted in front of the shards, stared in at the Wolves trapped inside chasing after the cart. He reached forward and set his hand flat against the nearest facet, his fingers stained with the blood of those they'd hunted the night before. The group had encroached on their territory, had set traps in the streets to the northwest. His scouts had scented them two days before. They'd smelled of blood and fur and rendered fat, carried pelts of rabbit and fox from the plains.

But they'd wanted something more.

He and his pack had watched them settle into a burned-out husk of a building near West Forks and Tannery Row, but had hung back, wary of their blades and skinning knives. But when they'd begun setting the wire traps with the steel jaws—

Grant's lip curled, revealing an enlarged canine. The fur along one cheek bristled. He did not tolerate hunters, especially those that reeked of the White Cloaks.

One of his Wolves—Drayden—whined in query, picking up on his tension. He pushed back from the shard, leaving a bloody handprint, and glanced around the surrounding street and park. A stiff breeze ruffled his fur, rustled in the newly released trees of the nearby park.

“They released this entire area from the distortion?”

Drayden huffed in answer, then nosed the distortion where their brethren were trapped.

“But they left these shards intact.”

A curt bark, followed by another questioning whine.

Grant didn't respond. He didn't know why the shards had been left. The White Cloaks would have collapsed them, killing the Wolves inside. But that would have killed the family as well. Perhaps they'd hesitated because of that.

Or perhaps they weren't White Cloaks after all, even though they could open the shards. They did not carry their stench.

He glanced around one more time, still uncertain. A howl rose in the distance, and both of his Wolves' ears perked up. Grant snarled. “Rats.” They'd grown bolder in the last month, craftier.

He placed a hand on Drayden's head. “Stay and watch.”

Drayden sighed in complaint.

Grant ignored him, setting off to the east with a piercing whistle, three other Wolves joining him as he crossed the square.

Time to root some Rats out of their tunnels.