“Of course not,” I say.
Parents and children, siblings, lovers—all those bound by Pontium energy—can be connected by a Pontium bridge, but the bridge is only as strong as the practitioner’s magic. I might not know a lot about Enchanted magic, but I know more than most Outsiders do, and I’ve never seen anyone with Pontium as strong as Renya’s.
The slashes of red seem to pulse against the bright white walls, and I can’t wait for the bridge to take me out of here.
Renya stands in the center of the room with her eyes closed and her hands upraised. I’ll never get used to the sound. If the power that moves the highest clouds across the sky had a sound, this metallic hum would be it.
It’s not long before the light changes. The white walls, the red stains, the bare bulb hanging by a wire overhead all dim as the room is washed white, bleached by a blinding light. By the time the sound fades to a reedy tone, a window of sorts opens in front of me.
And there he is.
My older brother, Jayden, crouches on his knees in front of an open cupboard, packing a knapsack with food, which honestly makes me quite angry, because I know our father can’t possibly have enough to spare. He’s been sick—so sick he’s in danger of losing his indenture at the foundry—but he would give any of his children his last piece of bread if they asked for it. I can’t see anyone but Jayden, but I hear my seven-year-old brother, Marlon, singing a song.
Well, one line of a song, over and over. Marlon repeats a lot. The staff at the Outsider clinic call it a vocal tic. It gets worse when he’s stressed, or sometimes when he’s happy. Right now I’d guess he’s excited his big brother is home in the middle of the night. He’s too little to know what happens to an indentured Outsider who is caught running away.
Jayden’s black hair is plastered to his forehead with rain, but he whips it out of his face and looks up when he notices the change in the light. His eyes meet mine, and though he tries to hide his true reaction, he can’t fool me. I see his shoulders flinch and the rapid blinks before his eyes narrow.
“Renya,” he says. “I was expecting you. Who’s there with you, besides my sister?”
“It’s just me,” I say. “For now. But they’ll find us soon enough, and when they do, they’ll find you, too. There’s no hiding from Pontium, Jayden. You know that. And if Renya can reach you through me, then Sir Arnaud, the prince, the king . . . all of them will be able to reach you through me, too.”
“Thanks for the warning,” he says, “but even Pontium has a limit, and I plan to stay out of its range.”
I suppose I should feel encouraged by the thought of Jayden running so far away that Pontium can’t reach him, but I just feel hollow, imagining my brother that far from me. Hollow, imagining the space in my heart that Jayden currently occupies, empty. I feel like I can see that space, like a bare bulb hangs inside it like the bare bulb above my head right now, and if I would let myself look at it, it would terrify me, just like the empty space my mother used to occupy terrifies me.
“Tell him to come back,” says Renya, her voice thin and wispy, as though she’s far behind me, like the Pontium bridge is a long tunnel of energy and she hasn’t come all the way through.
“Please come back,” I say.
“Astrid, you know that’s silly. You know there’s no turning around for me now.”
He’s crouching beside the table where I sat with him at dinner tonight. There used to be five of us at that table when our mother was still alive. Starting tomorrow, there will never be more than three.
Jayden must hear something outside. His eyes widen as his body goes still. He reminds me of a feral cat, and at this moment, I know he won’t come back. Worse, I know he shouldn’t.
Maybe Renya thinks there’s hope in begging him to return, but really, what kind of hope is there? His previous life is over. I realize that now. If they catch him, he’s dead. Quickly, if he’s lucky. Slowly, if he’s not. The princess may believe she could convince them to be lenient, but she’s almost certainly wrong. That’s not a precedent they can afford to set.
I watch him as he closes up his knapsack, still crouching on the kitchen floor. The dim red pulse of his embed peeks out above the neckline of his tunic, like a heartbeat. I can hear our father, just outside the circle of the bridge, telling little Marlon to go hug his brother goodbye. After all this time I’d expect the bridge to shrink, but somehow Renya expands it, so that the circle engulfs my father in his chair with my younger brother on his lap.
“Astrid!” Marlon, so innocently ignorant, laughs with glee, and the sound cracks my heart like it’s made of glass. He reaches for me, but pouts when he can’t quite feel my hand.
Here in the palace I hear voices at my back, just beyond the closed door. It swings open and bangs against the wall, and Sir Arnaud is suddenly breathing on my hair, peering over my shoulder at Jayden as he climbs to his feet. Prince Lars is right on his heels. He tumbles through the door and groans when his eyes land on Jayden.
“Perfect,” Arnaud says. “You’ve already formed the bridge.” He looks into my face, and somehow he smiles at what he sees there. “Don’t look so surprised,” he says. “You should’ve known I’d find you, Astrid. My skills with Cientia may be nowhere near as strong as the princess’s skills with Pontium, but I was able to track your fear from three floors above.”
I refuse to cry, especially not here in front of Arnaud, who I’m quite certain held the whip as this insane amount of my brother’s blood was flung across these walls. Or in front of Prince Lars, either. One word slips through the prince’s lips—my brother’s name, as if it were a prayer. The rest of us stand as still and silent as the whipping post.
But Marlon, still grasping at the Pontium shadow of my hand, has something to say. “Look, Jayden!” He needs a haircut. His straight black hair, so much like Jayden’s, hangs in his eyes. With one movement, he swipes it away and points to Lars. “Your friend.”
“No,” says Jayden. “He’s not my friend. Not anymore.”
Marlon says something else. “Weeooo, weeooo, weeooo.” He’s mimicking a siren he hears. The Enchanted Authority must already be searching the streets of the camp.
Right beside my ear, Arnaud is switching on his comm. He tips the camera end toward Jayden, broadcasting an image of his face. “This is a general call to all units of the Authority,” he says. “The runaway has been located by Pontium bridge. He is inside a residence in Camp Hope. . . .” Arnaud turns the comm toward me and swipes it once in front of the embed that flashes red at the base of my throat. My family’s address appears on his screen and he reads it out loud. “Three Front Street. Unit twenty-seven.” He has the nerve to look me in the eye again. For a moment, there is a tiny fragment of compassion in his gaze, but his mouth is set in a hard, merciless line. “As always, deadly force is authorized if the runaway cannot be apprehended alive.”
Shouts can be heard from beyond the boundaries of the Pontium bridge. Guards are already hammering on my father’s front door. Renya’s bridge shifts and focuses, and my eyes lock on my father—so frail I had to help him to the dinner table tonight—as he struggles to get to his feet. Marlon tugs at his hands, playfully trying to help him from the chair. Something splinters loudly, and men’s voices fill the room. Marlon begins to wail.