He tiptoes to the door and twists the doorknob.
He freezes.
There are strange men in the kitchen. Francis feels his voice creep up, wanting to scream for Mamá and Papá. But a twisting fear in his heart tells him to stay quiet.
There’s a crash. Glass breaking.
Then fire.
Men screaming. One of them catches flame, flailing and running across the room.
He sees Aunt Celeste. Wants to call out to her, but then she turns and does something very strange: While the guards try to put out the rising flames, she takes a glowing stone the size of a crab apple from her pocket and swallows it.
The boy’s scream gathers in his chest as Aunt Celeste falls like a bundle of wheat. When she doesn’t get back up, Francis’s cry finds its way out. “No!”
The guards all turn to him. Francis wants to move, but his feet feel like lead.
“Grab the boy,” one of the men says, his golden hair obscuring his face as he stands over Celeste’s unmoving body. “Arrest the family.”
The flames catch on the wall, spreading up and out.
“No one can know I was here,” the golden-haired man whispers. “Let it burn.”
Francis makes to run out the window, but a large hand grabs the back of his neck—
There’s a white light, shouting that’s louder than the boy’s memory. Something’s wrong. A wrenching pain stabs at my temples. The connection is breaking. It’s like I’m falling straight over a cliff. I try to hold on to the thread of magics connecting me to the boy’s mind, but the thundering gallop of the Second Sweep breaks my concentration. I frantically try to rein back my power, to salvage what I can from the boy’s memory, but I’ve latched on and more memories tumble after, one chasing the other, ripples of color as they’re erased from his mind and flood into mine.
I shake from the aftershock of it and let go. I try my hardest to stay upright despite the headache that pounds at my temples. The only good thing is that the boy—Francis—is asleep. He’ll never again be able to recall Celeste dying or the soldier trying to grab him. In the years since the Whispers saved me, I’ve learned to comb through stolen memories. These are the ones that become a part of me. I can see Francis running with the kids across the green hills of Esmeraldas. His father laughing with Celeste while making supper. His mother stitching beans for a rag doll’s eyes. Francis running away from the guards to retrieve it.
I don’t have time to pick up my gloves. I heave the plank off his body, grunting as I lift, and let it slam to the ground. Tucking the doll in his pocket, I scoop Francis into my arms and glance around the room. What fate did his parents face if he ran back here on his own? Who will he have in the world? We’ll take him with us until we get to the next town. Sayida will be able to keep him calm, while Margo can search for allies to take him in. I carry him out the door and into the kitchen, where Celeste lies dead with the alman stone. And this time, I know exactly where it is.
But before I can take another step, the side door slams open. I stumble back and hold Francis closer to my chest.
“Put the boy down,” the Second Sweep guard commands, leveling his sword at my face.
Chapter 3
I’ve done two of the things the Whispers have trained me not to do—used my power on a civilian and gotten caught.
Panic and fear course through me as I consider my options. I’m fast enough to outrun the guard if I make for the front of the house, but I can’t leave Francis or the alman stone behind. Either I abandon both, or I stay and fight. Before I can lower him to the ground, the boy snaps awake from his daze. He kicks out of my grasp and screams when he sees me.
“You’re safe now,” the guard tells the boy, softening his voice. His uniform is pristine, clean, and his youthful face welcoming. “No one is going to hurt you.”
My blood boils. I know exactly how this works, how easy it is to fall for. The Second Sweep is the caress after the king’s brutal slap. The weapon to show his mercy—putting out fires, rescuing stragglers, offering food and safety. It doesn’t seem to matter that the king’s men razed the village themselves.
I keep a firm grip on Francis’s shoulders. His muscles tense, but he doesn’t try to bolt. The guard terrifies him just as much as I do, apparently.
“Let go of him,” the guard demands, but fear makes him stammer. He shifts his weight from side to side, sweat dripping down the sides of his face. “You’re surrounded. There is no way out for you, bestae.”
I scoff at the insult, but I know he’s right. What would Dez do if he were here? Shove the kid aside and fight. The dagger at my hip is no match for his sword. My real weapons are my hands, my power as a Robári. This guard would be difficult to grab hold of, and I could do permanent damage to his mind. I swore to myself eight years ago that I would never make another Hollow. Dez’s voice rings clear through my mind. He spoke those words during our last failed mission: It’s your life or theirs. Choose the option that brings you back to me.
I grab the boy by the throat and line up my dagger to his rib cage.
“You’re not going to hurt him,” the soldier says.
I lift my chin, a dare. “How do you know?”
“You don’t have the eyes of a killer.”
It’s a strange thing for a soldier of the king to tell me. Me, a Whisper. A dissident. A Robári. But it has the desired effect.
I hesitate and the soldier lunges.
He’s right. I wouldn’t kill the kid—but I would hurt him, if it means saving us both. I give Francis a hard shove as I swipe my dagger in a wide arc. The guard just dodges the tip of the blade.
“Run!” the soldier yells to Francis.
Francis, whom I saved. Francis, who now looks at me as if I were the one who set the fires in the first place. He kicks open the kitchen door and runs out into the streets. This is what the king and his justice do. They twist the truth to make us out to be villains—the force behind all the raids and the scorched towns, the reason the kingdom is suffering. I’ve played into their hands.
“In the name of the king and the justice!” the soldier shouts, and I feel the pressure of a blade in the nook between my neck and shoulder.
Stupid, Ren. I can practically hear Dez growl the words at me.
“You are under arrest!” He presses the edge of his sword a bit harder, and I move instinctively toward the door, but I know he has no plans of letting me go. The blade slices into my skin, stinging cold against a warm trickle of blood. I grind my teeth, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of hearing me cry out.
“There are more of us,” I hiss. “There will always be more of us.”
He may be behind me, but I sense the rigidity in his body, like an extension of his sword against my neck. “Not for long.”
Choose the option that brings you back to me.
My hand is close enough to my pocket that I can reach for the vial of poison. A brief moment of pain instead of capture. I think of Celeste’s body a few feet away. She had the strength to drink it rather than be a prisoner again. Maybe I’m not as hopeless as I think I am. I want to live. I do. I’m out of options, Dez, I think.
As if I’ve conjured him, Dez appears through the smoke like one of my memories coming to life. He is covered in soot and ash from head to toe. A gust of wind tousles his dark hair, and there’s a wildness to the melted gold of his eyes. When he sees the blade at my neck and the blood running down my chest, a calm deadliness overtakes him. He draws his sword.