“Let’s get through this night first,” Dez says, trying to keep his voice light. “It wouldn’t be a complete mission without a good deal of worry to keep us sharp.”
Esteban’s thick black lashes rest on high cheekbones as he takes a moment to compose himself. It’s a hard thing to do, standing up to Dez. One year younger than me, Esteban came to the Whispers from Citadela Crescenti, with its tall palmetto trees, scorching sun, and never-ending festivities. He clears his throat. “But—”
“Not now,” Dez says, voice strong but with a hint of weariness. He examines his polished sword as he stands, and for the briefest moment, Esteban flinches. Sayida keeps her head down, her dainty fingers busy with a suture kit.
“When?” Margo comes up behind Dez, hands on narrow hips. She’s four fingers shorter than him, but her anger elongates her somehow. Margo’s blue eyes are heavy with dark circles, her freckled face red from the wind and sun. She doesn’t try to cover up the burned splotches, like many other Illusionári would do. The only vanity Margo allows herself is her set of pebble-size solid-gold earrings. And even those are only worn as metal conduits to enhance her magics.
“Peace, Margo,” Sayida says softly, sensing a fight like a seabird might a distant storm.
Esteban scoffs. “There’s none of that to go around.”
“Are we going to talk about what happened in the village?” Margo demands. “Or does the little incendiary get to do whatever she wants, even if it means putting us all in danger?”
I wince at her words, but Sayida remains beside me. She places a calming hand on my uninjured shoulder. Anger simmers beneath my skin, but I won’t try to pick a fight with Margo. Not while I’m wounded, at least.
Dez’s nostrils flare. “What do you want me to say, Margo? We did everything to get to Celeste as fast as we could. We were too late, but not all is lost.”
Her blue eyes fall on me, cold and loveless. Wide pink lips curl into a scoff. “Not all is lost? We couldn’t be sure the pair of you got out alive. Then you show up, this one half-dead and you with a new toy. You’re the one always saying not to bring attention to ourselves! Why didn’t you show the Second Sweep the hidden passage through the mountain while you were at it?”
I hate the way she says this one, but I swallow the names I’d call her because I will make things worse.
“Enough,” Dez says. The echo of his deep voice lingers.
Sayida unspools a long black thread and cuts it with a flick of a pocket blade. Margo’s frustration turns her lips into an ugly scowl. Esteban twists the cap of his flask. I listen to the sound of a woman singing, Francis’s mother. My tear ducts sting, so I close my eyes and usher that stolen memory into the dark with the others.
“I know you’re tired,” Dez says, dragging his fingers through his hair. “But we recovered the alman stone and we’re not far from the mountain borders. We’ll be safe when we’re back in Ángeles.”
“And then what?” Margo says, the last word coming out strangled. “It’s been ten months since we lost our hold of Citadela Riomar.”
Dez goes completely still. We all do. But Margo keeps throwing his biggest defeat in his face.
“If we lose more ground, if we’re pushed back any more, we’ll be going right off the cliffs and into the sea. We can send as many refugees as we want across the sea and into foreign lands, but there is no such thing as safe anymore.”
“I know exactly how long it’s been since I lost Riomar,” he says with more patience than I’ve ever summoned on my own. “I think of it every day. Every day.”
“I didn’t mean—” Margo starts.
“I know what you meant. Hear this. I will do everything I can to win this war, but I can’t do it alone. I need all of you. A unit.” His golden eyes cut to Margo, who straightens up, not at attention, but like a challenge. “And if you didn’t believe there was any hope at all, you would have left us long ago, Margo.”
She tilts her chin up and points a finger at me. “I stay to make sure she doesn’t betray us again. You’re careless with your life when she’s on missions.”
I’m used to Margo, more than Esteban, getting her digs in when I make a mistake. Across all the miles we’ve traveled, my insides have been knotted against their disdain, but this feels different. When Dez pulled me from the scavenger unit and onto his, Margo was the first to claim that I was too slow, too loud on my feet, too weak to carry a sword. I trained every day and night to prove her wrong, but it hasn’t been enough. It’s like she’s waiting for me to go running back to the justice. I hate that everything I am can be summed up in few words. Scavenger. Thief. Traitor.
Will they allow me to be more? Today I stuck my hand in a dead woman’s throat to retrieve a magic stone. I don’t have the energy to fight with Margo. But Dez does, and I wish he wouldn’t.
“Come now, Margo,” Dez says, his face set as if daring the others to contradict him. “Are you angry because I went back for her or because Ren saved a boy’s life? It wasn’t you who ran into the burning village alongside me.”
“You told us to stay behind,” Esteban bursts out. “We had to retrieve the packs.”
Dez bares teeth in a humorless smile. “You see? We all played our parts. We’re alive. Ren retrieved Celeste’s alman stone.”
“And got caught,” Margo mutters.
“When we get caught, because it does happen to the best of us, we figure out a way to keep fighting. Keep the mission alive. Destroy the Arm of Justice. Restore our kingdom and the lands of our ancestors. Or have you changed your mind?”
“I haven’t,” Esteban says.
“Good. We are all alive, and we are together. That’s more than I can say for Celeste San Marina.” We all nod, and he lets a tight moment pass before he says, “Sayida, can you stitch Ren up, please?”
“I’ll do what I can,” Sayida says. The needle and thread are on a swatch of clean cloth, and she washes her hands with a square of soap in the river.
“The rest of us will make camp,” Dez says, trying to catch my eye.
I refuse to look at him. He doesn’t understand. He can’t. I don’t want him speaking on my behalf. It only makes things worse with the others.
Above us, dark clouds move quickly across the sky, leaving a cool breeze. Perhaps the goddess is still looking after us, and perhaps this is her mercy on rebels always running from a mad king—a reprieve from sweltering heat.
I sit on a patch of dry grass while the others finish building a ring of stones for a fire. Sayida cuts another swatch of relatively clean cloth with her pocketknife and uses it as a rag to blot as much of the blood around my wound as she can.
I try to stare at her face and ignore the burning sensation that spreads across my shoulders and chest. Sayida’s eyes and hair are dark as midnight, and the gentle outward slope of her nose is accentuated by a tiny diamond stud on the left nostril. Her skin is the light brown of the sand dunes in the Zahara Canyons with a smatter of black beauty marks across her chest. She always has a slightly red tint to her lips, a habit left over from her time as a singer four years ago. Now, nearly nineteen, she’s still the nightingale of the Whispers, singing as she mends our cuts and sews up our wounds. It’s almost enough that you don’t think about the pain. Almost.