It suddenly occurs to me that this must be how she’s been for the past six months—holding her emotions close in an attempt to keep Constantine from sensing them, hiding her feelings so that the Federation can’t use them against her, hiding herself from me in an attempt to protect us.

  A tide of yearning fills me—the ache of missing her, the agony of watching her go through the same torment that I did, the pain of facing off against her as enemies. I let my heart fill my mind.

  Let her know that there’s someone here who loves her fiercely.

  Let her remember that she’s not alone.

  Talin pauses for the briefest moment and turns her head to where I’m crouched in the shadows of the sculpture. The tight hold she has over her feelings wavers slightly, but she immediately clutches it close again. Then she picks up her pace and draws near to us.

  Jeran jumps down from his vantage point as Talin steps into the wide shadow under the sculpture. We stare at her as she stands mere feet from us. Her body is slender but strong, fortified with steel, the image of a killer. There is a threat in the way she stands, as if she is ready to lunge.

  And for a second, I’m afraid she might attack us right here.

  Then her eyes widen in the dark, and as they meet mine, they well with tears.

  You’re a traitor and a fool. Of course she saw the fear in your eyes. You can see the hurt of it reflected on her face.

  Everything in me wants to pull her close. Still, I can sense her hesitation. It makes me hold back too. She looks like she’s caught in a web, too terrified to touch me in case her emotions come loose.

  But Jeran doesn’t wait. He sees her expression and steps forward as if driven by some desperation in him. In an instant, Jeran wraps an arm around Talin’s neck and hugs her to him. In the quiet night, I hear the faintest whisper of a sob escape his lips.

  At Jeran’s embrace, something inside Talin seems to crumple. I feel her grip loosen on her emotions, and a spike of pain and joy rush through her. She hugs Jeran back and squeezes her eyes shut as if to hold back her tears. Her hands clutch his clothes tightly. Then her eyes open again, turned toward me. A small smile trembles on her lips.

  Should’ve been you. You should’ve stepped up in Jeran’s place and comforted her. Instead you’re standing here, awkward as hell, caught between loving her and remembering the man watching from the other end of her mind.

  Finally, I settle on a stiff nod at her before smiling back.

  Talin finally pulls away and fixes a steady stare on us. The key to their holding room, she says through our bond. At the same time, she signs the words to Jeran so he can understand it. I have the code.

  She reads the numbers to us slowly, several times, giving us both a moment to take them in. Jeran scratches them into a bit of cloth behind his sleeve.

  You will have to move fast, she tells us. They change the lock to the doors every day.

  “Will Constantine think you did it?” I whisper.

  She shakes her head. Let me deal with him, she answers. He doesn’t know you’re in the city. I have my alibi, watching him in the room beside his chambers.

  For a second, her shoulders loosen slightly, as if casting off a weight. There’s such deep sadness in her that all I want to do is leave with her—take off into the sky together, this world be damned.

  The other voice begins to sound skeptical in my head.

  She isn’t telling you everything. She’s afraid to betray you again.

  We should be afraid too. And a part of me still is. Everything in me yearns to tell her about our plans, but all I can think about is the moment in the train yard outside Newage when we realized we were stepping into a trap. All I can see is the memory of Talin’s regret in her eyes, and the way she had been forced to give us away.

  No. Too risky.

  Talin looks down and produces something else from her pocket. “I have something else for you both,” she signs, repeating the same through our link. “I know you’ve been searching for answers on the artifacts.”

  She unrolls a slip of paper covered in sketches and scribbled notes.

  I recognize Constantine’s hand immediately; it’s the same curving script I’ve seen sign declarations hung around the city. Jeran leans over as we unfurl the page and study it. Then I utter a soft gasp.

  This looks like one page of many, a partial blueprint of a cylindrical object that looks like the Early Ones’ artifact.

  That is the artifact.

  It’s a schematic drawn of the interior of the cylinder, with the same inner ring of smaller metal rods and a hollow center. But in this drawing, there is something inside the hollow center.

  A drawing of a human.

  It’s a person lying within the cylinder, hands folded across the chest.

  I can’t read the Karenese, Talin says as we read. What does it say?

  I look up at her. “Where did you get this?” I whisper.

  She shakes her head. “Constantine has hidden himself away in a private chamber,” she signs. “A room filled with these kinds of schematics. He’s in bad shape.”

  Jeran points to a block of text scribbled along the side of the cylinder. “This is a translation of some text from the Early Ones,” he murmurs. “An experimental machine of theirs.”

  I scan the entire paper before my gaze hitches on the bottom of the paper.

  “‘In this mechanism,’” I read slowly, “‘we find probable cause to believe that a human subjected properly to this energy may find aging slowed. Evidence toward this theory. Evidence contrary.’” The text cuts off abruptly at the bottom of the page, pencil drawings of arrows sliding off the page and presumably onto another sheet.

  “Aging slowed,” Jeran whispers.

  And then I understand, at last, the true source of Constantine’s obsession with these artifacts.

  I suck in my breath at the same time Talin does.

  “Immortality,” I whisper in unison with Jeran.

  Immortality, Talin confirms through our link.

  His search for the artifacts was never about harnessing the Early Ones’ energy to power all of the Karensa Federation, nor was it about learning their weaponry. It was always about one thing and one thing only: Infinite Destiny. The belief that Karensa can accomplish what the Early Ones couldn’t—and in doing so, rule forever.

  Constantine has hunted for them because he believes the power within those artifacts might be what can cure his weaknesses, grant him eternal life.

  “Does it work, then?” Jeran whispers as he scans the rest of the page.

  I shake my head. “If it did, the Early Ones would still be here.”

  But Constantine won’t give up. He believes he can figure out those artifacts, Talin adds. He has been searching for immortality for so long. The research I saw in his private chamber proves it. He genuinely believes he can harness this energy and achieve the impossible.

  I narrow my eyes as I tap on the paper. “And in the process, he’ll kill everyone here.”

  What do you mean?

  “Here.” I point to a small cluster of Karenese words scribbled in the center of the mechanism.

  Talin looks at us. What does it say?

  “Translated directly?” Jeran says. “‘Fire.’”

  I nod, but it means so much more than that. Karensa may not have a word for restitution, but we have many different words for destruction.

  “It means the center of the cylinder is deeply unstable,” I add. “The Early Ones never figured out how to stabilize it. If tampered with incorrectly, it will set off a chain reaction. We saw what it can do to people just by being out in the open air—it can burn their skin off, make them bleed from the inside out. Whatever the Early Ones created, it isn’t a machine of eternal life. It’s a toxic energy. It’s poisonous.”

  “And a weapon,” Jeran replies.

  I nod. “Fire, but no ordinary fire. Fire, as if sent from the sun. Fire that will destroy everything around it.”

  The color drains from Jeran’s face. Talin sucks in her breath in a soft gasp.

  “There are past relics from the Early Ones showing similar designs that have been used as weapons,” I explain. “Why else would the Early Ones bury them so deep underground?”

  “They’ve already brought back two to the capital. There are possibly more underground out there.”

  “We need to destroy them,” Jeran affirms.

  Talin looks at Jeran as she signs, while repeating the same phrases to me through our link. “If you do, do it quickly. There are big things happening in Cardinia soon—and too many threats. Those weapons can’t fall into the wrong hands.”

  “We all have to get out of this city,” I say.

  “What about your mother?” Jeran asks Talin.

  Through our bond, I can feel the tension in Talin’s words. I have to get to her somehow.

  Something is happening that she knows about, something big—but whatever it is, she keeps it behind the walls around her heart.

  Everything in me rages to break past those walls to get back to the Talin I know. And when I look at her, I can tell that she sees my desperation. She gives me a small, sad smile.

  I’m going to be okay, she tells me through our bond.

  Jeran clears his throat beside us. “I’ll leave you two for a moment,” he whispers. And in the span of a breath, he’s gone, vanished into the darkness as if he belongs there, off to watch for soldiers from a higher vantage point.

  We don’t have much time. I reach out for Talin’s hand and squeeze it. She feels different in person now, and even her hand seems hard and harsh, metal where there used to be muscle. She squeezes back.

  I make a show of wincing. “Ouch,” I whisper out loud.

  She lets out the hush of a laugh. You’re the worst.

  I shrug. Not used to someone as strong as I am.

  At that, she looks down at our hands and runs her fingers against mine, lacing them together before untangling them again. Her touch sends a shiver through me, and I close my eyes for a second, relishing the feeling. Through our bond, her heart is beating rapidly, and when I open my eyes again, I realize she’s smiling a little.

  What? I ask her through our link.

  There’s moonlight in your eyes, she answers.

  I lean close enough to her for our noses to touch. I must look amazing.

  You remind me of the day I first visited you in Newage’s prisons.

  At that, I pull back from her. Ah yes, back when I was a disgusting heap of old clothes.

  You were sitting under a pool of light. Your eyes had the same reflection.

  I hesitate, silent for a moment. Did I look good then?

  No.

  But you thought I did.

  Is that what you think?

  I laugh a little. That’s what I think, I answer. It’s been so long since I’ve been able to tease her, to feel even a spark of amusement, that I breathe deep, as if I can savor it in the air.

  She studies me with a bemused look, the weight in her eyes a little lighter. And what else are you thinking? she asks.

  I smile, then turn quiet. I’m thinking about the future, I finally reply.

  She doesn’t answer.

  I’m thinking about if we win, I go on. If the Federation can be stopped. I’m wondering where we’d be, what we’d be doing.

  Talin turns her gaze briefly away to peer down the thoroughfare, her eyes hitching on each monument along the way, each piece of some lost society.

  I’d be on a farm with my mother, she says at last. She’s growing something green and lush. I’m walking down a street lined with broad-leafed trees. Her eyes return to me. With you.

  My heart is so still, it feels as if it’s stopped breathing. I’d be riding in a carriage alongside you, I tell her. To that future home.

  She smiles, and through our bond, I can feel her cherishing that dream.

  Dancing with you after dinner, she adds.

  I glance up at the sky. Lying in the middle of the road at night, pointing out the moon with you.

  I’d be doing this. Talin reaches toward me, and I feel the cool smoothness of her palm touching my cheek.

  And I’d be doing this, I answer. And I lean forward to touch my lips to hers.

  I pull back anxiously, suddenly embarrassed that perhaps I’ve done it wrong.

  Talin smiles at my hesitation, her eyes softening. Then she kisses me, longer this time, her guiding us. My emotions are heat and light, searing through our bond. She feels like everything that has gone missing in my life, joy and love and laughter and companionship, all flooding back into me at once.

  This is home. This is what I’ve been searching for. What I stayed alive for.

  I have no idea how long we linger like this. All I know is that when we finally pull away from each other, I can see the faint mist of our breaths curling together in the dark.

  Well, she says through our bond. I didn’t think it’d be like that.

  I tried my best, I protest, and her whisper of a laugh comes out again.

  Don’t die, Red, she says, and her tone is so sad that it breaks my heart. Keep the others alive. You hear? Because when I go—She pauses abruptly, as if realizing she’s about to say more than she’s comfortable with. Because when I walk into that future, I want to make sure you’re in it.

  I look at her and realize that I’m willing to do anything in the world to protect her. That if everything fails, if this city burns down, if Constantine has us all imprisoned, I will still stand between her and the Premier. I will die before she does.

  We’ll all be in it, I tell her. I promise.

  How?

  Because I love you, I answer. My words echo through our link, resolute. And this Federation is not going to make me lose another loved one.

  She meets my gaze. Whatever it is that she can’t tell me, I can see the fire of it dancing in her eyes. Then let’s go make sure of it, she answers.

  27

  RED

  We only have a few hours left before dawn. Better hurry.

  The arena is still dotted with guards, but in this deepest part of the night, their numbers look sparse, and the part of me still keeping count of each city patrol we’ve come across roars back to life. The east patrols are noticeably missing.

  As we approach the arena’s gates, I can tell immediately that many of them have been drinking. Maybe all the chaos from the game and assassination attempt has been too stressful. They laugh and jostle one another, some of them arguing among themselves about who they think fought most impressively and whether or not they will appear in a future game.

  I narrow my eyes at that. The key code that Talin had risked everything to give us now burns in my mind. Future game? Not a chance.

  Jeran listens quietly as they crack jokes about how Tomm died and whether Pira needed to. I marvel at how he manages to keep his emotions in check; he doesn’t flinch, even when they complain that Aramin moved too slowly when the maze separated him from Adena. I scan the grounds as we walk around the arena, pretending to be lost in our own drinks and arguments. Some of the soldiers are quieter than others, looking uneasy as their comrades laugh uproariously. As I watch them, they stir awake my other voice.

  Maybe they’re like how you once were. Silent. Knowing there is something sickening about the game you’d witnessed. Not strong enough to stop it.

  Finally, Jeran nudges me quietly and tilts his head toward one of the arena gates. “Looks like those two patrols have merged into one,” he signs to me in the night.

  I look in the same direction as Jeran, and there, I see what he means. Some of the soldiers from one of the gates have left their post to throw bets with the others, all of them sharing food and drink in a small circle as they take a break from their watch.

  We wait patiently until it seems like they’re truly lost in their conversation. At the next peal of laughter, we move through the shadows and steal into the cool recesses of the gate’s archway, then into the inner corridor behind the archway and make our way up the pillar again, aiming for the vent.

  The halls inside the arena’s prison are quiet, a startling contrast compared with the chaos we witnessed yesterday in the stands. Now there are only the soldiers patrolling the hall, rotating in and out every hour.

  From within the air duct, I glance up and down the hall at the tiny mirrors that have been placed at regular intervals along the ceiling, each of them tilted just so in order for the guards to see the entirety of the space.

  Jeran and I exchange a short nod in the darkness.

  As the guards rotate, the hall falls into a brief silence. We waste no time. When the soldiers leave, Jeran pokes his head out briefly through the vent, then aims a slingshot at one of the mirrors. He shoots.

  There’s the faint breaking of glass. He whirls around and does the same to the mirror at the other end of the curving hall.

  As he shoots, I break open a filter beside the vent. Weak light illuminates part of the duct. I lower myself down and land with a quiet thud into the hall. Jeran leaps down behind me, so silent I have to glance over my shoulder to make sure he’s escaped.

  We don’t have much time before the guards rotate in again. Jeran goes first, stealing close to the holding room where Aramin and Adena had first been kept.

  Now we see the lock on the door. At first, it’s unrecognizable to me: a solid, rectangular grid that encircles the door handle and connects to the rest of the wall.

  A chill surges down my spine. Is this a different lock? Had they changed it? Did the Federation know we were coming tonight?

  But I see a slim line alongside the lock, where a series of small knobs can slide into a pattern. This is where we insert the code that Talin gave us.

  The first figure to approach us from inside is Adena. Her dark eyes glint like stone in the night, and despite all she’s been through, all the agony she endured in the arena, I can see the faintest hint of a smile on her lips. She doesn’t speak, of course, not with the guards farther down the hall—but she does lift her hands to sign to me.

  “What took you so long?”