It is simply what I said to him in the privacy of that small room in the middle of the night. Because the expression in his eyes right now is the same expression I’d seen on him that night—a wild, nearly terrified rage.

  Maybe you’re just scared to die.

  I look back at him and let all my pain and rage flow. How can you do this, I say to him, and still say you loved your own mother?

  He looks at me. This is his father in him. Because I know what it feels like to lose her, he replies. And I know what that does to you.

  Then he releases me and waves at his soldier to help the prisoner to her feet.

  In a daze, I look on as the soldier offers a hand to the prisoner, and when she flinches away from him as she cradles her damaged arm and hand, he grabs her good elbow and forces her back to her feet. Is Caitoman dragging my mother to her feet right now? Or is he continuing with his torture of her, doing more than what he promised his brother he would do? He is capable of anything.

  The woman remains hunched, swaying from pain, as the soldiers begin to usher her away, back to whatever wretched prison they’ve taken her from. And all I can imagine is my own mother doing the same, bent with agony and blood, being led back to wherever they are keeping her.

  Mayor Elland watches them go, her own face bleak, whatever thoughts churning through her mind held tightly back as she forces herself to stay calm. All she can do is cast a disappointed look toward Constantine. He makes a point to ignore her gaze, but I can see that it bothers him. The words about his mother have stayed with him.

  And as I crouch there, consumed with my own fear and fury, I notice something about the soldier that Constantine had brought here. The one wearing Caitoman’s ring.

  The ring features the sun and its flares carved in gold around a band. It flashes once in the light and my eyes go to it. In that moment, I remember Raina’s ring, a similar sun ring that she’d worn when we first arrived back in the capital.

  No, it wasn’t a similar ring. It was the same ring.

  The exact same ring that Caitoman had now given this soldier.

  We are guided by light and fated by the sun.

  It suddenly occurs to me that General Caitoman was the one who had ordered the switching of Constantine’s guards after the assassination attempt.

  That he had publicly called out Constantine’s weakened state during the banquet on the Sun Dial, so all would see the Premier fallen on the steps. I’d thought it real concern at the time, brother for brother.

  Allies in powerful places.

  My stomach turns with a sickening lurch. No, it couldn’t be. Caitoman and Constantine have an unspoken language between them. They care about each other. Constantine had allowed Red to escape in order to save his brother. And Caitoman …

  But Caitoman doesn’t care about others. Even Constantine had confirmed that. And that means Caitoman doesn’t care for Constantine, either, even if his brother might pity him to some extent. Caitoman is a monster. I have seen it enough with my own eyes.

  That means Caitoman is part of the rebellion.

  I am working on the same side as him.

  The Chief Architect and Mayor Elland are planning to dethrone Constantine. But they’re not going to overthrow the Federation.

  Instead, they’re going to help Caitoman take the throne.

  30

  RED

  When the Federation first arrested me, they took my father and sister. I still remember seeing the carriage pull up in front of our home, and my father stepping before me to greet the guard dressed in white. My father had walked around me so smoothly. He’d bent down to my ear as he passed and said to me the last words I ever heard from him.

  “If you fight them,” he’d whispered, “make sure they don’t see it coming.”

  Even now, I think back and marvel at the straightness of his shoulders and the lift of his chin. He knew why they were there, and that he had no way of protecting me and my sister. He could only tell me to find a moment—any moment—to escape.

  His final words echo in my thoughts as we hide in the outer limits of Cardinia at dusk. Here, the city dwindles, the storefronts and apartments and parks making way for large factories and turbines. Massive waterwheels churn against the side of the inner walls, powered by a series of irrigation canals running over the top of the walls that pour water endlessly over the wheels. Billows of steam and smoke rise from the factories.

  Here, there are no spectators, no crowds on the streets. Instead, I see workers dressed in gray and black, faces smeared with sweat and dirt as they walk in steady lines between buildings inside the factory grounds.

  My father had always told me and Laeni to stay away from the edges of Cardinia. This is the prison district, and it runs in a large ring around the city. Criminals deemed unworthy of use in the lab complex come here instead. They are charged rent for their prison cells and must work to pay it off. The numbers never quite add up, though, so you always end up earning less than the rent of your cell costs. Some families manage to scrounge up enough money to pay the debt and help a prisoner finish their sentence. Most never do.

  Even without the lengthening evening, we are swathed in shadows from the moment we draw close to the prison district. Towers loom high over us, spewing their steam, and enormous gears churn, generating the electricity that keeps the light bulbs burning bright throughout the city. Most of the workers have cloth draped across their heads to protect themselves from the constant rain of soot that stains the streets.

  I guess it’s a good thing. At least I have an excuse to hide my face.

  A short wall runs around the edge of the prison complex, and as we draw near to it, I see more soldiers there than I’ve ever seen outside of a warfront. They stand nearly shoulder to shoulder along the wall, their eyes turned out to the city streets. The only breaks come in the shape of a dozen open gates spaced out in regular intervals along the wall, through which lines of prisoners now shuffle back into the complex under heavy guard. They must be returning from work shifts outside the city, cleaning the streets or working in greenhouses outside the prison complex.

  Jeran keeps a dark gray cloth looped around his own head, the fabric hiding his face from view, while I do the same. In this evening light, we blend into the shadows at the corner of a street as we watch the lines of prisoners move.

  Above us, moving along the balcony ledges of the surrounding buildings, are Aramin and Adena.

  I can’t help shaking my head in admiration. Even after being captured and subjected to the terror of the arena, they can still glide silently through the shadows of the city, their movements so subtle that sometimes even we lose track of where they are above us. Only now and then do I see a faint glint of light flash at us from the ledges. Adena, already back to crafting her makeshift gadgets, has polished Aramin’s newly acquired dagger enough to make it shine like a mirror. She uses it to communicate with us in the darkness, alerting us to where they are without giving away their position to anyone else.

  Jeran tilts his face in their direction at Adena’s latest signal, then signs to them briefly. He glances at me. “They can see the top of the prison wall from where they are,” he whispers to me. “Adena says there are too many guards stationed at too regular of intervals.”

  As we draw near, I catch myself unconsciously touching the collar of my shirt, underneath which my chest brand lies. Every prisoner has a brand. It tells the guards where they belong inside the complex, and it gains entrance into the complex. From there, they match the prisoner with a complex’s manager, who keeps track of who belongs in which prison block. My brand had assigned me to the turbine factories, where I worked ten-hour shifts pushing the pedals that powered the electric generators.

  “Not if we find a way to bring those guards over to us,” I whisper back. “Give them some room to get in.”

  Jeran thinks about this for a moment. “Do they keep a written tally of who works inside and outside the complex?” he asks.

  I nod. “The workers allowed outside of the complex are tracked in great detail.”

  He shakes his head, studying the sheer size of this district. It loops all the way around the city. “Even if some of us make it inside, how would we find Talin’s mother? That is, if she’s here at all? What if they moved her tonight to some other place?”

  “They tend to divide the workers by their specialties,” I reply. “Talin’s mother is skilled in medicine. They might use her for the turbines or they might have her as a nurse to treat injuries the other prisoners sustain from the factories. We should head first for the prison infirmaries.”

  “And what if they’re just holding her in there without assigning her to anything? What if they’re just punishing her?”

  I shake my head. “Then they wouldn’t have taken her here. Constantine would have sent her to the labs. Torture is inefficient for the Federation in this district. They want to get something out of you here.”

  Jeran nods, his eyes turning to the lines. His focus pauses on one some distance from us. Then he looks back up in Adena’s direction and signs again. “I’m telling them your idea of distracting the guards,” he whispers to me as he goes.

  I wait in silence as Jeran watches for Adena’s signals. After a pause, he turns back to me, blushing, and wraps his head scarf tighter around himself.

  “What?” I whisper.

  Jeran just shakes his head, as if embarrassed. “Nothing,” he mutters. “That was Aramin responding this time, not Adena.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing.” Jeran shrugs, his blush deepening. “He said he can tell it’s me from a mile away, and to readjust my disguise.”

  Even through Jeran’s mumble, I can clearly hear Aramin’s gruff affection for him. I smile a little, my eyes darting up to the others. How closely Aramin must watch Jeran to be able to still decipher his little movements and graceful figure.

  As I observe them, my mind returns to Talin. Hours earlier, I’d felt a tug of agony through our bond, sharp and bracing despite the distance between us and the fraying of our link. I’d stopped in my tracks, my face turning so pale that Jeran had asked me if I was okay.

  The feeling dissipated the instant I’d tried to reach out to her, as if she had closed off her emotions to me. Since then, all I’ve gotten from her is a thin trickle of her pulse. Even that is laced with tension, everything about her coiled tight like a spring.

  Something happened to her, and I don’t know what it is.

  For once, my other voice attempts to soothe me.

  Swallow the fear. Talin is alive, that heartbeat still steady. There is nothing you can do about it except to keep going. You hope for the best, even as you brace for the worst.

  I look toward one of the towers looming against the night, a structure built with a narrow slit of a window overhead. “They flash a light through that slit every night,” I answer. “It tells the guards to shut the gates.”

  The night turns darker, until the full moon rises and casts the entire district in its silver glow. We stay where we are, watching the lines outside the prison complex grow and ebb. Every prisoner looks the same—tired, dirty, cheeks sunken. Some of them dare to hum under their breaths. For the most part, the guards don’t seem to care.

  There are a regular smattering of children among them. Twelve-, thirteen-year-olds, not far in age from when I’d first visited this place. They are the ones with the widest eyes, new to the prisoner life, still looking around and trying to figure out a way to escape. But then they step forward toward the guards at the gate, and their moment of panic subsides. Their faces lower to the ground. And I find myself wondering if I had looked like that. I must have. I remember the way I’d dread seeing the land beyond the gate, a maze of darkness, of churning steel and roaring furnaces. I remember feeling so grateful the day they took me out of the district and to the lab complex.

  Wasn’t I a fool? How little I knew back then of what would happen to me.

  The hours drag on. As the time draws near for the gates to close for the night, I nudge Jeran gently and nod toward the guards. Right before the gates shut, the soldiers are always the least patient. They bounce on their legs, tired from standing guard all night, eager to head back to their quarters for a hot meal and a bed. We watch them snap at the prisoners who aren’t moving fast enough, yanking some of them forward, shoving others with the hilts of their blades.

  “They are always the most careless around this time,” I murmur to Jeran.

  He nods in agreement, studying their actions. “They want to go home.”

  As the lines begin to dwindle, we creep from one shadow to another and edge closer toward the gate. I lower my head and drape the cloth more tightly around me. Jeran does the same. The prison wall draws near before us.

  By the time we approach the gate, they are closing it. The four guards managing it are arguing with one another. Sure enough, I immediately spot the insignias around their sleeves. East and southeast city patrols. The ones that had been conspicuously missing from the solstice festivities.

  “I’ve done double shifts this entire week,” one snaps.

  “You think I haven’t done double shifts?”

  “Who covered for you last week?” The soldier rolls his eyes as he tucks his gun back at his belt. “All of us here, doing extra hours because of the Premier, and there you were, skipping gate duty to woo your girl.”

  “She’s not even going to marry you, you know,” one of the other guards pipes up.

  Jeran glances at me. Patrols stationed here at the Premier’s personal request. At least poor Danna had been telling the truth.

  The offended soldier throws an obscene hand at both of them. “Wait until I do marry her and transfer out of this position,” he says. “You’ll all be here, sorting prisoners. I’ll be having proper meals and sleep up in the thoroughfare district.”

  Jeran signs up toward Adena and Aramin, then looks at me. “They’re heading to that tower,” he says, nodding at an apartment complex across from the wall.

  Now I see why they’re going there. A footbridge runs between several of the nearby buildings. It shouldn’t be a way to get across behind the prison’s walls, except there is a dead tree, gnarled and twisted, a dozen feet away. It’s not an easy jump for anyone to make, especially quietly, but for Strikers? Doable. If they time it just right, they could make it onto the wall’s ramparts.

  “We’ll need to bring the guards on the wall to us and away from those footbridges,” I add.

  Jeran nods. “They’ll wait for us to make our move.”

  We wait a few more minutes, then step out from the shadows of the buildings to head over to where the soldiers are standing.

  One of them immediately narrows his eyes at us, his hands moving to the weapons at his belt. His gaze roams over me. “Lost?” he snaps.

  I have a sudden urge to scare him, to spread my steel wings and see their faces change from hostile to terrified. But instead, I swallow and wring my hands.

  Another guard shoves me with her baton. “What’s this? Speak when you’re spoken to. No loitering around the prison district. Everyone knows that.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, pretending shyness. At least I have a native Karenese accent, something which seems to make them look at us with disinterest. I put a hand on Jeran’s shoulder beside me. “My cousin and I, we’re looking for an aunt who we think was brought here.”

  It’s a pretty typical scenario, what we’ve set up. I’ve seen plenty of people try their luck at the prison district’s gates, pleading the cases for their family members to the guards standing by.

  The first soldier snorts. “You have questions about specific prisoners, take it up with your local captain.”

  I take a deep breath, drawing on my own memories of living in Cardinia and the various tours of duty I had in the city. “I would,” I say, “except my local captain has been heading up the solstice festivities all week and hasn’t been in her complex.”

  “Who’s your local captain?” the soldier asks.

  I name someone I remember. “Captain Solamen,” I reply.

  “Ah.” A third guard nods, confirming that I must be a native citizen here. “Solamen hasn’t been talking to her blocks in weeks. Too busy with the solstice.”

  The other two guards seem to lower their stances a bit at that. The first one shrugs at me. “Your unlucky week,” he tells us. “Wait until after solstice. You can ask about your aunt to her then.”

  Jeran pretends to start crying. I shake my head, my voice turning urgent. “No, you don’t understand,” I tell them. “We can’t wait that long. Our aunt suffers from a lung disease. She won’t last a few days in this district, and we need to petition for her to be moved. Please. Isn’t there anyone I can talk to here? Can you pass along my message?”

  The soldier sighs. “No exceptions and no moves. We’re all stretched thin these days.” He waves his gun at me. “Move along with your cousin. Go back and talk to your local captain.”

  “I can’t!” My voice gets more frustrated, and the other guards tense a little, their hands going back to their weapons. “Please. She’ll die here.” Up on the wall, two of the nearby sentries turn in our direction too, grateful for a little bit of drama to liven up their moods. Good.

  “It’s the prison district,” the second guard snaps, growing impatient with me. “If she couldn’t handle being here, she shouldn’t have broken the law.”

  The third soldier looks at the others, uncertain. “Come on,” she says, glancing at Jeran, whose beautiful face looks convincingly piteous. “Isn’t there anyone we can direct them to? Captain Mendal is still here for the night. They could talk to him.”

  The first guard rolls his eyes and pushes us back again. “Get out of here,” he snaps. “If we stopped to indulge every desperate family member waiting around here at these gates, we’d never have time to piss in our pots.”

  I repeat myself again, even more urgently this time, while beside me, Jeran stumbles. He grows weak against my shoulder, and I catch him as he slides faintly against me. I almost want to roll my own eyes at his performance.