The Mask saunters through the gate, big hands loose at his sides. The
strange metal of his namesake clings to him from forehead to jaw like
silver paint, revealing every feature of his face, from the thin eyebrows to
the hard angles of his cheekbones. His copper - plated armor molds to his
muscles, emphasizing the power in his body.
A passing wind billows his black cape, and he looks around the
backyard like he’s arrived at a garden party. His pale eyes find me, slide up
my form, and settle on my face with a r eptile’s flat regard.
“Aren’t you a pretty one,” he says.
I yank at the ragged hem of my shift, wishing desperately for the
shapeless, ankle - length skirt I wear during the day. The Mask doesn’t even
twitch. Nothing in his face tells me what he’s thinking. But I can guess.
Darin st eps in front of me and glances at the fence, as if gauging the
time it will take to reach it.
“I’m alone, boy.” The Mask addresses Darin with all the emotion of a
corpse. “The rest of the men are in your house. You can run if you like.” He
moves away from the gate. “But I insist you leave the girl.”
Darin raises the knife.
“Chivalrous of you,” the Mask says.
Then he strikes, a flash of copper and silver lightning out of an empty
sky. In the time it takes me to gasp, the Mask has shoved my brother’s face
into the sandy ground and pinned his writhing body with a knee. Nan’s
knife falls to the dirt.
A scream erupts from me, lonely in the still summer night. Seconds later,
a scimpoint pricks my throat. I didn’t even see the Mask draw th e weapon.
“Quiet,” he says. “Arms up. Now get inside.”
The Mask uses one hand to yank Darin up by the neck and the other to
prod me on with his scim. My brother limps, face bloodied, eyes dazed.
When he struggles, a fish on a hook, the Mask tightens his grip.
The back door of the house opens, and a red - caped legionnaire comes
out.
“The house is secure, Commander.”
The Mask shoves Darin at the soldier. “Bind him up. He’s strong.”
Then he grabs me by the hair, twisting until I cry out.
“Mmm.” He bends his head to my ear, and I cringe, my terror caught in
my throat. “I’ve always loved dark - haired girls.”
I wonder if he has a sister, a wife, a woman. But it wouldn’t matter if he
did. To him, I’m not so meone’s family. I’m just a thing to be subdued, used,
and discarded. The Mask drags me down the hallway to the front room as
casually as a hunter drags his kill. Fight, I tell myself. Fight. But as if he
senses my pathetic attempts at bravery, his hand squeezes, and pain lances
through my skull. I sag and let him pull me along.
Legionnaires stand shoulder - to - shoulder in the front room amid upturned
furniture and broken bottles of jam. Trader won’t get anything now. So
many days spent over steaming kettles, my hair and skin smelling of apricot
and cinnamon. So many jars, steamed and dried, filled and sealed. Useless.
All useless.
The lamps are lit, and Nan and Pop kneel in the middle of the floor, their
hands bound behind their backs. The soldier holding Darin shoves him to
the ground beside them.
“Shall I tie up the girl, sir?” Another soldier fingers the rope at his belt,
but the Mask leaves me between two burly legionnaires.
“She’s not going to cause any trouble.” He stabs at me with those eyes.
“Are you?” I shake my head and shrink back, hating myself for being such
a coward. I reach for my mother’s tarnished armlet, wrapped around my
bic ep, and touch the familiar pattern for strength. I find none. Mother would
have fought. She’d have died rather than face this humiliation. But I can’t
make myself move. My fear has ensnared me.
A legionnaire enters the room, his face more than a little nervous. “It’s
not here, Commander.”
The Mask looks down at my brother. “Where’s the sketchbook?”
Darin stares straight ahea d, silent. His breath is low and steady, and he
doesn’t seem dazed anymore. In fact, he’s almost composed.
The Mask gestures, a small movement. One of the legionnaires lifts Nan
by her neck and slams her frail body against a wall. Nan bites her lip, her
eyes sparking blue. Darin tries to rise, but another soldier forces him down.
The Mask scoops up a shard of glass from one of the broken jars. His
tongue flickers out like a snake’s as he tastes the jam.
“Shame it’s all gone to waste.” He caresses Nan’s face with the edge of
the shard. “You must have been beautiful once. Such eyes.” He turns to
Darin. “Shall I carve them out of her?”
“It’s outside the small bedroom window. In the hedge.” I can’t manage
more than a whisper, but the soldiers hear. The Mask nods, and one of the
legionnaires disappears into the hallway. Darin doesn’t look at me, but I feel
his dismay. Why did you tell me to hide it, I want to cry out. Why did you
bring the cursed thing home?
The legionnaire returns with the book. For unending seconds, the only
sound in the room is the rustling of pages as the Mask flips through the
sketches. If the rest of the book is anything like the page I found, I know
what the Mask will see: Martial knives, swords, scabbards, forges,
formulas, instructions — things no Scholar sh ould know of, let alone recreate on paper.
“How did you get into the Weapons Quarter, boy?” The Mask looks up
from the book. “Has the Resistance been bribing some Plebeian drudge to
sneak you in?”
I stifle a sob. Half of me is relieved Darin’s no traitor. The other half
wants to rage at him for being such a fool. Association with the Scholars’
Resistance carries a death sentence.
“I got myself in,” my brother says. “The Resistance had nothing to do
with it.”
“You were seen entering the catacombs last night after curfew” — the
Mask almost sounds bored — “in the company of known Scholar rebels.”
“Last night, he was home well before curfew,” Pop speaks up, and it is
strange to hear my grandfather lie. But it makes no difference. The Mask’s
eyes are for my brother alone. The man doesn’t blink as he reads Darin’s
face the way I’d read a book.
“Those rebels were taken into custody today,” the Mask says. “One of
them gave up your name before he died. What were you doing with them?”
“They followed me.” Darin sounds so ca lm. Like he’s done this before.
Like he’s not afraid at all. “I’d never met them before.”
“And yet they knew of your book here. Told me all about it. How did
they learn of it? What did they want from you?”
“I don’t know.”
The Mask presses the shard of glass de ep into the soft skin below Nan’s
eye, and her nostrils flare. A trickle of blood traces a wrinkle down her face.
Darin draws a sharp breath, the only sign of strain. “They asked for my
sketchbook,” he says. “I said no. I swear it.”
“And their hideout? ”
“I didn’t see. They blindfolded me. We were in the catacombs.”
“Where in the catacombs?”
“I didn’t see. They blindfolded me.”
The Mask eyes my brother for a long moment. I don’t know how Darin
can remain unruffled beneath that gaze.
“You’re pr epared for this.” The smallest bit of surprise cre eps into the
Mask’s voice. “Straight back. De ep breathing. Same answers to different
questions. Who trained you, boy?”
When Darin doesn’t answer, the Mask shrugs. “A few weeks in prison
will loosen your tongue.” Nan a nd I exchange a frightened glance. If Darin
ends up in a Martial prison, we’ll never see him again. He’ll spend weeks in
interrogation, and after that they’ll either sell him as a slave or kill him.
“He’s just a boy,” Pop speaks slowly, as if to an angry patient. “Please
— ”
Steel flashes, and Pop drops like a stone. The Mask moves so swiftly
that I don’t understand what he has done. Not until Nan rushes forward. Not
until she lets out a shrill keen, a shaft of pure pain that brings me to my
knees.
Pop. Skies, not Pop. A dozen vows sear themselves into my mind. I’ll
never disobey again, I’ll never do anything wrong, I’ll never complain
about my work, if only Pop lives.
But Nan tears her hair and screams, and if Pop was alive, he’d never let
her go on like that. He wouldn’t have been able to bear it. Darin’s calm is
sheared away as if by a scythe, his face blanched with a horror I feel down
to my bones.
Nan stumbles to her feet and takes one tottering st ep toward the Mask.
He reaches out to her, as if to put his hand on her shoulder. The last thing I
see in my grandmother’s eyes is terror. Then the Mask’s gauntleted wrist
flashes once, leaving a thin red line across Nan’s throat, a line that grows
wider and redder as she falls.
Her body hits the floor with a thud, her eyes still open and shining with
tears as blood pours from her neck and into the rug we knotted together last
winter.
“Sir,” one of the legionnaires says. “An hour until dawn.”
“Get the boy out of here.” The Mask doesn’t give Nan a second glance.
“And burn this place down.”
He turns to me then, and I wish I could fade like a shadow into the wall
behind me. I wish for it harder than I’ve ever wished for anything, knowing
all the while how foolish it is. The soldiers flanking me grin at each other as
the Mask takes a slow st ep in my direction. He holds my gaze as if he can
smell my fear, a cobra enthralling its prey.
No, please, no. Disappear, I want to disappear.
The Mask blinks, some foreign emotion flickering across his eyes —
surprise or shock, I can’t tell. It doesn’t matter. Because in that moment,
Darin leaps up from the floor. While I cowered, he loosened his bindi ngs.
His hands stretch out like claws as he lunges for the Mask’s throat. His rage
lends him a lion’s strength, and for a second he is every inch our mother,
honey hair glowing, eyes blazing, mouth twisted in a feral snarl.
The Mask backs into the blood pooled near Nan’s head, and Darin is on
him, knocking him to the ground, raining down blows. The legionnaires
stand frozen in disbelief and then come to their senses, surging forward,
shouting and swearing. Darin pulls a dagger free from the Mask’s belt
befo re the legionnaires tackle him.
“Laia!” my brother shouts. “Run — ”
Don’t run, Laia. Help him. Fight.
But I think of the Mask’s cold regard, of the violence in his eyes. I’ve
always loved dark - haired girls. He will rape me. Then he will kill me.
I shudder and back into the hallway. No one stops me. No one notices.
“Laia!” Darin cries out, sounding like I’ve never heard him. Frantic.
Trapped. He told me to run, but if I screamed like that, he would come. He
would never leave me. I stop.
Help him, Laia, a voice orders in my head. Move.
And another voice, more insistent, more powerful.
You can’t save him. Do what he says. Run.
Flame flickers at the edge of my vision, and I smell smoke. One of the
legionnaires has started torching the house. In minutes, fire will consume it.
“Bind him properly this time and get him into an interrogation cell.” The
Mask removes himself from the fray, rubbing his jaw. When he sees me
backing down the hallway, he goes strangely still. Reluctantly, I meet his
eyes, and he tilts his head.
“Run, little girl,” he says.
My brother is still fighting, and his screams slice right through me. I
know then that I will hear them over and over again, echoing in every hour
of every day until I am dead or I make it right. I know it.
And still, I run.
»»»
he cram ped streets and dusty markets of the Scholars’ Quarter blur
past me like the lands cape of a nightmare. With each st ep, part of my
brain shouts at me to turn around, to go back, to help Darin. With each st ep,
it becomes less likely, until it isn’t a possibility at all, until the only word I
can think is run.
The soldiers come after me, but I’ve grown up among the squat, mudbrick houses of the
Quarter, and I lose my pursuers quickly.
Dawn breaks, and my panicked run turns to a stumble as I wander from
alley t o alley. Where do I go? What do I do? I need a plan, but I don’t know
where to start. Who can offer me help or comfort? My neighbors will turn
me away, fearing for their own lives. My family is dead or imprisoned. My
best friend, Zara, disappeared in a raid last year, and my other friends have
their own troubles.
I’m alone.
As the sun rises, I find myself in an empty building de ep in the oldest
part of the Quarter. The gutted structure crouches like a wounded animal
amid a labyrinth of crumbling dwellings. The stench of refuse taints the air.
I huddle in the corner of the room. My hair has slipped free of its braid
and lays in hopeless tangles. The red stitches along the hem of my shift are
ripped, the bright yarn limp. Nan sewed those hems for my seventeenth
year - fall, to brighten up my otherwise drab clothing. It was one of the few
gifts she could afford.
Now she’s dead. Like Pop. Like my parents and sister, long ago.
And Darin. Taken. Dragged to an interrogation cell where the Martials
will do who - knows - what to him.
Life is made of so many moments that mean nothing. Then one day, a
single moment comes along to define every second that comes after. The
moment Darin called out — that was such a moment. It was a test of
courage, of strength. And I failed it.
Laia! Run!
Why did I listen to him? I should have stayed. I should have done
something. I moan and grasp my head. I ke ep hearing him. Where is he
now? Have they begun the interrogation? He’ll wonder what happened to
me. He’ll wonder how hi s sister could have left him.
A flicker of furtive movement in the shadows catches my attention, and
the hair on my nape rises. A rat? A crow? The shadows shift, and within
them, two male volent eyes flash. More sets of eyes join the first, baleful
and slitted.
Hallucinations, I hear Pop in my head, making a diagnosis. A symptom
of shock.
Hallucinations or not, the shadows look real. Their eyes glow with the
fire of miniature suns, and they circle me like hyenas, growing bolder with
each pass.
“We saw,” they hiss. “We know your weakness. He’ll die because of
you.”
“No,” I whisper. But they are right, these shadows. I left Darin. I
abandoned him. The fact that he told me to go doesn’t matter. How could I
have been so cowardly?
I grasp my mother’s armlet, but touching it makes me feel worse.
Mother would have outfoxed the Mask. Somehow, she’d have saved Darin
and Nan and Pop.
Even Nan was braver than me. Nan, with her frail body and burning
eyes. Her backbone of steel. Mother inherited Nan’s fire, and after her,
Darin.
But not me.
Run, little girl.
The shadows inch closer, and I close my eyes against them, hoping
they’ll disappear. I grasp at the thoughts ricocheting through my mind,
trying to corral them.
Distantly, I hear shouts and the thud of boots. If the soldiers are still
looking for me, I’m not safe here.
Maybe I should let them find me and do what they will. I abandoned my
blood. I deserve punishment.
But the same instinct that urged me to es cape the Mask in the first place
drives me to my feet. I head in to the streets, losing myself in the thickening
morning crowds. A few of my fellow Scholars look twice at me, some with
wariness, others with sympathy. But most don’t look at all. It makes me
wonder how many times I walked right past someone in these streets who
was running, someone who had just had their whole world ripped from
them.
I stop to rest in an alley slick with sewage. Thick black smoke curls up
from the other side of the Quarter, paling as it rises into the hot sky. My
home, burning. Nan’s jams, Pop’s medicines, Darin’s drawings, my books,
gone. Everything I am. Gone.
Not everything, Laia. Not Darin.
A grate squats in the center of the alley, just a few feet away from me.
Like all grates in the Quarter, it leads down into the Serra’s catacombs:
home to skeletons, ghosts, rats, thieves . . . and possibly the Scholars’
Resistance.
Had Darin been spying for them? Had the Resistance gotten him into the
Weapons Quarter? Despite what my brother told the Mask, it’s the only
answer that makes sense. Rumor has it that the Resistance fighters have
been getting bolder, recruiting not just Scholars, but Mariners, from the free
country of Marinn, to the north, and Tribesmen, whose desert - territory is an
Empire protectorate.
Pop and Nan never spoke of the Resistance in front of me. But late at
night, I heard them murmuring of how the rebels freed Scholar prisoners
while striking out at the Martials. Of how fighters raided the caravans of the
Martial merchant class, the Mercators, and assassinated members of their
upper class, the Illustrians. Only the rebels stand up to the Martials. Elusive
as they are, they are the only weapon the Scholars have. If anyone can get
near the forges, it’s them.
The Resistance, I realize, might help me. My home was raided and
burned to the ground, my family killed because two of the rebels gave
Darin’s name to the Empire. If I can find the Resistance and explain what
happened, maybe they can help me break Darin free from prison — not just
because they owe me, but because they live by Izzat, a code of honor as old
as the Scholar people. The rebel leaders are the best of the Scholars, the
bravest. My parents taught me that before the Empire killed them. If I ask
for aid, the Resistance won’t turn me away.
I st ep toward the grate.
I’ve never been in Serra’s catacombs. They snake beneath the entire city,
hundreds of miles of tunnels and caverns, some packed with centuries’
worth of bones. No one uses the crypts for burial anymore, and even the
Empire hasn’t mapped out the catacombs entirely. If the Empire, with all its
might, can’t hunt out the rebels, then how will I find them?
You won’t stop until you do. I lift the grate and stare into the black hole
below. I have to go down there. I have to find the Resistance. Because if I
don’t, my brother doesn’t stand a chance. If I don’t find the fighters and get
them to help, I’ll never see Darin again.