Iwatch Teluman working from his open door for long minutes before I
summon up the courage to enter his shop. He hammers a strip of heated
metal with careful, measured strokes, his brightly tattooed arms sweating
from the strain.
“Darin’s in Kauf.”
He stops mid - swing and turns. The alarm in his eyes at my words is
strangely comforting. At least there is one other person who cares about my
brother’s fate as much as I do.
“He was sent there ten days ago,” I say. “Just after the Moon Festival.” I
raise my still - cuffed wrists. “I have to go after him.”
I hold my breath as he considers. Teluman helping me is the first st ep in
a plan that d epends almost entirely on other people doing what I ask of
them.
“Lock the door,” he says.
It takes him nearly three hours to break the cuffs off, and he says almost
nothing the entire time, exc ept to occasionally ask me if I need anything.
When I’m free of the cuffs, he offers me a salve for my chafed wrists and
then disappears into the back room. A moment later he emerges with a
beautifully decorated scim — the same blade he used to scare the ghuls away
the day I met him.
“This is the first true Teluman blade I made with Darin,” he says. “Take
it to him. When you free him, you tell him Spiro Teluman will be waiting in
the Free Lands. You tell him we have work to do.”
“I’m afraid,” I whisper. “Afraid I’ll fail. Afraid he’ll die.” The fear flares
through me then, as if by speaking of it I’ve breathed life into it. Shadows
gather and pool near the door. Ghuls.
Laia, they say. Laia.
“Fear is only your enemy if you allow it to b e.” Teluman hands me
Darin’s blade and nods to the ghuls. I turn and, as Teluman speaks, advance
upon them.
“Too much fear and you’re paralyzed,” he says. The ghuls aren’t cowed
yet. I raise the scim. “Too little fear and you’re arrogant.” I strike out at the
closest ghul. It hisses and skitters under the door. Some of its fellows back
away, but others lunge at me. I force myself to stand fast, to meet them with
the edge of the blade. Moments later, the few that were brave enough to
remain flee with wrathfu l hisses. I turn back to Teluman. He finds my eyes.
“Fear can be good, Laia. It can ke ep you alive. But don’t let it control
you. Don’t let it sow doubts within you. When the fear takes over, use the
only thing more powerful, more indestructible, to fight it: your spirit. Your
heart.”
The sky is dark when I leave the smithy with Darin’s scim hidden
beneath my skirt. Martial squads patrol the streets in force, but I avoid them
easily in my black dress, blending into the night like a wraith.
As I walk, I reme mber how Darin tried to defend me from the Mask
during the raid, even when the man gave him the chance to run. I imagine
Izzi, small and frightened yet determined to befriend me though she knew
well what the cost could be. And I think of Elias, who could have been
miles away from Blackcliff by now, free as he always wanted, if he’d only
let Aquilla kill me.
Darin, Izzi, and Elias put me first. No one made them do it. They did it
because they felt it was the right thing to do. Because whether they know
what Izzat is or not, they live by it. Because they are brave.
My turn to do right, a voice says in my head. Not Darin’s words
anymore, but my own. That voice has always been my own. My turn to live
by Izzat. Mazen said I didn’t know what Izzat was. But I understand it better
than he ever will.
By the time I navigate the treacherous hidden trail and scramble up to
the Commandant’s courtyard, the school is still and quiet. The lamps in the
Commandant’s study are lit, and voices drift out her open window, too faint
to hear. That suits me fine — not even the Commandant can be in two places
at once.
The slaves’ quarters are dark but for one light. I hear muffled sobbing.
Thank the skies. The Commandant hasn’t taken her for interrogation yet. I
peer through the curtain of her room. She isn’t alone.
“Izzi. Cook.”
They sit on the cot together, Cook with her arm around Izzi. When I
speak, their heads jerk up, faces blanching like they’ve been confronted
with a ghost. Cook’s eyes are red, her face wet, and when she sees me, she
lets out a cry. Izzi throws herself at me, hugging me so tightly I think she’ll
break a rib.
“Why, girl?” Cook wipes her tears away almost angrily. “Why come
back? You could have run. Everyone thinks you’re dead. There’s nothing
here for you.”
“But there is something here.” I tell Cook and Izzi all that has happened
since this morning. I tell them the truth about Spiro Teluman and Darin and
what the two of them were trying to do. I tell them of Mazen’s betrayal.
Then I tell them my plan.
After I finish, they sit silently. Izzi fiddles with her ey epatch. Part of me
wants to take her by the shoulders and beg her for help, but I can’t coerce
her into doing this. This has to be her choice. Cook’s choice.
“I don’t know, Laia.” Izzi shakes her head. “It’s dangerous . . . ”
“I know,” I say. “I’m asking s o much of you. If the Commandant catches
us — ”
“Contrary to what you might think, girl,” Cook says, “the Commandant
is not all - powerful. She underestimated you, for one. She misread Spiro
Teluman — he is a man and so, in her mind, is only capable of a man’s base
appetites. She hasn’t connected you to your parents. She makes mistakes,
like anyone else. The only difference is that she doesn’t make the same
mistake twice. Ke ep that in mind and you just might be able to outwit her.”
The old woman considers for a m oment. “I can get what we need from
the school’s armory. It’s well stocked.” She stands up, and when Izzi and I
stare at her, she lifts her eyebrows.
“Well, don’t just sit there like lumps on a log.” She gives me a kick, and
I yelp. “Move.”
«««
ours later, I awake to Cook’s hand on my shoulder. She bends down
beside me, her face barely visible in the predawn gloom.
“Get up, girl.”
I think of another dawn, the one after my grandparents were killed and
Darin was taken. That day, I thought my world was ending. In a way, I was
right. Now it’s time to remake my world. Time to redo my ending. I put my
hand to my armlet. This time, I will not falter.
Cook slumps against the entry to my room, sliding a hand across her
eyes. She’s been up nearly all night, as I have. I didn’t want to sle ep at all,
but in the end, she insisted on it.
“No rest, no wits,” she said when forcing me to my cot just an hour
before. “And you’ll need all your wits if you want to get out of Serra alive.”
Hands shaking, I pull on the combat boots and fatigues Izzi filched from
the school’s supply closets. I buckle Darin’s scim to a belt Cook rustled up
and pull my skirt over it all. Elias’s knife stays attached to the strap on my
thigh. My mother’s armlet is hidden beneath a loose, long - sleeved tunic. I
think at first to wear a scarf, to cover the Commandant’s mark, but in the
end I decide against it. Though I once hated the sight of the scar, I view it
with a sort of pride now. As Keenan said, it means I survived her.
Beneath the tunic, hanging diagonally across my chest, is a soft leather
satchel filled with flatbread, nuts, and fruit sealed in oilskin, along with a
canteen of water. Another package holds gauze, herbs, and oils for healing.
I shove Elias’s cloak on top of it all.
“Izzi?” I ask Cook, who watches me silently from the door.
“On her way.”
“You won’t change your mind? You won’t come?”
Her silence is her answer. I look into her blue eyes, distant and familiar
all at once. I have so many questions for her. What’s her name? What
happened with the Resistance that was so horrible she can’t speak of them
without stuttering and convulsing? Why does she hate my mother so much?
Who is this woman who is more closed, even, than the Commandant?
Unless I ask her now, I will never know the answers. After this, I doubt I’ll
see her again.
“Cook — ”
“Don’t.”
The word, though quietly spoken, is like a door slamming in my face.
“Are you ready?” she asks.
The belltower tolls. In two hours, the dawn drums will beat.
“Doesn’t matter if I’m ready,” I say. “It’s time.”