Book 1 - Page 14 (1/2)

“Don’t worry. Please. You were right. You can trust me.”

When I knelt down to touch her shoulder, she fell forward in a pool of blood. Banner wasn’t just upset; she was dead.

Recompense

n.o.body cared. The elders sent her body out into the tunnels as a gift for the Freaks. That was all. People talked about the shock, but everyone agreed she must’ve killed herself. A girl in the baths with two slit wrists? What else could it be? They speculated that perhaps she’d snuck around and gotten herself in trouble. Bred without permission, maybe. That kind of offense got you exiled.

Almost anything could get you exiled. As a brat, I hadn’t realized the magnitude; I didn’t dare articulate my thoughts or my fears. The safety of the enclave was starting to feel like a prison. Life went on for all us, and only Fade wore his grief nakedly. He didn’t talk to me anymore outside of patrols, as if I might’ve had something to do with it. And that hurt, more than I wanted to admit.

After the naming ceremony, Twist came looking for me. “Thanks for taking care of the gifts.”

So much had happened I’d almost forgotten I had an ulterior motive for doing that. I’d wanted to find out what they’d done to the Burrowers. I wasn’t sure I did anymore. The knowledge might only prove a burden.

But since I had him here, I figured I’d try. “I’m glad I could help.”

I fell into step with him as he talked, venting about the strain of working for Whitewall. Twist didn’t have any friends that I knew of, so maybe he didn’t have anyone else to talk to. Listening cost me nothing.

When he wound down, I said, “I saw the team come back with a lot of stuff. I guess you have to sort and organize it for the Wordkeeper.”

He sighed. “Of course I do. They don’t trust anyone else.”

“How much did we pay for it all?” I tensed.

“A few bags of fish. The way I heard it, those Burrowers are smart and wouldn’t let the Hunters in until they pa.s.sed the trade goods through a narrow gap in the wall.”

Relief spilled through me. I’d nearly let suspicion poison everything. Just because the elders had made some tough decisions, it didn’t make them brutal or merciless. A weight lifted from my shoulders.

I talked with Twist a bit longer, so he didn’t suspect I’d been after that information all along. Since I liked him—and few people did—I didn’t want him to think I’d only been using him. In the kitchen, we went our separate ways: him to other work and me to patrol.

Fade waited for me beyond the barricades this time, one foot tapping with ill-concealed impatience. As soon as I scrambled over, he spun and led the way into the dark. I thought we needed to talk, but plainly he disagreed. The hours pa.s.sed with excruciating speed, between the silence and the tension.

At last as we turned back toward the enclave, he spoke. “Do you believe them?”

“Who?”

“The elders. The gossip.”

“About what?” I thought I knew but I wanted him to spell it out.

“Banner. They’re saying she killed herself because…” He trailed off, unable to say it aloud.

He’d been close to her. That made him a likely candidate for the sire of her unborn brat, if the story was true. I didn’t like how that made me feel. I cast back to the day we’d found her, remembering the cuts on her wrists, how the skin looked—

Sickness overwhelmed me.

“No,” I said quietly. “I don’t.”

He froze for a long moment and then spun to face me. “Why?”

I could see in his eyes he’d noticed right away. I just hadn’t wanted to think about it until he forced me to remember. “The cuts were wrong.”

If I wanted to die, I’d use one long motion, no stop and start of the blade. The ones we’d found on Banner showed where the knife dragged and paused. Someone had killed her; I didn’t know why. If they’d found her h.o.a.rd, she should’ve been exiled.

But maybe it ran deeper. Maybe the elders knew something about the silent rebellion. In that case, Banner would’ve been killed as an equally quiet warning. a.s.sociate with them and you’ll wind up like this. It was nothing they would want to confront openly because that would mean admitting some citizens mistrusted their leaders.h.i.+p. Acknowledging discontent would only breed more. I understood the way they thought.

“They added all of her things to the archives,” he said softly. “And fed her to the Freaks.”

I flinched. “I’m sorry.”

“What are we going to do about it?”

“What can we do?”