The man next to him, who I can’t help noticing is dressed in jeans and a plain shirt, responds, “I don’t think so. We risk a temporal collapse if we continue, but expanding won’t be easy. The natives are already restless in these parts, and Kincaid’s men are getting greedy.”
“They get that from Kincaid,” Cormac says. “No doubt he’s filled their heads with talk of his glorious revolution against the Guild. If they only knew him like I do.”
“Several Sunrunners have picked fights with miners in the last few weeks.”
Cormac waves off the warning, unconcerned. “We’ll send more Remnants in.”
“Will you be bringing her here soon?” someone asks him.
“Perhaps. If we open a new site, Pryana will have to come for a visit.” But his tone stays noncommittal.
So Pryana is slated to be the new Creweler. This is bad news. Pryana is a talented Spinster, but she’s never shown the wisdom necessary for the powerful position of Creweler, the woman who oversees the entire pattern of Arras. Everything about her is wrong for the job.
Cormac dismisses most of the group, but one man lingers by his side.
“Sir, what if—”
“Believe me, Hannox, I’m considering it. I think Pryana can handle it. We haven’t had to really test her yet,” Cormac says to his companion.
Hannox
: the man on the other end of the conversations overheard in Arras.
“And if she can’t?” Hannox asks.
“We’ll deal with that when we know it’s a problem,” Cormac says, ignoring Hannox’s concern.
“Until then we should keep up the search for Adelice, I assume,” Hannox says.
“We know she’s with Kincaid,” Cormac says. “But I’ve had no word from the spy for weeks.”
“Sir, it’s not been very long on the surface,” Hannox reminds him. “Give it time. Word will come. Until we’ve recovered her, we’ll ration source material?”
“Yes, our supply is stocked for several months. I want skeleton operations at drill sites, and every surface resource focused on finding Adelice,” Cormac commands.
“Sir, if she’s dead—”
“She isn’t,” Cormac says. “And stop calling me sir. Dammit, Hannox, we’ve known each other one hundred and seventy-five years.”
“Yes,
sir.
” Hannox adds a bow and a salute to emphasize the point.
Cormac waves him off with a smirk. “See to the operations. I’ll take care of our missing Creweler.”
“I’ll liaise with the handlers and check for new intel,” Hannox promises.
“We’ll have images and details sent down so that they can recognize her, but under no circumstances are they to know why we’re looking for Adelice,” Cormac warns.
“What if she’s on Arras?” Hannox asks.
“She’s not smart enough to get into Arras undetected,” Cormac says. “But I’m increasing security and surveillance around her sister. If Adelice is up there, she’s going after Amie.”
“Someone’s spying on me. On us,” I whisper. The thump of my heart is so loud it nearly drowns the words. They’re coming after me, and even worse, they’re watching Amie.
“No surprise there,” Erik responds, tugging at my arm. We stay crouched behind the rock until Cormac and Hannox begin moving back to the camp.
“Who do you think it is? The spy?” I ask Erik after the men are out of earshot.
“It could be anybody,” he says. He nods back to the grove of trees and I follow him. My footfall is soft, but I feel heavy. Pryana might be capable of performing the tasks I’d hoped to keep from the Guild, but Cormac doubts her skill. My head turns over everything we’ve learned, sorting and tagging it into appropriate slots in my memory. Cormac even confirmed the disparity in time acceleration in Arras. He sent a spy weeks ago—was he talking about Deniel? That had happened only two days ago.
As soon as we’re back over the fence, Jost slams his hands into Erik, catching hold of his shirt. “That was stupid,” he says quietly, but his tone is fierce and angry.
“It’s my fault,” I say. “Erik tried to stop me.”
Jost doesn’t apologize to Erik, but he drops his hold on his brother.
“Come on, Ad,” Jost says, turning away from Erik.
“I don’t care what Kincaid will think,” Dante says, his hands clenched in tight balls at his sides. “If any of you go running off again, I’ll shoot you.”
“Noted. I’m sorry,” I say to him. But I’m not.
“We should head back.” Jost’s words are simple, but I can see the tension in his jaw. I know it won’t allay their anger, but I tell them about what we overheard at the mines and about Cormac’s presence. Jost keeps relatively calm, considering that was exactly the kind of danger he wants me to avoid.
“It’s bad enough that they know you’ve settled in with Kincaid, but if they get intelligence that you’ve left the estate—”
“They won’t miss the opportunity to get to me,” I finish for Dante.
“There’s an old ammo factory up the way. Our intel says they use it to weaponize and release new Remnants. It’s likely there’s some transport there,” Dante tells us, shifting from foot to foot. I can’t help but notice his eyes swiveling around us. It’s not like him to be so worried. “If their spies informed the Guild that you’re Sunrunning, then we need to get out of here before they come looking for you, and the crawler is hours away.”
“Won’t there be Remnants?” I ask.
“We’ll stick together and check things out first,” Dante says. “We don’t have much of a choice, I’m afraid.”
“I’m not sure that I like this plan,” Jost says.
“Cormac Patton is on Earth, and he’s looking for you—” Dante begins.
“Looking for Adelice,” Erik corrects him. “She’s his blushing bride.”
“Oh shut up, Erik,” I say, making a gag-me face. “Maela’s missing you too, I’m sure.”
“So I’m home free,” Jost says in a voice that can only be described as joking.
Everyone turns to stare at him.
“What?” he asks, confused.
“Did you crack a joke?” Erik asks him slowly.
“Oh shut up, Erik,”
he says, mimicking my face.
“Now you can both shut up,” I say, turning on my heel and moving alongside Dante. I need to think about what I’ve heard, about where to go from here.
NINETEEN
THE AMMUNITION FACTORY IS WELL KEPT ON the outside, but when we enter we’re met with cobwebs and rust. Each step sends dust swimming into the air. The roof is glass, made opaque by years of neglect, and only a hint of light breaks through the muck. An abandoned conveyor belt hosts a line of rusted stools and little else, and images in faded paint still decorate the walls. I slow down to study them.
A man in a uniform, rifle in hand. A woman gazing at him in admiration. THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND IS STILL BEHIND HIM.
Another poster urges viewers to KEEP THE DANGER OVERSEAS. A woman smiles, her hands full of bullets. A shadow passes across the overlarge portrait. I turn, but no one’s behind me.
“We lucked out. This place is empty. Let’s find the storeroom,” Dante calls, and I jog to catch up.
As we cross the factory, I reach for the arm of the person beside me, but come up empty. The other three are ahead of me and yet I would have sworn I felt Jost right beside me a moment ago.
“The Guild leaves these here?” Jost asks as we come up on a row of motocycles.
“It’s where the Remnants are outfitted when new batches are brought in. They wake up here and are herded out into the Icebox with transport and weapons,” Dante explains. He gestures to a stockpile of firearms along the wall, tossing a rifle each to Erik and Jost in turn.
“How did you know it would be empty?” I ask, refusing a weapon of my own.
“I didn’t.”
Something dashes along the periphery of my vision. It’s probably a wild animal, but it’s enough to raise goose bumps along my arms. There’s no reason to discuss the Guild’s methods since we’ve found what we came for, so I grab the handles of a motocycle. “Let’s get these out of here.”
As we wheel the cycles out of the building, my dread dissipates a little until Jost asks, “Where’s Dante?”
He isn’t with us. We wait by the door, but he doesn’t come, and then an acrid odor drifts out to where we’re standing. I don’t waste any more time. The air stings my eyes when I reenter the factory. Sulfur prickles along my nostrils. It smells like a fire, but who would be stupid enough to light one here? A body materializes, fading in from a shaded corner, but it’s not Dante.
Question answered.
The factory isn’t empty. The shadows weren’t tricks of my imagination. I spot Dante as he sends an old stool cracking across the head of a Remnant. He yells something that I can’t make out, but I think it’s a warning.
A Remnant leaps in front of us and Erik doesn’t lose a moment—he knocks off a shot. He doesn’t hit our would-be attacker, but the Remnant skitters away from us, disappearing back into the dark recesses of the factory.
“Should we be shooting in here?” I scream, but no one answers me. The acrid odor is replaced by smoke, and I see the beginning licks of a fire. It grows larger, consuming the machines, which pop and crack in the heat. We need to get out of here
fast.
The inferno is building inside the ammunition factory and I can’t think of a worse place to be trapped. We’re only steps from the exit, but I whip around, grabbing for strands, and move and tuck and weave to build a trail of protection behind us. The rush of fear makes it easier to see the wild strands, but their unruliness slows me down. I have to look closely to differentiate the time strands from the matter. As we reach open air, the Remnant that Dante hit over the head jumps toward me, landing so close that I panic and miscalculate my work, yanking the wrong strand. It wrenches out from the strands surrounding it, brushing against the flames. It slides across the plant, shooting sparks that amplify the raging fire and then the factory shatters into smoke and debris.
Black plumes billow up from the burning plant, and as soon as we’re a safe distance away, I drop to my knees, hacking against the fumes I’ve inhaled. It could have been worse. No one seems to be hurt and we have what we came for.
I’m stumbling back to my feet when Dante grabs hold of my shirt and pushes me back down. “Want to leave any more proof that you’re here?”
“It was an accident,” I mumble, but it sounds weak even to my ears.
“Like that ship you unwound from the sky? You claim to want answers, to want to help us fight the Guild, but what I see is a stupid girl bent on blowing things up.” His words sting.
“Maybe next time I’ll let them kill you,” I scream. He’s hit his target though; I’m wounded by his accusation.
“Get control of it or don’t use it,” he seethes, towering over me. “You jeopardize everything because you don’t know what you’re doing.”
A hundred jibes tumble into my brain, but before I can settle on the one that will be the most hurtful, a Remnant limps from the plant’s remains. Erik’s on his feet, heading toward him, when Jost jumps in front of him.
“Let him go,” he commands.
“He’s going to run back and tell the others where we are,” Erik says.
“And by then we’ll be long gone,” Jost says. “We aren’t ready to take on another pack and these cycles will get us back to the crawler. The Guild will come to investigate what’s happened, so we need to get out of here.”
“So you’re going to let him go rat us out? These cycles better have lots of gas, because the second we stop they’ll catch up,” Erik scoffs.
“Cormac already knows we’re on Earth,” I say, trying to defuse the situation.
“He doesn’t know you’re
here
,” Erik reminds me.
“Let’s go,” Dante says. His anger at me still flames in his words, but he sounds distant now. Determined.
I’d lost track of how far we’d traveled to find the mines, but I know the crawler is hours away. With the motocycles we can get back to it fast, but I know it might already be too late. It won’t take the Guild long to realize something has happened. I can only hope they assume the explosion was caused by the Remnants. I can’t imagine that they haven’t had problems controlling them before, especially if the Guild keeps them locked in a factory.
The only roads between here and where we left the equipment are cracked with age. It’s probably not a top priority to maintain roads out here, but it makes riding the cycle trickier. I’ve nearly skidded off course twice but manage to keep my motocycle upright. It’s a good thing too, because we’ve lost Dante and Erik, who are now so far ahead of us they would never hear a crash. It’s cold out here as night really settles in, and save for dark piles of bones that I hope are those of animals, there’s not much to see.
I’m finally getting the hang of riding the cycle when it begins to make a spluttering noise. Jost responds by speeding up to cut off the others, and by the time they turn back, I’m waiting next to the immobile motocycle.
“Out of gas,” Dante proclaims, and we redistribute so that I am now riding with Jost.
“How much farther do we have to go?” Erik asks.
“Not much longer, especially now that we can keep pace with one another,” Dante says, and I feel heat flood my cheeks.
We race through the crumbling roads, zipping around large cracks and holes. My suspicion that I was holding Jost back was right. The ride is terrifying. It’s harder to trust the safety of the cycle when I’m not the one controlling it. Whirling through the crisp air, my hair beats across my face, and I clutch Jost’s waist. The speed results in a sort of paralysis of mind and body, and I keep my eyes shut. The only parts of me that seem to be working are the arms that squeeze around him tighter with each jerk of the motocycle, and then the hum of the motocycle fades down, and I realize that we’re coming to a stop. Carefully opening one eye, I peer over Jost’s shoulder, not sure what to expect.
The crawler sits before me, and I can’t believe how happy I am to see it, considering I hate riding in it. Dante wastes no time gathering the charges and panels. Shame over our screaming match seeps into my chest. Dante came out here to do work, and I messed everything up.