Thorns (23 page)

“Just lie still.” I snapped open a quilt and laid it in front of the fire. Adam had already gotten her out of her dress, too, and she was shivering in her shift. I dropped another blanket over her shoulders, then I handed him the rest of the blankets and grabbed the kettle to heat water. We had to work fast to keep her from freezing.

“Please,” Everiss repeated, the plea as soft as a kitten’s mew.

“Shhh,” I said, taking her hands between mine and chaffing them. Her fingers were cold as icicles. “You’ll be all right now. We’ll get you warm.” I paused. “Does anyone else know you’re here? Did anyone follow you?”

“They think I’m dead. No one knows.”

The water began to steam. Everiss’s cheeks were bright red, and her eyelids drooped.

“Should we try to get her to the village tomorrow?” I asked Adam in a low voice.

“No!” Everiss’s eyes flew open, and she struggled into a sitting position. “Please, let me stay here… that Farther will kill me.”

I bit my lip. It was so dangerous—too dangerous. I looked at Adam. He looked at me.

She was an enemy.

“Perhaps the Blackcoats—”

“I didn’t come empty-handed,” Everiss interrupted. She pointed weakly at her bag, which lay with her wet clothes. “Open it.”

Adam stooped and picked up the canvas sack. My heart began to beat against my ribs as he lifted something out. A long, thin cylinder wrapped in black, shiny material.

Everiss licked her lips. “I think you know what that is,” she said quietly.

Adam went very still. He raised his eyes to Everiss’s. “The PLD.”

She nodded.

He handled it carefully, almost reverently. He popped open the metal casing and withdrew the device.

We all stared. It looked like nothing more than a collection of metal hoops the size of my palm, with a few wires to connect them and a small metal box with a switch. This was the thing we’d risked everything for? What was it? What did it do?

“How…?”

“When I heard about the Farther’s proposal regarding this device, I decided to steal it for myself,” Everiss said, her voice just a rasp in the silence. “I thought…” She faltered. “I thought my sister and I could use it to bargain for our father’s release.”

Adam and I exchanged a glance.

“Leon didn’t know, but I’d already slipped it out of the outer case and put it in my bag when you burst from the woods,” she continued. “When Korr showed up and shot Leon, I—I panicked. I dropped the outer case in the water and ran without thinking.”

“The case is waterproof,” Adam said. He ran his thumb over the material, his face thoughtful.

“Why give it to us now?” I demanded.

“I need to convince you to let me stay,” she said, flushing. “We haven’t always been the best of friends, and…and I know you must despise me now for siding against you with the Blackcoats. But my family doesn’t have a home anymore, and even if they did I could never get past the guards anyway. I have nowhere to go but here.”

It was true. She was destitute. She needed our help.

“Clever of you,” I said.

Everiss’s cheeks reddened. “My motives are not completely mercenary. The Farther soldiers need to be stopped. They took my father. They stole our property. They shot Leon. The list could go on and on. This device will help with that, won’t it?”

“Yes,” Adam said quietly, when everyone looked at him to answer. “In a way.”

“Then I’m giving it to you. For justice. And—and for a place to stay.” She looked at my brother.

“I don’t know,” I began, speaking to Adam for help. “We can’t trust her. She’s with the Blackcoats now—”

“Lia,” Jonn snapped. He looked at Everiss, and his expression turned gentle. “It’s
Everiss
. We’ve known her all our lives. She stays.”

Shocked by his insistence, I turned and left the house. The wind bit my cheeks, and I crossed my arms to warm myself as I stared hard at the cloudy sky.

The door creaked behind me, and I turned to see Jonn hobbling out on his crutches. His face was white with pain, but he didn’t stop until he was at my side. His breath came in gasps from the effort of struggling through the snow, and by the time he reached me some of my anger had cooled into simple sadness at the whole confusing situation.

“I’m sorry I upset you,” I said after a pause. “I just don’t trust her, and I want us to be safe.”

Instead of replying, Jonn looked toward the trees. The wind made his hair flutter around his ears and across his forehead. “There are things I’ve never told you,” he said.

I turned my head to stare at him, confused. “What?”

“When our parents were still alive, I wrote letters to various people in the village for a few years, to help with my penmanship and schooling. Do you remember? It was Da’s idea. A way to keep me from descending into complete loneliness. He delivered them when he went into town with the quota each week, and brought me the replies.”

“I remember,” I said, and I did—faintly. “That was years ago, I thought.”

“Most of them were. But one letter writer continued to write me after all the others stopped.” He hesitated. “Everiss.”

“What?” Astonishment skittered through me.
Everiss
?

“We were friends. Unlikely friends, yes, and she never told you because she wanted to keep it a secret. She was embarrassed, writing the poor crippled Weaver boy.”

“What could Everiss possibly have to say to you?” I said, before I could help myself.

He sighed. “Don’t be that way. She’s smart, you know? She’s witty, and observant. Most people don’t know that about her.”

“Anyway,” he continued, “after Ma and Da died…well, it was probably best that we stopped writing letters anyway. Her parents were pushing her to become betrothed, and everything was changing. It was hardly appropriate that she continue to correspond with me, especially since I—” He stopped.

And I understood.

“I love her,” he said. “I know it’s stupid, but I do.”

“She called off her engagement,” I reminded him.

“I know. Perhaps it means something.” But I could see from his expression that he wasn’t hopeful. “But we have to let her stay, Lia.”

This I could understand—the wild, irrational, intense need to protect and cherish. Love. It made us do the stupidest, most dangerous things.

And without it, we would wither.

“All right,” I said.

~

I spent some time alone in the barn, checking the animals’ food and water, making sure they were settled for the night. My mind spun with thoughts. Korr had let me go. Ivy was safe. Everiss was alive. We had the PLD.

But what happened now? Leon had been shot. Korr had been—as far as he knew—thwarted, and surely he wouldn’t be happy about it. My brother had told me his deepest secret. And now we were harboring a Blackcoat fugitive.

If Raine discovered it, we’d all be killed.

The creak of the door opening alerted me. “Adam?” I called, triumphant that I’d heard him this time.

“Not Adam.”

My stomach twisted, and suddenly I found it impossible to get a breath as I recognized the voice.
Ann
?

I turned, and there she stood, her red hood bright in the gloom, her hands clasped in front of her and her cheeks flushed from the cold.

“I had to come see you. I heard about…” She stopped.

Everiss
. She’d heard that Everiss was dead. I shut my eyes and pressed my lips together as reality sunk in. She thought our friend was dead, and I couldn’t tell her otherwise because it was all part of the world of secrets I now inhabited, a world she didn’t share with me.

“Oh, Ann,” I said, and my eyes burned with unshed emotion.

She clutched me close, and her tears dripped onto my neck. “I can’t stay long,” she whispered. “But I had to come see you.”

“Have you seen her family?”

“Not yet. But I will. I need to make sure Jullia is all right. Maybe—maybe she can stay with us for a while. Help me with my quota.”

“Is your house still standing, then?”

Ann shrugged. “Officer Raine would never let it burn down, not when he spends so much time there.”

I smiled faintly.

Ann hesitated. Her hands slipped from my shoulders. “I have something else I have to tell you.”

Her voice was suddenly softer, breathier.

I drew back as fresh apprehension brewed in my stomach. “Tell me what?”

It’d been a day of revelations, each one more shocking than the last. What did Ann have to say?

She pinched her lips together and looked away. “I shouldn’t be telling you this. I know I shouldn’t. But I have to.”

I waited, nervousness rioting in my stomach.

Ann drew away and rubbed her arms. Her lips parted, and she flicked her tongue over her teeth before darting a look at me and then away. “I’m working with the Thorns,” she blurted.

The words struck me like raindrops.

My breath whooshed from my lungs as shock hit me in the stomach. “What did you say?” I stammered out. I could barely speak. I stared at her, my mouth hanging open.

“I’m with the Thorns. I’m an operative.” She clasped her arms across her chest as if she were cold. “I’ve been one since my father started taking me to Aeralis. I met someone in the city…he said I was perfect for the job…no one suspected. Not timid little Ann.” She smiled sadly. “I’ve been passing on information ever since. And when I lured you to the village for questioning—” Her face crumpled, and she lowered her head. “I had to play along, pretend to give Korr what he wanted so he wouldn’t suspect anything. He was scrutinizing me too much. I didn’t want to do it, Lia. But I had to. He had to think he was winning. He had to think he’d bested me.” She peered at me. “Lia?”

I was still standing there, my arms dangling. Ann, a Thorns operative. My world had just turned upside down. I shook my head, trying to make sense of it, trying to rein in the thoughts spinning like mad through my mind.

Ann took my head-shake as a signal of refusal, and her shoulders sagged. “I am sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner. I…I hope someday you can forgive me.”

I found my voice. “Don’t be ridiculous. Forgive you? You’re a hero.”

Her smile was like sunshine. She grabbed me in a hug and squeezed me so tight I could barely breathe. “Now we can work together. I’m so proud of you for everything you’ve done. I always thought you’d be a fantastic operative.”

The door creaked behind us, and we turned together. Adam.

He paused, startled to see Ann.

“I told her,” she said, lifting her chin.

Adam had known, too?

Ann looked defiant, but her lips trembled. I glanced from his face to hers. Adam must be her superior, too, if she had to explain her actions to him. “I had to.”

He didn’t look angry. His eyes cut to mine, and his mouth softened, although he didn’t quite smile. “I understand.”

She turned back to me. “I have to go before it gets too dark. I’ll see you in the village. Until then—be safe, Lia.” Her eyes watered a little. “So many of us have been lost already.”

“Wait!” I grabbed her hand, and a smile broke across my face. If she was with the Thorns, then I could tell her about Everiss. “I have one bit of good news.”

LATER, I WENT into the village for extra supplies. We needed medicine for Everiss, and we’d need more food with an extra mouth around.

A crowd was milling around the steps to the Assembly Hall. I paused, my heart in my throat.

Officer Raine stood on the steps, flanked by soldiers.

“No member of the village may be out after dark, on pain of death. No member of the village may be found defacing Aeralian property, on pain of death. No member of the village may be found harboring enemy fugitives, on pain of death…”

I stood in shocked silence, listening, until Ann found me.

“What’s going on?” I asked her.

She was quiet a moment. “Korr is furious about the loss of the device he was seeking, and he’s urging a crackdown. Raine is furious about Everiss’s escape. They’re tightening their grip on us.” She sighed. “So it begins.”

“What begins?”

Ann’s eyebrows pinched together as she frowned. “What we had before was nothing compared to what’s going to happen now.”

“What are we going to do?” I struggled to breathe. My lungs felt tight, my throat was squeezing shut. I’d never felt so trapped, so helpless. I hated it.

She squeezed my hand tight. There was nothing to say.

We stood a while longer, united in misery and hopelessness, listening as Raine read the new list of rules that would bind us into further servitude. My heart sank lower and lower.

The darkness was just beginning. I could feel it.

~

Jullia came just before dark to see her sister. She was almost swallowed by the cloak she wore, and her eyes were huge in her pale face. She knocked furtively at the door, looking all around her at the trees and snow. I answered it, stepping back to let her in.

“Thank you,” she whispered, her eyes darting to my face and then away. “You’ve helped my family so much. How can we ever repay you?” She caught sight of her sister bundled by the hearth and let out a low cry.

“I’ll be in the barn,” I said, and slipped out as Jullia was dropping to her knees to embrace her sister.

Apprehension gnawed at the edges of my mind while I did the chores. I still didn’t know how I felt about keeping Everiss with us. On the one hand, she needed our help and she was an old friend. But…she’d betrayed us. She’d been helping Leon steal the PLD. She’d been a part of the Blackcoats. She’d had a hand in corrupting my sister, for goodness sake.

Jonn was determined to help her, to hide her, but I felt uneasy about it. I wasn’t about to turn her out into the snow, but…I wasn’t exactly ecstatic about having another mouth to feed, another secret to keep. Especially a secret that might bite me back.

Another fugitive, another choice.

I thought of Gabe and my heart throbbed, but the ache was duller than before.

~

I remained in the barn, alone, until Adam found me. He’d been practically living at our house since Everiss had showed up, so I wasn’t surprised to see him.