UNCORRECTED E-PROOF–NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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Advance Reader’s e-proof
courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers
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UNCORRECTED E-PROOF–NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF–NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
DEDICATION
For Hilmer Palmquist: sticky bun baker, tree swing maker, and the best grandpa in the world. I still miss you.
CONTENTS
COVER
DISCLAIMER
TITLE
DEDICATION
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINTEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY C. J. REDWINE
COPYRIGHT
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF–NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
CHAPTER ONE
LOGAN
“Five minutes.” The soldier guarding Lankenshire’s dungeon raps sharply against the bars of the cell I’ve been in for the past three hours.
Three hours since the Commander showed up outside Lankenshire with an army and a demand that I be released to him by dawn or he’ll attack the city. Three hours since the Rowansmark trackers inside Lankenshire demanded that I give them the device Willow hid in the Wasteland or they’ll call the Cursed One—the tanniyn—to destroy Lankenshire. I’m assuming the gray metal boxes I saw mounted to buildings throughout the city while I was being marched from the gate to the dungeon—boxes that match the one Ian pointed out to me in the square—all contain a signal capable of summoning the beast. Maybe capable of summoning more than one beast, if Ian’s claim about multiple tanniyn roaming the earth is correct.
Three hours since Ian took Rachel and disappeared.
“Five minutes until what?” Willow asks from the cell beside mine. “Until you let us go? Why wait? Open our cells now, and we’ll be gone before you can finish locking the doors behind us.”
The soldier doesn’t look amused. “Five minutes until I escort you to your trial, where the triumvirate will try to figure out a way to appease both the Rowansmark trackers you’ve managed to upset and the army waiting at our gates.”
“It’ll be fine.” Willow sounds far more confident than I feel. “Logan has a plan. Right, Logan?” When I don’t answer, Willow’s voice sharpens. “Right, Logan?”
“Do you?” the soldier asks softly, his eyes locked on mine.
I open my mouth. Close it. Swallow against the lump of fear that wants to close the back of my throat and say, “I’m working on it.”
“You’re working on it?” The man steps closer to the iron bars that separate us. “You listen to me. This is my city. My home. I have family here, and I don’t want to lose them because some refugee from Baalboden brought trouble down on our heads.” He shoves his green cloak off his shoulders and points to the row of gold bars that line up neatly over his heart. “I’m a ranking officer in Lankenshire’s army. I haven’t pulled dungeon duty in years, but I’m here today because the triumvirate thinks you merit special treatment. They think you’ve got a way out of this impossible situation. So don’t tell me you’re working on it. Figure it out before all of us die. You have five minutes.”
He turns on his heel and stalks toward the entrance of the dungeon, his boots slapping against the stone floor as he goes.
“That was dramatic,” Willow says as she leans against the bars of her cell and looks at me.
“That was accurate.” I close my eyes against the terrible image of Rachel, badly injured, traveling to Rowansmark at the mercy of my murderous brother Ian while I sit in a dungeon, faced with the impossible task of appeasing both the Commander and the trackers, unable to save her. “Every worst case scenario running through my head has come true.”
“Oh, please,” Willow says. “Knowing the way your brain works, I’m sure there are at least five scenarios worse than this one that you’ve spent useless hours worrying over. Besides, this isn’t that bad.”
“Not that bad? Willow, the Commander is sitting outside the gate with the Carrington army and what’s left of Baalboden’s guards and he’s promise to attack the city at dawn if I don’t give him the device by then. He’s a man who keeps his word. And the trackers are going to call the tanniyn to destroy Lankenshire the same way Baalboden was destroyed if I don’t give the device to them instead. But I can’t give the tech to either of them, because if I do, I have nothing to use for ransom when I arrive in Rowansmark to barter for Rachel’s life.” I rub my eyes and try to think my way around the impossibility of it all.
There has to be a way out of this. Too many lives depend on it.
Willow’s voice is steady. “If you give the tech to the trackers, it’s the same as giving it to Rowansmark itself. That should satisfy the ransom for Rachel. Then we just have to deal with the old man and his stupid army.”
I’m already shaking my head. “The second I give up the device, I’ve lost my leverage over both the Commander and Rowansmark. Plus, I doubt Ian’s pain atonement vendetta against me will be satisfied by hearing that the device made its way back to Rowansmark. He wants to hurt me, and
what better way to hurt me than to hurt Rachel?”
My throat closes over her name, and I can’t push away the fear that pounds through me, taunting me with images of Rachel hurt. Bleeding.
Dead.
“So the trackers, the Commander, and rescuing Rachel—those are all of your worst case scenarios?” Willow asks. “Because you forgot to mention that my brother, the bastion of self-sacrifice, went missing too. Presumably to track down Rachel, since no one would be crazy enough to kidnap Quinn. Of course, Ian is a lunatic who wouldn’t recognize sanity if it slapped him in the face, so there’s that.”
“Thank you for summing that up. I feel so much better about the whole situation now.”
“I thought we were just listing our problems. Nobody told me I was supposed to provide sympathy.” Willow sounds irritated.
The fear pulsing through me makes it impossible to stand still, so I start pacing the small confines of my cell. “I don’t need sympathy. I need a plan. My people are trapped. The clock is ticking. And I’m stuck inside a Lankenshire prison cell without a weapon or a shred of tech within reach.”
I’m also stuck in an endless loop of thoughts that have nothing to do with my present circumstances and everything to do with the secrets I recently uncovered about my past. I was born in Rowansmark. Fine, I can adjust to that. I was kidnapped by the Commander as a newborn and kept in Baalboden to coerce my father into turning over his invention for calling and controlling the tanniyn once he completed it. I can adjust to that, too.
But knowing that the woman who called herself my mother was lying to me, knowing that Rachel’s father, Jared, brought regular reports about me to my father in Rowansmark and never respected me enough to tell me the truth, and wondering if Oliver, the closest thing I ever had to a father in Baalboden, knew my secrets all along and only looked after me to protect the Commander’s investment—I can’t adjust to that. I can barely stand to look it in the eye.
The foundation on which I built my life is lying in pieces around me, but I can’t stop to put it back together. I have a prison break to engineer, an innocent city to protect, a murderer to track down, and two power-hungry leaders who need to be stopped. Personal reflection will have to wait.
“I wouldn’t say that we don’t have any weapons,” Willow says.
I jerk to a stop and whip my head toward Willow’s cell. By leaning against my cell door, I can just see her. She’s crouched against the front corner of her cell, her back pressing against the iron bars that lock her in. With deft movements, she unties the leather strap that binds her long, dark braid and slowly pulls it free. My eyes widen. A length of thin silver wire is attached to the end of the strap and is woven into her braid. She holds her braid secure and tugs until nearly half a yard of wire slides out of her hair and lies in her lap.
“Brilliant,” I breathe.
“Agreed.” Willow coils the wire around her left wrist and secures the loose end against the leather tie. It looks like she’s wearing a simple silver bracelet, but I have no trouble imagining the kind of havoc Willow can wreak with that length of wire.
Picking locks.
Jabbing eyes.
Slitting throats.
“Have I told you recently that I’m grateful you and Quinn decided to stay with our group instead of trying to find another Tree Village to join? I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Willow flashes me a smug little smile, and I make myself smile back, but inside, my desperation is growing. One weapon alone won’t help us fix this. I need tech, supplies, people . . . a plan.
And I don’t have a single workable idea.
The soldier picks up two lengths of chain and strides down the corridor toward our cells. Our five minutes are up.
“If you’re going to make a plan, you’d better think fast,” Willow says as the soldier stops before my cell, a heavy iron key in his hand.
“I’m trying.”
I run through my options as the man opens my door, wraps chains around my wrists, and then puts a matching set on Willow while she gives him a look that would drop a lesser man to his knees.
Best Case Scenario: I think of a way out of this before we reach the courtroom, and no one dies.
Worst Case Scenario: Everything else.
My stomach cramps as Willow and I, flanked by another pair of Lankenshire soldiers, follow the man through the long stone hallways that lead from the dungeon to the courtroom.
Short of cutting myself and the device in half and giving a piece to both Rowansmark and the Commander, I can’t think of a single way to keep this city and the Baalboden survivors who followed me across the Wasteland—survivors who are family to me now—safe.
“What’s the plan?” Willow whispers as we turn a corner and begin climbing a set of steep steps carved into the stone. The torches that bracket the stairway are lit, their golden light gleaming against her dark hair as she looks at me.
“Um . . .”
“You don’t have one, do you?”
I shake my head and force myself to think smarter. Faster. Rowansmark needs to believe that Lankenshire is turning me over to them, or they’ll use the beacons. The Commander needs to believe that I’ll be in his custody by dawn, or he’ll attack the city.
And I need to be out in the Wasteland, free of them both, so that I can track down Rachel and Quinn.
“Do you have a plan yet?” Willow asks as we leave the stairs behind and enter a spacious corridor with white marble floors that sparkle beneath bronze gas lamps. A bank of wide windows to the right lets in the brilliant light of the setting sun.
Rachel has been missing for three hours now. Three hours is a decent head start in the Wasteland, but I know I can catch up.
I will catch up.
“Logan!” Willow shakes her bound hands in front of my face, the iron chain links slapping together harshly. When I meet her eyes, she leans close and says through gritted teeth, “We’re about to walk into that courtroom. What. Is. The. Plan?”
Panic shoots through my stomach and somehow lands in my chest, where it feels like a vise is slowly crushing me.
I don’t have a plan. I don’t have a single viable scenario. All I have is desperation and the terrible fear that I’m about to fail everyone I love.
The soldier leading us stops abruptly and motions to a narrow door situated between two bronze gas lamps. “You two wait in here until it’s time for the trial to start.” His eyes meet mine, and he lowers his voice. “And I certainly hope that in the time since you told me you were ‘working on it,’ you’ve come up with something, because in about two minutes, you’re going to need to explain it to the one person who can make it happen.”
Without another word, he motions us inside the cramped little box of a room, leaves the pair of Lankenshire soldiers to stand guard outside the door, and locks us in.
“The one person who can make it happen . . . we must be meeting with Clarissa Vaughn before the trial starts,” I say.
Clarissa Vaughn—leader of Lankenshire’s triumvirate and quite possibly the most formidable woman I’ve ever met. Enduring the soldier’s frustration at my lack of a plan will be nothing compared to facing her.
Willow paces the room, scanning the plain white walls and the knotted pine ceiling like she thinks she can find a secret exit that will dump us straight into the Wasteland. I’m scanning the walls too, for all the good it will do me. We need a plan. A real one. And I’ve got no ideas and no more time to figure it out.
As if she can read my mind, Willow asks, “Still got nothing?”
I meet her eyes for a second, letting her see the sheer desperation churning through me, and then turn to the door. I have to tell Clarissa something. Maybe if I look at this from a different angle. If I examine ways we can neutralize the beacons to take the teeth out of the trackers’ threats. If I talk to Coleman Pritchard, head of Lankenshire’s security, about methods to defend the city against the Commander . . .
Who am I kidding? I know
nothing about defending a city against an army, and I can’t tell Clarissa how to neutralize the Rowansmark beacons without seeing one for myself, and even then . . . what if I can’t figure it out? What if—
“Hey!” Willow smacks my shoulder lightly. “Stop disappearing into your head and listen. I know what to do.”
I blink and stare at her. “You do?”
“Don’t act so surprised. I just figure the fastest way to get out of here and into the Wasteland is to remove the obstacles in our way. We’ll start with the trackers and then move on to the army—”
“You want to take out an entire contingent of Rowansmark trackers—”
“I don’t see why not.”
“—and then go after an army—”
“Don’t be an idiot. Not the whole army. Just the leader. Cut off the head and the rest of the body just sort of flops around uselessly.”
“You want the two of us, who are currently weaponless . . .” I pause as she wriggles her wrist at me. The silver wire she took from her braid shimmers. “Fine, you want the two of us who are mostly weaponless, and who are chained up like criminals, to take out a group of Rowansmark trackers. What are we supposed to use against them? We need a bigger weapon than chains and attitude.”
“That’s a very negative way to look at this.”
A bigger weapon than chains and attitude.
I stare at Willow, but I don’t see her. I finally see possibilities. Scenarios.
Plans.
The pain in my stomach eases.
“We can’t kill all of the Rowansmark trackers,” I say.
“Speak for yourself.” She glares at me.
“We need to leave a few alive to testify that Lankenshire had nothing to do with our escape in case other trackers come to the city,” I say slowly as a risk-filled plan for how we can break out of prison without endangering either Lankenshire or the Baalboden survivors takes shape inside my head.
“And how are we going to escape?”
“I have a plan.” I can’t believe what I’m about to suggest. “It’s stupid and bold and could fail in a hundred ways before we even get fifteen yards.”
She grins. “You cover stupid. I’ll take care of bold. Now, what’s the plan?”