Secret police, Row’s voice whispered in her head. Secret police, answerable only to Jonathan.
The knife slipped in her hand. Katie swore, pushing a sweaty lock of hair out of her eyes, and started over again. It took only five more minutes of jimmying before the door clicked open. Jenna was an excellent metalworker, but no locksmith; Tear would have been disgusted.
Katie crept into the darkened workshop and shut the door behind her. Striking a match from the box in her pocket, she spotted a lamp on a nearby workbench and lit it. The glow was thin and sickly, but enough to see by. Casting over the workbench, she found a small wedge of wood and jammed it under the door. If Jenna—or worse, Row—came back unexpectedly, she could break the back window and make a run for it.
She hadn’t been in here since that night five years before, but a quick glance showed that very little had changed. The workbench and tables were still crammed with work in progress. Jenna would make jewelry from scratch, but she also did a healthy business repairing pieces that had come over in the Crossing. Katie held the lamp high as she moved down the long table that was Row’s workbench. She saw several waste pieces of silver, but no sapphire. The drawer where Tear’s sapphire had been, so long ago, was now empty but for a small scraper.
I should have had him watched years ago, Katie thought angrily. How much did he get away with in the dark? How much, while we sat around playing with knives?
But another voice asked her if that was the town she wanted to live in: a community that kept its citizenry under constant surveillance in the name of safety. Tear had said something about that once, hadn’t he? Yes, he had, long ago, when Lear had asked a question about the duty of government to keep its citizens safe. Katie closed her eyes and was suddenly back there: in the Tears’ living room, fifteen or sixteen, with the fire burning and Lear’s question hanging in the air.
“In such cases, Lear, safety is an illusion,” Tear told them. “A discontented population will erode even the most secure state. But even if safety were somehow achievable by force, Lear, ask yourself this: how important is safety? Is it worth steadily undermining every principle on which a free nation was founded? What sort of nation will you have then?”
Katie’s breath halted. She had been running her hand over the surface of Row’s worktable, almost halfheartedly, already aware that whatever was here, she had failed to find it. But her fingertips had just encountered a subtle set of bumps, not rough but sanded down, too symmetrical to be splinters. She brought the lamp closer and stared at what was there: an edge of some kind. She tried to get her fingernails under it, then dug at it with her knife, but nothing doing; the edge was too fine. Katie thought for a moment, then placed her fingers on the raised bumps and pushed down. With a soft, metallic ping, a section of the table popped up, revealing a hidden compartment. Inside was a brightly polished box of deep red wood.
Cherry, Katie thought. There were no cherry trees in town, but Martin Karczmar had found at least a few in his explorations across the river; the cherries he brought back were highly prized in the Town, and even the twigs were highly valued by woodworkers. But to get this much solid wood, one would have had to chop down an entire tree. Who would go to that much trouble?
She lifted the box from the hidden compartment. It had been polished so hard that the surface was almost as smooth as iron. The box had a latch, but thankfully, no lock. Katie thumbed the latch and opened the lid, then gasped.
Nestled inside the box was a crown. It appeared to be solid silver, set here and there with bright blue stones that looked remarkably similar to William Tear’s sapphire. It was a beautiful piece of workmanship; Katie held it up to the light, admiring the thing, but her mind was also working, running far outside Jenna’s shop. Why would Row make this thing, and in secret? What would he need a crown for?
Don’t be daft, her mind whispered. There’s only one answer to that question.
The door latch rattled. Katie nearly dropped the box, then hugged it to her chest. The knob turned, but the wedge she had stuck beneath the door held easily.
Someone knocked.
Silently, Katie set the box on the worktable and tiptoed toward the door, pulling her knife from its sheath. There was a chance that light would leak around the doorframe, but that was all right; Jenna could have left a lamp burning while she went home to dinner. Katie leaned against the door, putting her ear to the wood. She could hear nothing, but she sensed that the person had not gone away.
Is it you? she asked silently. Row always seemed to know every other damned thing; did he know that someone was in here, playing with his new toy?
Taking a good grip on her knife, she bent down and began to silently wiggle the wedge from beneath the door. Her heart was hammering, blurring her vision, and her palm oozed sweat around her knife.
How our bodies betray us, she thought ruefully. It was nothing like the practice ring. She got the wedge loose and stood up slowly, feeling one of her knees pop. She put a hand on the doorknob, meaning to throw the door open, but in the end she hesitated, unable to take the final step. If someone was standing there, what did she mean to do? Stab them? Could she really kill a person? What if it was Row? Could she kill him? She didn’t know, and for a long moment, she stood frozen, unable to move an inch.
The footsteps retreated, and then came the clomp of boots going down Jenna’s steps. Katie sagged against the door, her heart thudding in relief. She wiped a palm across her forehead and it came away wet. She waited a few more seconds, to see if they would come back, and then darted back to the worktable. She had stayed too long already; Row’s sermon would be ending soon. He might come back at any time.
Katie put the crown back into its box and slid the latch closed, then stared at the gleaming surface, her mind moving restlessly. It was only a crown, not a weapon; even if Row held secret dreams of being King of the Town—and he did; she knew he did—the crown would not help him achieve them. She could leave it here, put it back into its compartment, and no one would be the wiser. But something inside her cautioned against reading the crown at face value. Why was the thing so elaborate, set with so many sapphires? What did Row hope to achieve?
Stealing was one of the worst things someone could do, the antithesis of what the Town stood for, for there was no more unequivocal statement that something would not be given freely than the fact that one had to take it. Katie had never stolen anything in her life, and she sensed that the act would open a door inside her, a dark door not easily closed.
We thought Tear was perfect, but he wasn’t, she thought grimly, staring down at the polished surface of the box. He deserted us, right when we needed him the most. And if Tear’s words can’t be trusted, then who do we listen to?
Yourself.
The idea seemed dangerously heretical, even worse than stealing. But no other answers were forthcoming. Katie scooped up the box and slipped it under her loose sweater, where she tucked the end inside the waist of her pants and pulled the drawstring snug. Then she doused the lamp and crept outside. She kept a careful eye out for Row, but saw no one, and when she turned the corner of the next street, she wrapped her arm around the box and broke into a jog. She was still frightened, badly so, but she felt like laughing, and several peals escaped her as she disappeared into the woods, heading for the heart of town.
This year’s autumn festival looked just as always: streamers festooned the trees around the center of town, the many paths surrounding lit with paper lanterns. The artisans set up stalls in the square, displaying the wares for which they were willing to barter. But here, again, things were different. The cheer that usually marked this occasion was absent. Customers wandered between stalls, and the ale flowed freely, but everywhere there seemed to be knots of people, talking furtively and looking over their shoulders. The artisans, who usually brought tiny pieces of craftwork that they gave away to small children, now drove a hard bargain on everything.
Katie found that she was unable to relax. She seemed to h
ear whispering everywhere. She and Gavin and Virginia moved around the stalls, an instinctive triangle of which Jonathan was always the center, and she felt eyes upon them, eyes that moved the very instant she turned to look around. She felt as though she were steadily working down some sort of checklist for paranoia, but could not convince herself that it was all her imagination. People smiled at Jonathan, but all of the smiles seemed false.
Someone pressed a mug of ale into her hand, but Katie left it sitting on a table. Mum was there, watching, but that was only part of it. Katie sensed something building, hovering over them, almost like the static charge in the air before a vast storm came rolling out of the south. Everywhere she looked she saw bright eyes, glistening teeth, gleaming skin. She felt as though she had a fever. Music had started up now and people were dancing in a broad, cleared space in the center of the common, but the dancers looked wrong to Katie, as though they were trying too hard to force a jovial atmosphere, to cover up something rotten, ward off the Red Death.
“Katie!”
She jumped as someone grabbed her around the waist. Her hand was already going for the knife beneath her shirt when she realized it was only Brian Lord.
“Come have a dance with me, Katie!”
“No!” she replied, removing his hands. She felt as though everyone was staring at her, but when she turned, their eyes were somewhere else. Brian disappeared and she continued to move around the crowd, looking for a place to sit.
“Katie.”
She turned and found Row, standing behind her. His eyes flicked over Jonathan in quick assessment, seemed to dismiss him, then turned back to Katie.
“What do you want, Row?”
“A dance, what else?”
Katie snuck a look at Jonathan, but he and Gavin and Virginia had turned away to a nearby stall hung with leatherwork: boots and belts.
“He’s fine,” Row murmured into her ear. “He always was fine, Katie. He doesn’t need you. Why not have a moment for yourself? No one has to know.”
He tugged on her hand again, and Katie followed him, past Mrs. Harris’s gingerbread stall and into the trees behind. The trees closed in around them, and Katie felt a moment’s alarm—so much dark here!—before she remembered her knife. Row was trying to tug her deeper into the woods, but she halted, pulling free of his hand.
“What do you want?” she repeated.
“You stole something, Katie.”
“And what would that be?”
He put a hand on her waist, and she jumped.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied, trying to keep her thoughts veiled. She had buried the crown in the woods behind the town park, several feet beneath the roots of an old, dry oak. No one would ever find it unless they were looking for it, but Row had been able to peer inside her mind before. A twig snapped as he stepped closer, looming over her in the dark. She thought of that other night, so long ago, and a chill went down her spine. How had they gone from two children sneaking through the woods to this? Where had the rot sunk in? His hand was still on her waist, and Katie removed it, pushing his fingers away.
“Don’t play with me, Row. I’m not one of your church fools.”
“No, you’re not, but you have been conned. We all have, by Tear.”
“Not this again.”
“Think about it, Katie. Why keep everything such a secret? Why hide the past?” He grasped her arm, moving out of a patch of shadow, and Katie saw that his face was pale, his eyes wide and febrile, almost red in the moonlight. For a terrifying moment he reminded her of the thing she had seen in the woods that night, and she stumbled away, nearly falling against a nearby tree. But when she looked up, he was only Row again.
“I know why he hid the past, Katie. He didn’t want us to know that there was another way it could be. Each according to their gifts . . . the smart and hardworking rewarded, and the lazy and stupid punished.”
“That may play with your congregation, Row, but not with me. I don’t need to take your word for history. I read, Row. Your paradise is a nightmare.”
“Only for the weak, Katie,” Row replied, a smile in his voice. “The weak were pawns. But you and I could be anything.”
He pushed her up against one of the trunks, his hands groping roughly at her clothes, and Katie found that she didn’t want to stop him. She was drunk, but the culprit wasn’t alcohol. It was oblivion. She remembered that night, years ago, Row standing at her window, beckoning her out into the night world. She hadn’t known why she went then and didn’t know now . . . except perhaps that she wasn’t supposed to. Maybe it was just that. She didn’t love Row, thought she might even hate him, deep in some dark place where love and hate were closer than kin. But hate was its own aphrodisiac, vastly more powerful, and she hooked her fingers into claws and tore her way down Row’s back.
He shoved inside her and Katie came, not even expecting it. Bark dug into her back, but she didn’t mind; the pain seemed to fit everything else. Row was fucking her now, fucking her the way she’d read about in books, and the pleasure of it was so unbelievable that Katie jammed her palm across her mouth to keep from screaming. Only a hundred feet away, the festival went on, people talking and laughing. She tried to think of Jonathan, but he was far away, in the light-filled universe beyond the trees. Row’s mouth was on her neck, her breasts, biting at her nipples until she thought they must bleed, but the pain fed the thing inside her. Part of her wished that this could go on forever, that they would never have to go back to town, where they were only enemies now. She was working on her third orgasm when Row stiffened, shoved deep inside her and held for a long moment, then collapsed, panting, against her shoulder.
“It’s not too late, Katie,” he whispered. “We could be kings.”
She stared at him, feeling the break inside her seal back up, returning her to herself. She was twenty years old, Jonathan was nearly twenty-one, Row was twenty-two. She couldn’t make excuses for any of them anymore, including herself.
“Kings,” she repeated, pushing him off, wincing as he withdrew. “I notice you only made one crown, Row. Was it for me?”
“Katie—”
“Of course not. You’re not built to share, so don’t bullshit me. But this isn’t your town. It belongs to the Tears.”
Row laughed. Katie felt as though she were missing some vital piece of information. For perhaps the hundredth time, she wondered why William Tear hadn’t killed Row long ago. Surely he had seen this coming.
“I’m giving you a last chance, Katie. Come on board with me.”
“Or what?”
Row said nothing, but it didn’t matter, for a moment later a scream split the air. Katie whirled, but she could see nothing through the trees, only the glow of lights from the festival. Several more screams came in quick progression, echoing through the trees from the brightly lit common. Katie began to run, but it felt like moving through mud. Row giggled behind her, a cold sound, the sound that Katie imagined worms would make as they squirmed eagerly through the gap in a coffin. She caught sight of moving clothing through the trees as people ran from the festival, shrieking, and she pulled her knife as she ran, thinking that it didn’t matter any longer if people saw her with it, people should know that there was some force in this town beyond Row and his sorry band of sycophants, even if Jonathan paid for it later.
She came around the corner of Mrs. Harris’s tent and halted. The common was deserted, but bright lamplight illuminated the tents, their edges waving in the breeze, and the ground, a carpet of shattered crockery. She stared at the shards for a few moments before she understood: beer mugs, dropped in flight, their remains littering the cobbles. She looked to her right and felt her breath stop.
Two bodies lay together on the ground in the center of the common, the street beneath them soaked with blood. Katie crept closer, reached down, and turned one of the bodies over, jumping back with a low, horrified cry as she saw Virginia’s face, eyes w
ide and mouth slack. Her throat had been cut. A thin trickle of blood ran down her chin. Without thought, guided by a feeling of terrible inevitability, Katie reached out and turned over the second body.
It was Mum.
Katie’s first thought was to be grateful that Mum’s eyes were closed. There was blood on her neck and soaked into her shirt, but with her eyes closed, she looked oddly peaceful, the way Katie had always seen her in sleep. But Katie’s paralysis lasted only a moment before she stumbled away, clutching her arms around herself, her eyes wide and wounded, breath gasping from her throat.
Jonathan!
She stared wildly around, but she saw no sign of him, and none of Gavin either . . . Gavin, who had been on guard duty while Katie took a bit of rest and relaxation out in the woods. There was a tinkle of broken crockery behind her and Katie whirled around, certain that it was Row, coming for her. This was Row’s work, his people, and they couldn’t kill Mum and let Katie live, because she would kill them all—
But it wasn’t Row, only a fox, one of the tiny kits who lived in the woods, come to investigate the bonanza of leftover food on the ground.
Katie turned back to the two corpses before her, feeling oddly numb, almost analytical. Someone had knifed Virginia and Mum, but it hadn’t been Row. Who had it been? Virginia had been guarding Jonathan. She and Gavin . . . where was Gavin? No one could get past him with a knife. Katie stared around the common, feeling the pressure of eyes upon her. Row was still here somewhere, he must be. Out in the woods, perhaps, watching her, gloating over how easy it had been to distract her, to get her out of the way, make her a fool . . .