Lu saw it through new eyes. Outlaws—or Mechts with no other options? This area looked as poor as Port Mesi-Teab, but it was harder to milk empathy from this situation when a raider threw her over his shoulder and hauled her off the boat.
Pilkvist disembarked and led his group into the main structure. The raider who had Lu slung over his shoulder had to balance her to climb the ladder. Remarkably, it didn’t break, and neither did the bungalow as they entered and the raider deposited Lu on the floor.
Furs draped from the ceiling. Carvings of animals decorated the furniture; one piece in particular, a massive oak chair, had an intricate relief of a white bear on the back, its jaw spread and its lips curled in a vicious, hungry snarl. A table held steins and platters of shredded meat and fish. All links to the Mechtlands, a country these people had long since left or never even seen.
Pilkvist dropped into a chair at the table. One of the half dozen raiders who had accompanied him burst forward and grabbed a carafe and stein, pouring a shaky amber stream of ale before backing away like a browbeaten servant.
Lu propped herself up, her leg stretched before her, blood leaking through the bandage. Sweat soaked her clothes, her hair sticking to her neck and face as she fought to subdue her labored breaths.
Pilkvist took a sip. “We got news that a lady had run off with Devereux Bell. First I thought it was a con of his, but now that I see you—” He made a great show of taking her in, which intensified Lu’s glare. “Yes,” Pilkvist said with a smirk. “He’ll come for you.”
His eyes fell to her leg, and he snapped something in another language—the Mechtlands had almost as many languages as they did clans. The raider who poured his ale made for a chest in the corner, his arms shaking.
He withdrew a vial of orange paste and tossed it into Lu’s lap. Healica.
“Can’t have you dying before he comes.” Pilkvist stood, straightening his vest. “Now, it’d make this a lot easier if you—”
He cocked his head. It took Lu a beat longer to hear the squeal of ladder rungs.
Then, a knock on the door.
Pilkvist lifted an eyebrow at Lu as he waved to one of his men to answer. “It would appear someone followed us. Good work, child.”
But when the door opened, it was not Vex, as both Pilkvist and Lu had expected.
Cansu strode into the room as though this were her own syndicate. Three of her raiders trailed her, every limb strapped with weapons.
The anticipatory joy on Pilkvist’s face disappeared. Lu kept her own face expressionless.
Cansu. Not Vex?
And why had Lu assumed, for that breath between the pause and the knock, that Vex had come for her?
“Pilkvist,” Cansu said, her grip on two pistols tucked into her waistband.
Pilkvist faced her, not bothering to return her unspoken threat. The machete as long as his thigh said enough, its handle glinting bronze at his waist. “Don’t tell me you’re here for her.” He nodded at Lu. “When did the Tuncian syndicate start giving a shit about an unaligned crew? This isn’t your business, Darzi. Get the hell out of my territory.”
“I’m not here for the girl. I’m here about that Argridian you got stowed away.”
Lu shot Cansu a tight frown. But Cansu wouldn’t look at her, and Lu couldn’t tell if it was so Cansu wouldn’t give something away or because she truly had come to discuss Milo.
An uneasy feeling gnawed at Lu the longer Cansu stood there, her raiders eyeing the Mecht raiders, the whole room taut with pressure.
Pilkvist bellowed a laugh. “An Argridian? Here? You’re out of your damn mind.”
“I’m not the one whose entire syndicate is strung out on their own product half the time. So, no, I’m not out of my mind.”
Pilkvist’s pale face went red, his lips wrinkling. But Cansu kept talking, pacing around the room with ease. She lifted a stein, examining the carvings.
“I should thank you,” she said, thumb running over the metal rim of the cup. “Someone needed to send a message to the Council. It’s about time we reminded them who helped them get the power they’ve been abusing. If not for us, Argrid would have kept control of the revolutionaries’ headquarters, and the war would’ve ended quite differently.”
Pilkvist hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. “Well, we may’ve had our differences in the past, Darzi, but yer finally starting to sound all right.”
Cansu set down the stein. “So you did take the Argridian?”
Pilkvist smiled. Lu didn’t let herself breathe.
Cansu returned his smile with a harsh one. “You planning on attacking? I want in.”
“Attack?” Pilkvist chuckled. “I’m not getting my hands that dirty. My job’s done. Now I get to sit back and watch the Council collapse and reap the rewards.”
Cansu’s facade faltered, a ripple on the surface of a lake. “What?”
“I got someone else doing the hard work. Someone who wants the Council gone as much as we do. Give it about a week, Darzi. Maybe two. You’ll see.”
All the blood in Lu’s head drained out, making her teeter, dizzy.
Pilkvist couldn’t mean—he didn’t mean—
Was Argrid coming?
Cansu blanched. “I’ve been hearing of Council soldiers all over this island, arresting my people and your people because you’re taking orders from someone else—”
“You got no right judging me.” Pilkvist cut her off. For the first time, he looked sincere. “Nothing’s wrong in Tuncay, so when people come here, they aren’t running from anything. But the Mechtlands? My whole syndicate is made up of people who came to escape death. When Grace Loray’s revolution ended, we thought it’d mean freedom. Little did we know that freedom was only for certain folks on this island. I’m tired of Mechts getting treated like mindless barbarians. I’m tired of the Council stripping away my ability to help my own people. Argrid gave me the means to change things. You bet your self-righteous ass I’m gonna.”
“Argrid,” Cansu spat the name. “You’re in bed with them now? And they’re coming here? What the hell have you gotten yourself—”
“They’ve changed,” Pilkvist said. “Argrid knows what they did wasn’t right. They even agreed to change New Deza back to Port Visjorn. And they promised to—”
He kept talking. Saying things that made Lu’s heart fracture.
Pilkvist had, in a way, done this to shake awareness into the Council after all. Lu had known of the clan wars in the Mechtlands, but had always written them off as the natural state of things—but it wasn’t natural. The Council should have analyzed it more closely, like everything they dismissed because they didn’t see immigrants or raiders as people. No one saw them as Grace Lorayan.
Now Argrid had taken advantage of the disunity on Grace Loray. They wanted the Council at odds with their only possible allies—the raiders—so Argrid could finish the cleansing they’d started decades ago.
Argrid’s attack was coming. In—what had Pilkvist said?—one week, two at most.
Lu looked at Cansu, who stared sadly back at her. In that sadness Lu saw her realize that the uprising she had wanted was becoming infinitely more complex.
“Pilkvist,” Lu said. She snapped her eyes from Cansu to the Mecht raider Head, who gave her a startled look as though he had forgotten Lu was here. “Argrid spent decades trying to cleanse this island of people like you. What makes you think they’ll give you anything now? Are they really a better ally than the Council?”
Once, she might’ve posed the question as an attack. Now she wanted an answer that would help her understand why he had chosen this route.
But she knew. The Council had promised fairness and equality but delivered threats and blame. Argrid had killed raiders, but they had never made promises. Now that they had—who would Lu have trusted? Someone who had already proven to be a liar, or someone who claimed to have learned from their past mistakes?
Pilkvist ignored her with a wave of his hand, and Lu knew she deserved the
dismissal. “Take her to a cell. We have Vex to clean up.” He turned to Cansu. “You don’t know where he is, do you?”
Lu snatched the vial of Healica before hands lifted her. She buckled, biting back a whimper, and Cansu’s eyes met hers once more.
“Haven’t seen Bell in weeks,” Cansu said.
What? Lu kept the confusion off her face as raiders forced her to the back of the room.
Down a short hall, the Mecht raiders took her to a room full of crude iron bars that formed four narrow pens. A prisoner sat in the cell across from the one where the raiders tossed Lu, a patched cloak draped around their body. Even during the revolution, Milo had worn the attire of his station: bruised and beaten, holding a dented scabbard, he’d donned tattered silken shirts and fine breeches. Whoever that was could not be Milo.
But he wouldn’t be in a cell, would he? He wasn’t a prisoner. Who even knew where he was now? The Mechts likely had any number of places to hide him, or he could have been gone too, on his way back to Argrid.
Though if war was coming for Grace Loray, Milo would stay to see it through.
The raiders holding Lu confirmed that the other prisoner was not Milo. “Who’s that?” one asked.
Another gave an uncertain grunt. “Must’ve caught some idiot try’na poach in our territory.”
“Dumbass.” The first raider laughed and they left, closing the main door behind them.
Lu lost her feeble grip on self-control. Sweat broke out down her spine, made her palms slick, but she forbade herself to think about all that had happened. She dropped to the floor and opened the Healica, removing her bandage to scrub the cream into her wounds. Each touch burned, but Lu forced the medicinal magic in, a silent scream parting her lips.
When she finished, the worst of her wounds mended under the Healica. Another application of the plant, and her injuries would be gone.
“Poor dear,” the other prisoner croaked. “Did he hurt you?”
An old woman, by the wear in her voice, and that made Lu hate Pilkvist more.
Lu coiled her fingers around the bars. “I’m fine now. Are you?” She held up the Healica.
The woman shook her head, cloak rippling.
“Thank you, dear,” she cooed. “But the last time you offered me medicine, you said it might be poisoned, so forgive me for not trusting you.”
Lu stared. “Vex?”
22
IT’D BEEN EASY to slip into Pilkvist’s prison while Cansu kept them distracted. The high of the con made Vex giddy—and unprepared for his reaction when he saw Lu get tossed into the cell across from him.
Relief socked him in the stomach so hard he couldn’t breathe. He might’ve hugged her, but two sets of cell bars stopped him from making an ass of himself.
When she figured out who he was, Vex threw back the hood of his cloak with a roguish grin.
“Surprised, dear?” he asked in a parody of an old crone.
Lu used the bars to climb to her feet. “How—” Realization dawned. “Cansu. I thought—”
“That she’d come to ally with Pilkvist?” Vex stood. “She did. Or might have, if Pilkvist wasn’t in cahoots with Argrid. But I’m guessing by the greenish tint to your face that either this turned out to be an Argridian plot or they gave you some bad river-snake jerky.”
Lu didn’t react to any of that. “Where is Teo?”
“With some of Cansu’s raiders on the Meander.”
She pushed all emotion off her face, as if showing it might give him some leverage over her. “What’s the plan?”
Vex tugged on the bars. “I don’t suppose you have Sweet Peat handy?”
Lu gave him a stare so furious that he didn’t have to look at her to feel it.
“You don’t have an escape plan? Cansu will leave us here?”
Vex drew his shoulders back. “Hey, I made Cansu tear off into the night the moment she told us what’d happened. I was only supposed to make sure you weren’t dead. And you aren’t. So I succeeded. The rescue party should be showing up soon.”
“Why would you have cared if I was dead? Oh yes—you wouldn’t get those elixirs I promised. But I think you have more at risk than what you have led me to believe.”
Vex narrowed his eye at her. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Your voice.” He pointed at Lu’s head. “It gets formal. Usually when you’re trying to intimidate me.”
“The bigger issue at hand is that I heard you talking with Nayeli.”
“Ahh.” Vex nodded to cover his wince. “I figured.”
“You lied to me.” Lu pressed as close to the bars as she could. Two paces separated their cells, and Vex was glad for that cushion of safety. “You led me to believe you had nothing to do with Ibarra’s disappearance—”
“We’re back to Ibarra now, are we? What is your relationship with him?”
“—when you had connections to Argrid all along!” Lu deflated. “I expected you to turn on me. You’re a raider. But I was a fool, because I thought even a raider would not endanger a child. Teo worships you, and if for no other reason than that, you should have told me—”
Now Vex was the one to press against his cell’s bars. “I’m getting tired of you accusing me of endangering that kid. I’ve done nothing but keep him safe since we started this misguided romp, while you’re the one who left him alone as you were trying to run away. Cansu was certain you were going to sic the Council on us . . . until you refused to tell the Mechts where I was. Which I find confusing—someone who hates me as much as you claim to wouldn’t protect me like that.”
“I wasn’t protecting you—I was protecting the Tuncians! You’ve been—”
Voices carried from the hall, drawing closer.
“This isn’t over,” Lu hissed.
Vex hefted his cloak back up and slumped into the wall. But he smiled, stupidly.
If the Mechts had tortured Lu, there was no way she’d tear into him with her usual level of passion. She was fine. Well, she was fantastically pissed at him, but fine.
The door opened. Two people stumbled in, shoved forward by Pilkvist’s men. Vex kept as still as possible until the raiders locked the new prisoners in the remaining two cells and left.
“Your plan was to get Nayeli and Edda captured too?” Lu asked. “Brilliant. How long until Pilkvist realizes it isn’t a coincidence that he was able to collect your whole crew?”
Vex threw off the cloak again. “Look, I understand you’re upset. I’ve been lying to you. But I swear on whatever you hold most holy that I am not, despite your low opinion of me, acting out of selfishness. And I’ll explain it—but goddamn it, can we get out of this hellhole first? It smells like a crocodile’s ass in here.”
“Gladly.”
Both Lu and Vex faced the cell where Nayeli stood, smiling.
“Lu!” she exclaimed. “You’re not dead!”
Nayeli crouched, prying at the laces of her boots. “They check your shoes, if they’re smart, for hatches and whatnot—but they never check the laces.”
She unraveled the first one, revealing the long stalk of a plant wrapped around the lace.
“You hid explosive Hemlight in your shoes?” Lu balked.
“Of course.”
Vex braced for Lu to tell her how stupid that was. But she laughed.
“You’re mad,” Lu gasped.
Nayeli winked at her. “You stood up to Cansu. And I’ve done riskier things for dumber reasons.”
When she finished unraveling the laces, eight strands of Hemlight lay on the floor of her cell.
“Edda?” Vex asked.
“On it.” Edda reached into one of her pockets and came up with a key ring. “Lifted it off the raiders as they were leaving.”
Edda pushed out of her cell and let out Nayeli, who went to the door, testing the handle as Edda freed Vex and Lu.
Vex swept out of his cell, arms spread. “What’d I tell you? A rescue—”
Lu punched him in
the stomach. Vex doubled over, a cough breaking apart the curse he managed to squeak out. He cradled his gut and squinted up at Edda for help.
But Edda shrugged. “You deserved that.”
Muscle by muscle, Vex managed to stand upright. “This feels familiar,” he panted.
“At least it wasn’t your nose this time,” Lu said.
“Fair point.”
Nayeli looked over her shoulder. “There’s no lock on this side. We’ll have to blow it.”
Vex’s eye went to Lu, who was testing her injured leg. The Healica had worked wonders, but she’d still be weak from wounds that deep.
“Follow us,” Edda told her. “If you can’t make it, we’ll carry you.”
Lu’s grimace revealed that she was less than thrilled with that idea. But Nayeli batted everyone back, took aim, and launched Hemlight at the door. An explosion ruptured the wood, sending smoke and splinters into the air.
Lu lifted her arm to shield her eyes. The dust hadn’t yet settled when Nayeli ripped open the door and ran out, wavering for a beat as the others scrambled after her.
Four closed doors lined the hall. Left would lead them to the main front chamber; to the right, the hall ended in a door with vines snaking under the threshold.
Lu started for that one, but Nayeli held her back.
“They’ll expect us to take the quickest route outside,” she said as the door that led to the main room rattled, voices rising from the other side.
“Hey!” one of the raiders shouted. “The keys are missin’!”
Edda huffed a laugh and shoved open the door to a room across from the prison cells. The rest of them slipped inside and shut the door as raiders kicked into the hallway.
The new room was dark, a lone window showing the dismal swamp beyond. Boxes were stacked along the walls and a table filled the center. Edda pressed her ear to the door’s seam while Nayeli recounted their escape options, but Lu hobbled away, her eyes on a mortar and pestle on the table. Next to it sat a bell jar like the one she’d used to capture the Drooping Fern smoke, along with a cup holding scalpels and knives. At the back of the room, more boxes sat open, revealing plants like she had seen on the steamboat: Drooping Fern, Healica, Variegated Holly, Alova Pipe, and—