“You’re too soft, cousin. If you were their prisoner, she’d never spare your life.”

“I know.” Even now, the words stab at my heart. We’re both thinking of Orla. “But if we kill her, that’s it for the ceasefire. They’ll come for us like they never have before, and we wouldn’t survive that kind of assault.”

“You wouldn’t make that argument with McBride, I bet.”

“Tell McBride he’s not strong enough to beat someone in a fight, first thing he does is find a way to justify punching them in the face.” I kick at a loose pebble, hearing it ricochet off the opposite wall of the cave. “He’d find a way to make it about me and how I’m afraid to fight.”

Sean hesitates. “You could lead us,” he says finally. “If it came to a fight. You could—”

I don’t find out what he might have said next. Fergal’s voice echoes down the corridor. “Uncle Sean, I need you to tuck me in.” He must have followed us.

Sean curses, leaping to his feet and leaving the cave and its unconscious occupant. “I don’t want him or the other kids to know about this,” he mutters. “You want to keep it hidden, fine. Just don’t let anyone find her, because then it’s going to get noisy.”

Though unspoken, I recognize what he’s saying: he’ll trust me. For now. “Sean—thanks.” We share a beat of silence, and then Sean heads back up the passageway to collect Fergal.

I retrieve the lantern, hoping darkness will make it harder for the trodaire to work out an escape when she wakes, and hurry away before anyone realizes we’re down here. The relief at having Sean’s support is short-lived; I know it won’t last. One of these days even Sean will run out of patience. Already I feel us drifting, sense it in the silences between us. But whenever that day’s coming, it’s not today. For now, I know he’ll follow me, because I asked him to.

I just wish I knew where I was leading him.

The girl is under the counter in her mother’s store, her reading punctuated at random intervals by the door chime as customers come and go. She’s reading about deep-sea divers in an ancient submarine. There are no oceans on Verona, but the girl is going to grow up and be an explorer.

“Jubilee,” the girl’s mother calls. “Where are you? Come help me, we’re going to make dumplings to sell.”

The girl holds her breath. Sea monsters are more exciting than dumplings, especially since the dumplings are always accompanied by a lecture about preserving her heritage. Maybe her mother won’t look for her here.

“Relax, Mei.” That’s her father; she didn’t know he’d come home. “She’ll come around. As I recall, you spent our whole first date complaining that your dad was making you learn calligraphy. Let her just be a kid—there’s plenty of time.”

The girl shuts her eyes. No—this is all wrong. Wake up…wake UP.

I KNOW BEFORE I OPEN my eyes that I’m in trouble. I can smell mildew and decay, and I’m so cold I could cry. It’s pitch-black, wherever I am, and the surface underneath me is hard and damp. Stone. I’m half propped up on my knees, but when I try to sit up I go crashing toward the ground. My arms nearly jerk out of their sockets and I’m caught a few inches away from hitting the floor. Pain lances through my shoulders, making my eyes water. My gasp echoes aloud in the room, rattling through my parched throat.

My wrists are bound together behind my back. I follow the rope with my fingers to find it tied through a metal post drilled into the rough-hewn floor. The rope is short enough and tied high enough that I can’t lie down without it pulling my arms painfully upward. I can’t stand, can’t even sit properly. Whoever did this knows exactly how uncomfortable this must be.

The memory of a pretty face flashes in front of my eyes. Romeo. After that entire ill-fated journey through the swamp, I still don’t know the bastard’s name. And I’m probably not likely to, at this rate. Somewhere out there is a rebel with a limp, probably getting two inches of hot-pink plastic pulled out of his thigh as we speak. Either they’ve left me here to die on my own of dehydration, or they’re going to try to get information or resources out of the military in exchange for my life.

But we don’t make deals with rebels. And that means I’m going to die. I can’t help but think of my platoon, and how they’ll manage without me. I know each of them like I know myself. I watch them every day, I keep track of their dreams, I monitor how each of them is coping, living this close to the ragged edge. This close to the Fury. I can tell when one of them is about to snap, when they’re done here and need reassignment off Avon before they hurt someone. Who will watch over them when I’m dead?

In the darkness, my mind conjures up the image of what I saw out in the swamp. A flash of what Romeo claimed he saw: a facility where there shouldn’t be one, high fences and spotlights and guards. It’s impossible for something to be there one moment and gone the next—far more likely I was hallucinating, experiencing some early side effect of whatever drug Romeo used to knock me out.

Though that doesn’t explain the thing I found, the thing in my boot that I can’t get to now, with my hands tied.

I twist a little until I can get the sole of one of my boots against the post embedded in the floor. Wrapping my hands around the rope to take the pressure off my wrist joints, I pull as hard as I can, straining and trying to feel for the slightest give in the rope.

No dice. It was a long shot anyway.

I let go, taking a few seconds to find my breath again. I can sense no trace of whatever drug he used to knock me out on that island. The whispering sound is gone, and except for a few cold-induced tremors, my body’s under control again. No more shaking. No more metallic taste in my mouth.

If the ropes won’t give, maybe the stone will. They’re not exactly high-tech out here—maybe the hole they drilled isn’t perfect. I brace myself the best I can without any slack in the rope and kick back, pounding at the stake with the sole of my boot.

Nothing.

I stay there, panting, grimacing at the floor. I’ll have to wait until they move me. Which they’ll have to do eventually, no matter what. They could just shoot me here, but it’s much easier to move a body by making it get up and walk somewhere than it is to carry it.

Then again, one of them was wandering around asking questions in a military bar like it was a good idea. They’re not exactly the smartest rebels ever.