“Do you miss it just being the two of us?” she asked.
Wren shrugged and then waggled his head back and forth from shoulder to shoulder slightly, a gesture that Cass had learned to interpret as “kinda”.
“I know I’ve been away a lot lately,” she said. “There’s just been a lot going on. But I’ll try to make more time for us, if you’d like that.”
Wren nodded. But there was more to it than that. Not that it looked like he was going to offer.
“Have you been enjoying your time with Able and Swoop and everyone?” Cass asked.
“I guess so.”
“Just guess so?”
Wren shrugged. “They’re all really nice.” His tone didn’t carry any enthusiasm.
“But they’re not Three.”
Wren shook his head.
“I miss him too,” she said. “Every day.”
“Mama, do you think we could go away?” Wren asked, looking up at her. She must’ve looked surprised by the question, because he quickly added, “Just for a little while, I mean.”
“Hmm, I don’t know, baby,” Cass answered. “I don’t think people would like it too much if their governor disappeared all of a sudden.” She’d meant to make the statement light, but from Wren’s reaction she realized she’d said exactly the wrong thing. Cass tried to recover, to keep him from shutting down on her completely. “But who knows? I guess if you’re in charge you can do what you want. Where would you like to go?”
Wren shrugged again. Cass tried to think of a place to suggest, but found she couldn’t come up with one that didn’t have some painful memory attached to it. She needed something, though, to keep him talking.
“Greenstone?” she said, and then held her breath. They hadn’t been back since their narrow escape from that wild and dangerous city. But for all the threats they had faced, the little time they’d spent there had also offered them a greatly unexpected refuge and, for one precious moment, almost a sense of home.
Wren did his little head wag again.
“Greenstone would be nice,” he said, finally. “Or Chapel’s, maybe.” Chapel’s village without walls, just on the edge of the Strand. It sounded like an imaginary place, a fairytale for children in a world of fortified cities and urban wasteland. But Chapel and his people had taken Wren in for a time, and Cass knew as dreamlike as it sounded, it did exist out there, somewhere, on the Strand’s fringe.
She said, “I’d really like to see that someday.”
“I think you will.”
They were just passing the north-eastern gate, and Cass hadn’t really thought much about it until Wren stopped walking. She continued on a few steps before turning back. He was just looking off through the gate.
“Wren? You OK?”
“I’m not who they think I am, Mama,” he said quietly. And his words held such weight that she knew this, at last, had been what he’d been building up to say.
“Who, baby?”
“Any of them.” He looked so small to sound so weary. Cass returned to her son and crouched in front of him. She lifted her veil and took his face in her hands. His cheeks were cool from the morning air.
“Listen to me,” she said. “Last night wasn’t about anything that you did, or anything you could’ve done. And you never have to try to be anything that you aren’t.”
Without taking his eyes from hers, Wren said, “I do, Mama. I do have to try. Every day.”
He said it with such quiet authority, Cass couldn’t think of anything to say. Her hands slid off his face, down to his shoulders.
Wren looked off towards the gate. “All those people,” he said. “It doesn’t work like that.”
It took a moment before Cass understood. She followed his gaze, and the pieces came together. Though it was technically still an entryway, the north-eastern gate was hardly ever used to actually enter or exit the compound. Soon after Wren had Awakened the first of the Weir, word had spread through the city with surprising speed. And then the memorials had started showing up. Wreaths, ever-burning vigil lights, personal belongings… offerings, really. It wasn’t a gate anymore. It was a shrine. To her son.
And then, worst of all, the pictures began appearing. Just one or two, at first. Then each day brought a few more. Now there were dozens and dozens of pictures of people who had disappeared. The taken. And with every one hung a silent, permanent plea for Wren to find them and bring them back.
Cass just pulled him to her then and held him tightly. In that moment she wasn’t sure if she was giving comfort or taking it, but Wren didn’t try to resist. She knew it was hard on him, of course. To be ruling a city at such a young age. Cass had tried to insulate him as much as possible. But their choices had been so few; after what had happened they could never have stayed within Morningside as normal citizens. And at the time the idea of leaving again, of having nowhere to go and to be always on the run, had been too much for either of them to bear. In the end it had seemed the only real choice, to stay and let her child be revered as governor. Maybe worshiped. Now, feeling his tiny frame in her arms, she wondered that she could have ever been such a fool.
Cass had hoped, and maybe even let herself believe, that with her as his primary advisor and with the help of the Council members, that the burden wouldn’t be too much for Wren to bear. Of course it was too much to bear. Of course it was too much to ask. And the pressures of governing were only made worse by the guilt he must have felt, knowing all those people were counting on him, believing he could rescue their missing and deliver them safely back home.
It hardly seemed fair, after all they had been through: the flight from RushRuin, the cold nights of hunger, the utter terror of the Weir, the heavy losses. To have come so far, to have escaped all of that, only to find themselves surrounded by everything they could ever need or want — and discover it was just a different kind of prison. Tears brimmed in her eyes, but she blinked them quickly away.
“Tell you what,” Cass said. “What if you didn’t come to Council today?”
“I have to. I’m the governor.”
Cass rocked back so she could look at her son. “You’re the governor. You don’t have to.”
He smiled a little at that. Wren said, “But I should go.”
“I’ll tell them you needed some time off. After last night, no one would blame you.”
“Uncle Aron might.”
“Uncle Aron is a grouchy old man. If you came, he’d probably fuss at you for being there.” She felt his slight shoulders relax under her hands and knew that skipping the meeting was the right thing. Yet another thing that had been weighing on him. He was just too concerned with what he felt was his duty to have said anything about it. “I’m pulling rank. As your mother, I demand that you not come. So that’s that.”
“I don’t think it’s like that anymore, Mama.”
Cass was surprised by how much those words cut her. Not because Wren had intended any hurt; he’d just said it as if it were fact. Perhaps she feared it was.
“It is today,” she said, standing back up as she did.
“Well,” Wren said. “If you think it’ll be OK.”
“I’ll take the heat if there is any. But I’m sure everyone will understand.”
“OK, then. Is it alright if I stay here? Just for a little while longer?”
Cass was still weighing the options when someone called through the gate.
“Mister Governor!”
They both looked over to see a couple of teenagers peering through the bars.
“Hey, Painter!” Wren called back. He looked up at Cass, and she nodded, and together they walked over to the gate. The daylight made it hard for her to identify the two from a distance, but as they approached, Cass recognized the other teen as a kid everyone just called Luck. He was the more stylish of the two, always quick with a smile — and had a seriously dry wit. Luck was sporting a pair of dark glasses.