Even while everything else in him was screaming to turn around and go back.
Cass woke with a start and sat up, gasping for breath, heart hammering in her chest. She had no idea what had woken her. A dream maybe, though she couldn’t remember it. It took her a moment to recognize her surroundings and get her bearings. Once she did, though, she settled onto her back and tried to gather herself. She took a deep breath and let her shoulders relax and waited for her head to clear.
Everything felt just a little off. Soft around the edges. Blurred. Her vision, her thoughts, even her movement. Whatever Mouse had dosed her with had had plenty of time to clear. Maybe her injuries had been worse than Cass had initially thought.
A sudden paranoid thought leapt to her mind. What if that was how it began? What if Asher was already at work, trying to gain control over her? Regain control. He’d had it once. Would that make it easier for him to do again? She shuddered at the thought.
No. Her mind was her own. It was true that Asher had once directed her, when she had been enslaved by the Weir. But Wren had freed her. That connection had surely been severed. She closed her eyes for a few moments, steadied herself.
Lil had graciously offered to let them stay at the refuge as long as they cared to, though she’d made no comment as to how much longer her own people were planning to stay.
Cass had decided they’d remain until Mouse was satisfied with Wick’s condition. Hopefully that would give them enough time to figure out their next move. There was little doubt they would have to confront the situation in Morningside at some point. But she didn’t want to walk blindly back into it.
When the news had first come of their exile, it had seemed earth-shattering. Now, in light of their uncovering of Asher, it was by comparison a petty distraction. A squabble in the face of doom. But Cass knew Asher far too well to pretend that Morningside would be safe from his vengeance. It had been the place of his destruction. He would bend all of his will to see pain revisited upon its populace, whether she and Wren were there or not.
Cass opened her eyes and then, with a deep breath, eased herself up to a sitting position and dropped her legs over the edge of the bed. The concrete was cold under her bare feet. She rolled her neck around, tested her shoulder. Every muscle felt tight. She’d probably spent more time in bed in the past two days than she had in the weeks previous.
The room was still gloomy in the weak morning light, though the sun had been up for a good couple of hours by that point. Cass got up and dressed. Might as well go see what everyone else was up to.
She opened the door and, just as she was about to pass through, something made her stop. She glanced down at the spot where Wren’s pack had been earlier that morning, before he’d taken it. There’d been something else there with it. Something Cass hadn’t paid attention to before, something that now seemed important.
His coat.
Cass glanced around the room quickly, at his bed, under it, on the table in the corner. There was no sign of anything of Wren’s. And her heart skipped.
“Wren,” she pimmed. Waited for a response. Tried again. “Wren!” Seconds ticked by. Plenty of time for a reply, if one was coming.
“Gamble,” Cass called as she stepped into the hall. “Gamble!”
A few moments later a door opened behind her, and Mouse poked his head out into the hall.
“Hey, Cass,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“Have you seen Wren?”
“Not this morning, no.”
“Where’s Gamble?”
Mouse shook his head and shrugged. “Something wrong?”
“Wren’s gone.” A flood of emotion hit her, as if her words had transformed it from suspicion to certainty.
“What do you mean gone?”
“I mean, gone, Mouse. He left.” Cass crossed the hall and knocked loudly on Painter’s closed door.
“I’m sure he’s around here somewhere…” Mouse said, coming out into the hall.
“Painter, you in there?” Cass said through the door. She didn’t really wait for a response before she threw it open. The room was empty. Even the bed was made.
“Gamble, this is Mouse. You got a sec?”
Cass’s mind started putting little pieces together that confirmed her fears. His comment the night before about how Wren might not see her much because he was going to spend some time with Elan’s son, Ephraim. The long hug he’d given her when he’d woken her this morning. The conversation she’d interrupted between him and Wick, discussing their current location relative to other places. She raced through the scenarios. Knowing Wren, knowing the situation… Cass left Painter’s room and went to Wick’s, swung the door open. He was still lying propped up on a pile of pillows, and his eyes sprang open when Cass came in.
“Did you plot a route to Morningside out for my son?” Cass asked. It sounded angrier coming out than she’d meant for it to, but given the circumstances, she didn’t really care.
Wick blinked back at her. “Do what now?”
“Did you give Wren a route to Morningside?”
He shook his head, confusion clear on his face. “No, of course not. Why? What’s going on?”
Cass couldn’t decide if that should be a relief or not. If he wasn’t headed to Morningside, that was better than she’d feared, but it also meant she had no idea where he might be going.
“She thinks Wren might’ve left,” Mouse said from the doorway.
“He’s with Swoop,” came Gamble’s voice from outside, somewhere down the hall.
“Well, he was asking about where we were…” Wick trailed off as he thought it through. “No, wait.” He looked up at Cass with sudden concern. “I thought he was just making conversation, keeping me company.”
“And what?” Cass asked.
“I did tell him the fastest way. Over the Windspan.”
Cass moved back towards the hall and found Gamble standing there with Sky and Finn. Mouse hovered nearby.
“Where’s Swoop?” Cass asked.
“I just talked to him a little bit ago,” Gamble said. “Wren’s with him and he’s fine. Painter’s with him too.”
“Where, Gamble?”
Gamble held up her hand as if to calm Cass, and Cass knew then without a doubt that Wren was making his way back to Morningside. It seemed to Cass that Gamble and her team were ringing her in on purpose.
“They left early this morning,” Gamble said. “Wren thinks there’s something he can do to stop Asher. Something with Underdown’s machine.”
That was a twofold blow. Not only was he returning to the city without her, he was going back to the governor’s compound, back to the very heart of all the madness in the city. All to confront his brother, no less.
“And you let him go?” Cass asked.
“We didn’t have a choice, Cass. By the time Swoop called it in, they were already miles out.”
“You should’ve woken me!”
Gamble shook her head. “There was no reason to.”
“No reason? I’m his mother! I would never have let him go!”
“Exactly. But he had to.”
“That’s not your decision to make!”
“It’s not yours either,” Gamble answered, with force. Her voice was becoming harder, more direct, but no louder.
“He’s just a boy!”
“No, Cass, he’s not. He’s the Governor. Like it or not, you don’t get to ignore his authority just because you’re his mother.” The words stung.