Between the height and the recessed niche, she was out of sight while still having a view of the ground below. Carefully, she allowed herself to glance down. Gardens and herb nurseries used to cover this part of the palace grounds, but right now it was deserted, mud and grass and little else. The storms and floods must’ve hit hard.
Beyond the grounds lay the forest, yellow and red, and beyond that, the dunes and the Gray Sea. On the horizon was a sliver of land. She’d forgotten which island lay so close. Inland, she saw the thin line of the Beedde River and damaged dikes on each side, and more dunes in the distance, and she thought of Cilla—the way she’d shown Amara diggers, the smile on her face so hopeful the memory hurt. The fennel taste of her tongue. Those scratches down her chest, her marred tattoo, and her dark, dead eyes.
Amara couldn’t abandon her in that cell, not even knowing her own name. She’d already been desperate enough to hurt herself once.
But Amara didn’t know how to free her, and until Nolan came back, she wasn’t in a position to try. As she waited, pain dripped steadily back in. Her energy faded, the heat in her veins cooling. Below, she saw two marshals pass, scanning the grounds and the perimeter wall. They didn’t notice her. One marshal took a trained wolf into the forest. There had to be enough of Amara’s blood left in Cilla’s cell for it to have her scent; maybe the wind battering her into the wall was the only thing that kept the wolf from smelling her now.
She shivered in the cold. The air smelled of ocean and forest and old, moist stone. A bug crawled up her leg. She shook her foot to get rid of it, and her teeth clanged together from pain.
Nolan didn’t take long to return. For the first time, she welcomed him. She exhaled slowly as Nolan unclotted her bruises, smoothed over the swellings, sewed up her skin. She let it happen and brought him up to speed.
I’m going to jump, Amara thought. The trees are close enough to make a run for it. No one’s expecting me to leave on this side, but if we wait too long, they’ll have marshals all around the perimeter.
The moment I’m healed from the jump, you need to leave. I don’t think Ruudde has a ward around the palace, but if he does, it’ll react to you. Tell me you heard this. I have to know if—
Her head nodded of its own volition.
A second later, her body was her own again. Thank you, she thought—finally, quietly—and jumped.
35
The second Nolan returned home from the pool, he retreated to his room and paced, swinging back and forth on his crutches. He rarely used his crutches inside, but he had to keep moving, and pacing didn’t work as well when you had to hop.
Amara was running. And if she hadn’t been able to reach Bedam safely even with long hair, intact clothes, and Cilla’s help, there was no chance at all she could flee it without any of those things.
But Nolan had thought there was no chance of her escaping in the first place. He wasn’t sure which surprised him more: that she’d done it or that she’d succeeded.
His door opened. Pat stood in the entrance. He should probably make some kind of irritated comment about her knocking, but—
“So,” she said without preamble. “This is where you live. I still don’t see the appeal.”
Her voice was Pat’s, and so was her body. The resemblance ended there. She stood too upright, with her legs spread too wide. He didn’t recognize the look in her eyes. Her voice sounded different, flatter, with none of Pat’s posturing. The accent didn’t fit. He couldn’t place it. Something between Pat and … something else.
She wasn’t acting. This wasn’t his sister.
Nolan sat on his bed. His crutches clattered to the ground.
Pat—Ruudde—went on. “You really are just a kid, aren’t you? Look, I know it’s hard to leave your life behind. I’ve been there. Your name, your family, gone. But you’ve seen what that other world can offer. The trade is worth it. And from what I can tell …” Ruudde scanned the bedroom skeptically. “You’re not leaving all that much.”
All of Ruudde’s amiability was gone. Amara’s escape must’ve pissed him off.
“You followed me,” Nolan said.
Pat rolled her eyes and shoved the door shut. She crossed her arms in the exact same way Ruudde had in front of Amara’s cell. “I did. And I didn’t need pills to do it, either. If we see someone travel, we can piggyback along. We can hop into any body we see and remember it for later. You didn’t know any of that, did you?” Ruudde grinned. “Pills. You’re pathetic.”
That was why Ruudde had stood in front of the cell the other day. He’d waited for Nolan to arrive so he could establish a link. To Pat.
“I tossed those pills, by the way, before I entered your room. Poof. Down the toilet.”
Nolan had a few in his room, but that wouldn’t be enough. He’d go back to before. In and out with every blink. No way of communicating. And his parents—how could he explain losing the pills he had left? They’d never purchase new ones now, even if they had the money.
“I wonder how long they’ll take to wear off,” Pat mused. “Withdrawal might be nasty.”
It wasn’t right seeing Pat like that, or hearing those words from her mouth. Full of scorn. She was trapped in there. And Nolan knew exactly what that was like. His voice shuddered. “Get out of my sister’s body.”
Pat’s eyes dropped to Nolan’s legs. “The boy with no leg and the girl with no tongue. Poetic.” Nolan didn’t even realize she’d said it in Spanish until she grinned at her own words, as if she’d discovered a new toy to play with.
“Get out of—”
“Ag, shut up. What are you going to do? Hit me?” She laughed. No, he laughed. This wasn’t Pat. “I never wanted this. I thought if you took control, it would make things easier on both of us. I gave you so much time to think my offer through. And what did you do? You let her run.
“So I changed my mind. We had a good arrangement going with Amara before, and your pills screwed it up. I offered you everything, kid, and that didn’t work. So no more excuses. Here’s a deadline you can’t wiggle out of: turn Amara’s bony ass around while you still can. Then your pills will wear off, you’ll go back to watching, Amara will go back to protecting Cilla, and everyone stays safe.
“If you don’t get Amara back to the palace, I’ll make these bodies, your parents and your sister”—Ruudde plucked at Pat’s shirt—“kill themselves. Do you have any scissors handy? I can turn off the healing and show you.”
“Get—out—of—her—” He couldn’t say anything else. His brain screeched to a halt at anything past he’s in her body, he’s going to kill her, get him out get him out get him out.
This room used to be safe. Cramped and messy and hot enough to choke on, but safe.
Ruudde raised Pat’s hands in a gesture of false surrender. “I’m going. Meanwhile, you should act smart for once. For fuck’s sake. You make this so much harder than it needs to be.”
Ruudde gave a last roll of Pat’s eyes.
She collapsed to the floor.
36
Amara stole a basket and clothes from a servant house at a nearby dairy farm and dumped her own bloody rags in a pond. Checking the setting sun for directions, she trudged by the side of unpaved roads into the city, boots cracking the autumn leaves. By the time she reached Bedam proper, the chill had taken root in the tip of her nose and every bit of the hand clutching the basket. The skin of her fingers was bone yellow.