“We’re going to fight today, aren’t we?” the boy asked.
“Yeah.”
Wren thought for a moment. Wiped his cheeks, his eyes.
Nodded.
“OK.”
It was still early morning when they set out, headed back towards Morningside. Three couldn’t help but wonder how long it would take Asher to find Fedor, and to react. And what that reaction would be. Today would decide everything. Three had accepted that. Embraced it. It was the end, however it turned out.
“What do you think, Wren? Ran or Jez?” Three glanced over his shoulder at the boy following a step behind. His eyes were downcast, but he seemed to be standing taller than Three remembered.
“Jez,” Wren said after a moment’s hesitation. “But you’ll have to be careful. She’s got… magic. Or something.”
“What kind?”
The boy shrugged. “She talks to people. They do stuff.”
“Why not Ran?”
Wren didn’t answer.
“Is he stronger?”
“He’s nicer.”
Three wanted to press the issue, but decided it didn’t really matter. He’d have to deal with them all at some point anyway. The order didn’t seem to make much difference. Except Asher. He’d be last.
“I think maybe — maybe we won’t have to fight Ran,” Wren added. “At the end.”
“Are they together now?”
“No.”
It was a new approach. At first, Three didn’t think it’d be possible. Then, when he’d realized Wren’s gift, he hadn’t wanted to risk it because he’d feared it would give them away. But now the risk… well, this close to the end it didn’t seem to matter one way or the other. Whatever came, he would deal with it.
It had taken some convincing. At first, Wren was afraid to try, was afraid he couldn’t do it, but Three had coaxed him into it. Sure enough, he could do it. Was doing it. For the first time since this had all begun, Wren was tracking them. Masking his own signal, tracerunning theirs. Leading them to the very people that had been hounding them for so long.
Wren wouldn’t go near Asher, not even across the digital, but the others he seemed more confident about. They were still in the city, but they weren’t holed up in the Governor’s compound. They were roaming the streets. Searching.
“Got your knife?” Three asked.
Wren nodded. “But I don’t want to use it.”
“You might have to.”
Wren swallowed. “If I have to.”
They pressed on towards Morningside as the outskirts of the city began stirring into life. Three scanned the surroundings, searching for signs of danger, soaking in the feel and flow of the people that were just beginning to appear. The outcasts, or those deemed not worthy to live within the walls. The closer he and Wren got to Morningside, the more active it became, as the men and women outside prepared for another day of bartering inside. Wren took quick steps to catch up and grabbed Three’s hand with casual familiarity.
“What do they sell?” Wren asked suddenly.
It was a good question. There didn’t seem to be much that the people outside of Morningside could provide to those inside. Hand-crafted trinkets, perhaps. Something just endearing enough to attract the charity of a wealthy city-dweller. But Three’s quick eye saw little in the way of goods among those preparing to enter the city. It clicked for him, then. Most of the outcasts that made a living in Morningside probably did so by selling themselves, in one way or another. Indentured servitude. Freedom for security.
“Don’t know, Wren. Maybe they’re all musicians.”
“That sounds fun,” Wren said. Then with barely a pause added, “How do we get inside?”
“Quickly,” Three answered. “And with big smiles.”
Wren looked up, not understanding. Three just looked down and winked. Wren held his hand a little tighter.
Within a few more minutes, a gate was looming ahead of them. Not the same gate they’d entered before, though not far from it either. A steady trickle of people had already started making its way into the city.
“Hold on a sec,” Three said, stopping. Wren turned to face Three, and in the next moment Three had him under the arms and was picking him up. Three lifted the boy up over his head and set him on his shoulders.
“Won’t they be looking for us?”
“Yeah,” Three said. “But we often see what we expect, and miss what we don’t.”
As they approached the gate, Three moved up alongside a woman who was carrying two large cases, one stacked atop the other. She was a few years older than he was, with wrinkles just starting at the corners of her eyes. Brown hair pulled back in a loose knot, with wisps floating on either side of her face. Not particularly attractive.
“Ma’am, we’re headed the same direction,” he said, smiling. “Can I carry those for you?”
The woman smiled faintly but shook her head. “Oh no, I can manage. I do it every day.”
But Three was already taking the top case. The woman tried to protest, but she needed both hands to hold the other, so there wasn’t much she could do. Three fell into step with her, close enough so their shoulders brushed as they walked, and just kept smiling.
“Whew, one of these is heavy enough,” he said. “You must be the strongest woman in Morningside.”
“It’s really OK,” she said, though already he could tell she didn’t mean it. “I can manage.”
“You already said that,” Three said with a wink. “Day in, day out, you manage it. You deserve a break.”
“Well, thank you.”
“It’s my sincere pleasure, ma’am.”
They were maybe fifty feet from the gate. Three counted four guards. One more than the other gate had last evening. The guards were scanning the people as they passed, but so far they hadn’t stopped anyone.
“I usually come in through the south side,” Three said. “Do they always post four on this gate?”
“Just one most days, sometimes two,” the woman said. “I don’t see Jonas, though. He’s always here.”
“Day off maybe.”
Thirty feet. Three slowed his pace just enough to let another pair of travelers catch up. The woman instinctively matched his stride without even seeming to notice.
“No, yesterday was his day off. Something must be going on inside.”
“Parade for the Governor, I bet.”
The woman snorted. “And me in my work clothes.”
“You look lovely, ma’am. If you don’t mind me saying so.”
“I do mind, because it’s not true,” she said with a slight frown. But then a smirk appeared. “But keep talking anyway.”
“If those are your work clothes, I’d hate to see you in your finery. I might be tempted to flirt.”
“I don’t remember what that’s like.”
“Neither do I, ma’am.”
They shared a laugh then, though only the woman’s was genuine. Fifteen feet. One guard was scanning the horizon in an unfocused way, two of the guards were looking at the pair of travelers that Three had let pass. But the other was staring right at him.
“How you doin’ up there, buddy?” Three asked Wren.
“OK.”
“You smilin’?”
Wren didn’t answer, which meant the answer was no. Ten feet. The guard’s eyes narrowed. His hand went down to his belt. So Three did the only thing he could.
He lurched forward suddenly, fumbled the case, and went sprawling on his hands and knees right at the guard’s feet. The woman gasped, and Wren let out a little yelp. But somehow the boy managed to land on his feet just a step or two beyond the guard. Though a trained eye might’ve picked up on the way Three had kept Wren from falling, or how gently the case went to the ground without tipping over or spilling its contents, to the surrounding crowd it looked entirely as if he’d just tripped over his own feet.