Again, Farley smiles, completely convinced of her own hard-won secrets. “In Norta, yes. But the airfields of Piedmont are woefully underguarded.”

“Piedmont?” Cal and I breathe in surprised unison. The allied nation to the south is far away, farther even than the Lakelands. It should be well beyond the reach of Scarlet Guard operatives. Smuggling from that region is easy to believe, I’ve seen the crates with my own eyes, but outright infiltration? It seems . . . impossible.

Farley doesn’t seem to think so. “The Piedmont princes are utterly convinced that the Scarlet Guard is a Nortan problem. Fortunately for us, they’re incorrect. This snake has many heads.”

I bite my lip to keep back a gasp, and maintain what little remains of my mask. The Lakelands, Norta, and now Piedmont? I’m torn between wonder and fear of an organization large enough and patient enough to infiltrate, not one, but three sovereign nations ruled by Silver kings and princes.

This is not the simple, ragtag bunch of true believers I imagined.

This is a machine, large and well oiled, in motion for longer than anyone thought possible.

What have I fallen into?

To keep my thoughts from welling up in my eyes, I flip open the book of names. Julian’s study of artifacts, peppered with the name and location of every newblood in Norta, calms me. If I can recruit them, train them, and show the Colonel that we are not Silver, we are not to be feared, then we might have a chance at changing the world.

And Maven won’t have the chance to kill anyone else in my name. I won’t carry the weight of any more gravestones.

Cal leans in next to me, but his eyes are not on the pages. Instead, he watches my hands, my fingers, as they sweep through the list. His knee brushes my own, hot even through his ragged pants. And though he says nothing, I understand his meaning. Like me, he knows there’s always more than meets the eye, more than we can even begin to comprehend.

Be on your guard, his touch says.

With a nudge, I reply.

I know.

“Coraunt,” I say aloud, stopping my finger short. “How close is Coraunt to the Nine-Five landing strip?”

Farley doesn’t bother to look for the village on the map. She doesn’t need to. “Close enough.”

“What’s in Coraunt, Mare?” Kilorn asks, sidling up to my shoulder. He’s careful to keep his distance from Cal, putting me between them like a wall.

The words feel heavy. My actions could free this man. Or doom him.

“His name is Nix Marsten.”

TEN

The Blackrun was the Colonel’s own jet, used to skip between Norta and the Lakelands as quickly as possible. It’s more than a transport for us. It’s a treasure trove, still loaded with weapons, medical supplies, even food rations from its last flight. Farley and Kilorn sort the stores into piles, dividing guns from bandages, while Shade changes the dressings on his shoulder. His leg stretches out oddly, unable to bend in the brace, but he doesn’t show any signs of pain. Despite his smaller size, he was always the toughest one in the family, second only to Dad white-knuckling through his constant agony.

My breath suddenly feels ragged, stinging the walls in my throat, stabbing in my lungs. Dad, Mom, Gisa, the boys. In the whirlwind of my escape, I’ve forgotten about them entirely. Just like before, when I first became Mareena, when King Tiberias and Queen Elara took away my rags and gave me silk. It took me hours to remember my parents at home, waiting for a daughter who would not return. And now I’ve left them waiting again. They might be in danger for what I’ve done, subject to the Colonel’s wrath. I drop my head into my hands, cursing. How could I forget them? I only just got them back. How could I leave them like this?

“Mare?” Cal mutters under his breath, trying not to draw attention to me. The others don’t need to see me curling in, punishing myself with every little breath.

You’re selfish, Mare Barrow. A selfish, stupid little girl.

The low hum of engines, once a slow, steady comfort, becomes a hard weight. It beats against me like waves on the Tuck beach, unending, engulfing, drowning. For a moment, I want to let it consume me. Then I will feel nothing but the lightning. No pain, no memory, just power.

A hand at the back of my head takes a bit of the edge off, pushing warmth into my skin to meet the cold. The thumb draws slow, even circles, finding a pressure point I didn’t know existed. It helps a little.

“You have to calm down,” Cal continues, his voice much closer this time. I glance out the corner of my eye to see him leaning down next to me, his lips almost brushing my ear. “Jets are a little sensitive to lightning storms.”

“Right.” The word is so hard to say. “Okay.”

His hand doesn’t move, staying with me. “In through the nose, out through the mouth,” he coaches, his voice low and calming as if he’s talking to a spooked animal. I guess he’s not entirely wrong.

I feel like a child, but I take the advice anyway. With every breath, I let another thought go, each one harsher than the last. You forgot them. In. You killed people. Out. You let others die. In. You are alone. Out.

The last one isn’t true. Cal is proof of that, as are Kilorn, Shade, and Farley. But I can’t shake the feeling that, while they stand with me, there’s no one beside me. Even with an army at my back, I am still alone.

Maybe the newbloods will change that. Maybe not. Either way, I have to find out.

Slowly, I sit back up, and Cal’s hand follows. He draws away after a long moment, when he’s sure I don’t need him anymore. My neck feels suddenly cold without his warmth, but I have too much pride to let him know that. So I turn my gaze outward, focusing on the clouds blurring past, the sinking sun, and the ocean beneath. White-capped waves angle against a long chain of islands, each one connected by alternating strips of sand, marsh, or a dilapidated bridge. A few fishing villages and light towers dot the archipelago, seemingly harmless, but my fists clench at the sight of them. There could be a watch atop one of them. We could be seen.