Maps made everything seem tiny—like the distance between their location and the Banner hideout. The drive across Soden’s plains could bore even the most inquisitive mind. Anna-Lisa caught herself dozing off now and then, drooling on Mari’s sleeve. Maselli’s mother didn’t mind, murmuring that it was fine and that the girl needed the rest. It wasn’t proper, was all Anna-Lisa could think.

  The ascender was still driving, focused as ever since they’d escaped the police station. Mari had nothing to do—or rather, it was her job to keep an eye on Jay, just to make sure he didn’t change his mind midway and dump them in the middle of nowhere.

  To keep herself busy, Anna-Lisa played around with her phone. It felt so rich to own property. Her phone. Her own phone. Anna-Lisa’s phone. Fair—she hadn’t bought it. She wouldn’t have owned one at all if not for Jay. After he slaughtered those Bannermen at Maplewood, Anna-Lisa had picked two off the mangled corpses quicker than anyone else could. She gave one to Zerah, promising to keep in contact when they separated at Donna Pristo.

  It shouldn’t have been so, but Mari had insisted on waiting behind for Ezra—something Zerah could not tolerate. Maselli had also abandoned them in Maplewood, leaving Anna-Lisa with the burden of staying with Mari. She couldn’t stomach the thought of leaving Mari on her own. Somehow, she believed Genevie wouldn’t make it out of Dominus alive. She would have called Mari crazy—but here they were.

  “Give me the phone,” instructed Jay, just when she’d started going through her pictures. They’d arrived at a fork in the road, and he needed to know which direction to take.

  Zerah sent texts every hour, asking if they were any closer. Poor girl. She expected a frail mother and daughter and had probably made up an elaborate tale for their eventual arrival. A single look at Jay would shove a wrench right into that. He was a problem, no matter how she thought around it.

  Having read the slanderous thoughts running through her head, Jay pulled over. Anna-Lisa stiffened, locking her arm through Mari’s. He couldn’t sack them. Never.

  “Get out,” he slurred. “We’re walking the rest of the way.”

  “Why?” she asked. “We have so much ground to cover.”

  “I doubt your rebel friends would want a police car in their neighbourhood,” he said. “I don’t want to make it too easy for the officers behind us, either.”

  Mari and Anna-Lisa stupidly looked behind them, finding nothing. He didn’t yell or bang against the door like she thought he would. Instead, he folded his arms and stared. They got out, feeling their numbed legs again.

  “There are three different towns nearby, and judging from your pace, we should reach the hideout in about an hour on foot. If we’re lucky, we’ll make it with enough time to spare.”

  He pointed down a lonely, narrow road as he tossed the phone to Anna-Lisa. Without another word, he hopped back into the car, skidded, turned around, and sped off in the direction they had come from. The same thought ran through their heads: Was he gone for good? A better explanation formed in her mind, disappointing them both—he was simply buying them time by throwing off the police. It seemed he would walk a further distance to catch up with them later.

  “He’s scary,” Mari said. The thought made them both shudder.

  Taking charge, Anna-Lisa checked the map, leading them down the lonely road. Two women, defenceless, exhausted, and all alone in the night—they still preferred this over Jay’s company.

  “We could try another town, you know,” said Anna-Lisa. “He would never find us if we ran away. You have Ezra, and Zerah would understand.”

  Mari considered it. “That would be cruel,” she said.

  “Don’t tell me you feel sorry for him. He’s a Gaverian, Mari—you saw what he did to those Bannermen up north.”

  “I know him as Jay,” said Mari. “He’s sacrificed his life to get us this far. We won’t repay him by affirming his prejudices about the kind of people we are.”

  Jay rejoined them sooner than Anna-Lisa would have liked, cutting short the time she had to convince Mari. He told them to keep their voices down because he could hear them from a distance away.

  “Does that mean your powers are back?” Anna-Lisa asked.

  “No, it means you two are louder than you think. It’s a quiet town—shut up if you can,” he replied.

  The bushes grew thicker around them. Crossing a stream proved too tricky for Mari, who slipped on the stones and was caught by Jay before making an embarrassment of herself. Their miserable journey came to an end when lantern light flickered from behind the last of the trees ahead.

  Whatever this Bannerman hideout was called, it had a lot going for it—and this was coming from someone who’d grown up in the UCL. Most of the shacks around were made from aluminium roofing sheets nailed together to form walls. Gathered around cylinder fires were small family groups, probably trying to spend as much time as they could out in the night air.

  It was impossible to divert attention from themselves, so they simply walked into the settlement as if returning from an errand. Noticed as they may have been, no one crossed their path. Slowly, they merged with the community, lifting their shoulders higher as they navigated the muddy alleys. The only sign of life among the miserable people was the drinking spot, its blue lanterns spinning lazily on a crossbar. Men conversed on benches and stools, lifting eyebrows as Mari and Anna-Lisa walked past—only to drop their heads again when they noticed Jay walking behind.

  When it became clear that the map wasn’t getting them directly into Zerah’s lap, they resorted to asking for directions. Anna-Lisa hissed at a woman who was just about to close her shop, asking if she could point them to Santa Mon’s house. The woman was about to do just that when she saw Jay frowning at her. Her enthusiasm vanished, and she muttered an excuse about needing to pick something from the shop.

  “We’re from the UCL, please,” Anna-Lisa said. “We’re lost.”

  The woman peered from behind her closing door, checking for tattoos. Of course, Anna-Lisa and Mari had gotten rid of theirs on the ship that brought them down south, but the sores were still visible if you looked closely. Jay’s hand would have been the most dubious if he had actually been Earthen, but he did the best thing by staying in the shadows. Convinced enough, the woman pointed down the street toward the water tower.

  Near the water tower was a man. A mansion falling apart. Algae lined the walls, the paint was peeled in places, and the windows that weren’t broken were barred. A parked wagon on the compound blocked the front stairs, forcing them to walk around it. Children tittered indoors, their footsteps hammering up and down the floorboards.

  Jay stepped forward and banged on the front door.

  “Who’s there!” came a bellow.

  “We’re with the Banner. Let us in,” he said before Anna-Lisa could speak. His accent made her cringe—any cynic would have shot them on the spot. Fighting the urge to run, she waited for the response.

  A plasma gun loaded.

  Jay took a step back. Mari and Anna-Lisa followed suit.

  “No one visits me this late at night,” the voice inside said. “I’ll give you one second to tell me who you are.”

  “One second isn’t enough,” Jay yelled back.

  “Talk!”

  “If I were your enemy, would I need to knock?”

  “Who are you?”

  “We’re looking for Santa Mon!” Anna-Lisa shouted. “We’re refugees from the UCL!”

  A set of footsteps rushed down the indoor stairs, followed by hurried conversation.

  “Please let us in. The authorities are after us,” Mari said.

  The doors opened, and out came Zerah. She reached out and hugged Anna-Lisa, then Mari.

  “You made it,” she said.

  Zerah gasped when she recognized Jay—only to shut her mouth the moment Anna-Lisa pinched her.

  A large, round man with a balding head stood at the entrance, his gun lowered. He was Santa Mon, the landlord. “The police are after you?” he said, frowning as he glanced toward the forest behind the settlement. “It won’t be long till they get here. Get in.”

  Was he not concerned about letting fugitives into his home? Anna-Lisa kept her doubts to herself and followed the others inside.

  The interior was as worn as the outside. Holes punctured the walls. A musty smell oozed from the stained carpet. The bulb flickered, dangling from a metallic thread. The wooden ceiling had been eaten away by termites, revealing the spinning levithium blades that powered the house.

  Children peered down from behind the staircase railing, watching Zerah’s new friends from above. “Back to bed, all of you!” Santa Mon barked. The children scattered into their rooms. “Bolt the doors! Don’t come out until I say so.”

  He hadn’t spoken softly once in the five minutes Anna-Lisa had known him. He led them up the stairs, then further still—up a ladder and into the attic. It was a stuffed-up space with a single window overlooking the street below.

  “You’ll wait here until the police leave,” he said. “Stay put and be quiet.” He shut the trapdoor on his way down.

  Zerah turned from Mari to Anna-Lisa, desperate for some kind of explanation. It wasn’t the right time to discuss their new arrangement with the ascender. “Have you eaten? Are you hungry?” she asked. “Anna-Lisa and I can go to the kitchen and make some hot chocolate for you.”

  “I’d rather wait until morning,” said Mari. “Thank you, Zerah.”

  “You weren’t with Will when you came downstairs,” said Anna-Lisa. “Where is he?”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “He’s sleeping,” said Zerah. “Though I’m sure he’s awake by now. He’s still nervous about this new place. Maybe you’d like to go with me to see him.” Her eyes begged Anna-Lisa to agree.

  She expected Jay to demand they remain in the attic, but it didn’t seem he was paying them much attention at all. He was looking out the attic window, focused on something outside.

  “What the hell are you thinking?” Zerah spat.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “A Gaverian? And him, of all people. Do you know what the Banner will do to us when they find out who he is? Why is he following you around? What does he want?”

  “He saved Ezra.”

  “Ezra?” Zerah glanced over her shoulder. “She’s here?”

  “On the paper.”

  Zerah’s brow creased as she slowly shook her head. “We can’t stay here. A Gaverian, that faerie—do you know what this means? A lot of people are going to die soon. And we barely survived Blackwood.”

  She folded her arms, frowning at the trapdoor leading to the attic. “I’m starting to believe those rumours about Mari might have some truth to them. What if she’s cursed?”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “It could be true.”

  “You’re being unfair.”

  “Keep it down,” Jay ordered from above. “The officers are here.”

  Police vehicles pulled into the street. In no time, the men who’d been warming themselves by the fires were rolling in mud. Patrol units spread through the town, banging on shacks and commanding the residents to come out. There were about twenty of them in all.

  The scene reminded her of the day the HF raided Blackwood. She had known she was innocent then, yet the fear of being caught burned just as fiercely now.

  Women stood with their hands behind their heads. Children lined up in front of their homes. Men lay flat on their bellies, hands bound at their backs. The officers cleared home after home until they gathered around the old mansion at the foot of the town.

  From somewhere inside the house, an infant wailed.

  “I have to go,” Zerah whispered, kissing Anna-Lisa on the cheek before bounding off.

  The rest of them stayed put. Jay pressed against the wall, watching through the window from the corner of his eye.

  “Shit,” he breathed.

  “What is it?” she asked, but he didn’t respond.

  She had to look for herself. Crawling across the floor, Anna-Lisa peered through the window. Two policemen were holding a device that resembled a mobile phone, only larger. They moved between the prisoners, passing it over the men lying on the ground.

  “Are those what I think they are?” she asked.

  “What would you know about ATTs?” Jay asked.

  Ascension Trace Trackers. Anna-Lisa had heard about them from Maselli, who’d heard it from Franka — one of those childhood rumours that stuck. Only this time it was real.

  “I don’t know much about them,” Anna-Lisa said. “But can they still track you? In your condition?”

  Jay flinched as if she’d spat in his face. “I don’t have a condition,” he mumbled. “And I’m not the one they’re after. It’s the girl they want.”

  “What would the police want from Ezra?” Mari asked.

  “This isn’t the police. It’s Salomae. She’s spread her reach.”

  Mari shrank into herself, trying to blend with the wall. She had no idea what she’d dragged them into. “She’s going to find us,” she whispered.

  “Not if we stay put,” Jay said. “How reliable is your man?”

  “Santa Mon?” Anna-Lisa said. She didn’t know.

  “These are poor working-class people!” Santa Mon bellowed as the front door swung open. “Where is your respect for your fellow man?”

  More people lay on the floor now, forming long, dirty rows in the muddy courtyard. When they ran out of men, the officers forced the women to their knees too, prodding them with the butts of their guns. It might as well have been the whole town.

  “We’re looking for a man,” one officer said. “Tall, broad-shouldered, looks like a soldier — you must have seen him.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Santa Mon replied. “All I see is a clear violation of our human rights, which I will follow up in court.”

  The officers laughed. “Do you mind if we search your residence, Mr Mon?”

  “I take good care of my home. I try my best to keep it clean. I wouldn’t want you muddying up my floors with your boots.”

  From what Anna-Lisa could hear, the officers ignored him and advanced.

  “Step any closer and I will be forced to enact my rights on you, officer,” Santa Mon said. “This is private property and you’ve shown me no warrant. I can defend my privacy any way I deem fit — and I intend to.”

  Plasma guns began to load all around the settlement. Blue lights flickered in the dark corners of streets, rooftops, and trees. The policemen were surrounded on all sides. She wanted Jay’s angle, but he was in no mood to be disturbed. Anna-Lisa stretched her neck for a better view, hoping to catch a glimpse of Santa Mon.

  Jay cursed under his breath—once, then again.

  “What is it?” hissed Anna-Lisa. She rushed to his side and hugged his leg, refusing to let go even when he tried to shake her off. She needed to see what he saw.

  She did—and it was horrible.

  The policeman had his pistol aimed at one of the men on the ground.

  “I’m giving you up to the count of three!” the officer shouted. “Come out with the card right now, or I’ll blow this man’s head off. He’s an innocent man—he doesn’t deserve this!”

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing!” Santa Mon bellowed. “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “Oh, I would,” snarled the officer. “One!”

  Mari bolted for the exit. Anna-Lisa stumbled, falling hard as Jay burst past her. He caught Mari around the waist and slammed her to the floor. She kicked and clawed at him to let her go. Jay pressed a hand over her mouth, restraining her with all his strength. Anna-Lisa joined him.

  “Two!”

  “Do not give in,” Jay growled. “Remember what you’re fighting for.”

  Mari’s eyes widened with terror. She pleaded silently with Anna-Lisa—begging her to help, to give up Ezra before it was too late.

  “Three!”

  A gunshot cracked the air. Then came a storm of return fire. Blue light danced across blood-streaked walls as more and more shots rang out.

  “Bar it down!” Santa Mon shouted. Furniture scraped across the floor. Boots pounded the stairs. Voices screamed names through the chaos. There were wails outside.

  Then, just as suddenly, silence.

  Anna-Lisa released Mari carefully, ready to restrain her again if she bolted. She crept toward the attic window and looked out. The worst had come true.

  All the officers were dead. Many of the men and women who had been arrested lay wounded, crying for help. A few were still.

  Like the swayer that hunted them, Anna-Lisa was familiar with sacrifice. Not all life was sacred—only the ones that mattered to her.

  There was no mourning among the surviving earthens. That very night they dragged the bodies — friend and enemy alike — out of the public space and into the pits on the outskirts of the town. Santa Mon moved like a mayor among them, passing orders. Anna-Lisa and her company remained under his command, holed up in the attic until he said otherwise.

  “There is a limit to the swayer’s power,” Jay said, watching the body of an officer being hauled away. Anna-Lisa watched him, trying to parse what he meant. “Look at the wounds on the policemen.”

  Most of them had a nasty hole in the side of the head. A chunk of skull and brain had been eaten away. How he could deduce the swayer’s weakness from such an obscure detail was beyond her. “Some of these officers weren’t gunned down by the Banner,” he went on.

  “Then who did? No one else is here.”

  “They shot themselves.” He punctuated it with a confirming grunt. “The impact pattern matches a point-blank blast.”

  “I don’t get it. Why would they shoot themselves? Doesn’t that go against everything Salomae wants?”

  “So, you don’t know everything after all,” he said with a snort.

  For that alone, she was willing to live in ignorance forever. She didn’t need him. Still — thinking it through — if he was right, the officers would kill themselves to hide the evidence of their actions. The Soden government was bound to notice the bizarre trend once the heat-wave disaster passed. As plausible as it sounded, it did not satisfy her: Jay had called it a weakness, something unique to swayers. She might never find out the full truth.

  “Woman,” Jay said.

  “Her name is Mari,” Anna-Lisa put in.

  “What do you want?” Mari asked.

  “This is far from over,” he said. “You need to get rid of the card.”

  “I’ve already hidden it.”

  He grabbed her by the skirt and threw her against the wall. From the fold she’d hidden it in, he pulled out the card and slapped it against the plaster. “I’m not playing games. Listen carefully before you ruin this for both of us. Those men the swayer killed prove we still have the advantage. She doesn’t know where Ezra is yet. The swayer will find her way to us eventually and read our minds. If she learns where Ezra is, it’s all over. Get rid of it. Put it somewhere you can’t find and forget about it.”

  “That’s impossible,” said Anna-Lisa. “How can you know and not know where something is at the same time?”

  “Make it happen,” said Jay. “Don’t let me see it again.”

  Mari pushed him off her, grabbed the card and squeezed it in her hand. Through her laboured breaths she sifted the logic from the emotion and realised Jay was right. “Please don’t touch me again,” she said.

  Like everything else, the ascender rolled it off as if it were one big joke. Their concerns, their fears — they did not matter to him at all. Anna-Lisa knew not to expect better from him, but it made her want to cry.

  A tap on the trapdoor brought them together. It was just Zerah, back this time with Will. She explained the situation was worse than any before. Since she arrived, she’d heard stories about policemen butting heads with the Banner, but never to the point of exchanging gunfire. From the rumours she’d picked up on, it was the officers who had initiated the conflict, only for them to strangely off themselves as though they were struggling against a demon that had possessed them. It more or less confirmed what Jay’s theory must be; although, much to everyone’s annoyance, he did not disclose what he really thought about the situation.

  “What’s the plan to set Ezra free?” Zerah asked, breaking an unspoken rule.

  They did not have a plan. They did not know what they were doing. And everything was going to shit really quickly.

  “Mistress Aureate is the one who trapped her on the paper,” said Mari. “Maybe she can set her free.”

  “The Genevie I met would rather die than undo her spell,” said Jay.

  “Our only option might be to kill Genevie, then,” said Anna-Lisa. “It might free Ezra.”

  “Or trap her on the paper forever,” Zerah retorted.

  “Getting the first part of that plan done is almost impossible,” said Anna-Lisa. “It makes thinking of the consequences kind of silly.”

  “I’m capable of killing Genevie,” said Jay.

  “But you’ll need your powers for that,” said Anna-Lisa.

  “And the only way you get your powers back is by killing Ezra,” said Mari. “Which we can’t let you do.”

  They had more pressing problems, though. She peered out the attic window once more. Santa Mon was still talking to his men. He did not seem upset in the least. If anything, he was a bit too happy, slapping his men on the backs in laughter. Anyone in his position should be upset with the foreigners responsible for his town’s demise.

  Something else caught her attention. She had to go outside. Anna-Lisa made her way to the trapdoor. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” snapped Jay. “The swayer could be anywhere.” There was no time to explain herself. She was down the stairs and out the front door in no time. The air stank of blood, like the butcher’s shop where her father used to work. She moved in the mansion’s shadow, crossed to the wagon, then past that to the open street where the shooting had been fiercest. A lot of movement prevented anyone from paying much attention to her. She picked up the half-buried ATT and tweaked it to see if it was still working.

  “You lot will work for a long, long time to pay off this mess you made,” Santa Mon said from behind her. She hid the device and turned to face his greedy grin. Santa Mon was not angry because he had found an opportunity to make money from the situation. He did not probe Anna-Lisa further about who they truly were or why they were after Jay.

  Anna-Lisa spent the night in Zerah’s room, calibrating the device to track down ripper ascension. The pointer on the screen directed them westward. Anna-Lisa would travel alone — quiet and, hopefully, out of the swayer’s mind. She would find Genevie before telling the others.

  She hid the ATT in Zerah’s travelling bag, announcing that she would be joining Zerah as she left the town. After Mari’s arrival, Zerah had made up her mind to leave. She first gave her phone to Jay, along with a solution to the conundrum. To keep the swayer from reading their minds and discovering where the card was hidden, Anna-Lisa took the card from Mari, either hiding it somewhere in Santa Mon or keeping it with her. When she found Genevie, she would text them the location as well as Ezra’s hiding place. And the rule was certain: if Jay or Mari ever, even once, asked for Ezra’s location before Anna-Lisa herself revealed it, Anna-Lisa would assume Salomae had them under her influence and would cut ties with the two forever.

  Santa Mon agreed to let Zerah and Anna-Lisa go, as long as Jay and Mari remained behind to pay off the debt they owed. They joined the next wagon leaving the town, heading towards a region not under the Banner’s control.

  Down the bumpy road, surrounded by the bright blue sky above and tall trees below, they watched the town grow smaller from the back of the wagon. Zerah had Will sitting on her lap. He was in a knitted blue jumper and a pair of woollen trousers and socks. Zerah wore a white blouse with polka dots and a long brown skirt that reached past her ankles, hiding the boots beneath. They were dressed for a special occasion.

  “Do you have any idea where you’re going?” Anna-Lisa asked out of curiosity.

  “I heard there’s an orphanage on the road,” she said. “He needs a new mommy — someone who can guarantee a better life. A safe home.”

  “Mommy,” said Will, bubbling saliva on his fingers. The two of them gasped, looking at the baby.

  They were his first words — and possibly the last either of them would hear.