He nodded. It was good, but it did also mean Willow was going to want to tell them her secret. Yesterday, something about how she’d informed them she had one to tell had chilled him to the damn bone.
Once they told Willow, her face fell into a familiar grimness, mouth firm, and he swore he saw sadness in her eyes.
“I’ll take you up then. With enough of us to be safe.”
What was she aiming to show them?
Which was how, only a few hours later, they were trekking higher in the quarter, going around and around a metal set of spiral stairs built inside a vast well that looked as if it ran up about twenty stories past where Willow said they were going—the fifth floor.
Why the fifth?
This was War Quarter, which was an interesting name. If it came about from the usual, there would be a large number of gun shops here… Or a lot of ads for them on the edge of the quarter.
Up the stairs, carrying their weapons, with the wing-soldiers flying overhead and scouting each new story. He was ready to aid Cyn if she needed it. Though the broom crutch had been discarded, she still had balance problems and a small limp.
The beaster escort looked hyper alert and ready for battle at any second. If anything, Willow was being overcautious.
He caught up to her, striding ahead up several steps at a time, leaving Cyn with Kiko the weaponsmith and Vincent, a half a flight of stairs below.
“Have you reason to expect attack?”
“No. Not exactly.”
“Then, why this?” He waved at the heavily armed beasters.
“This?” She glanced at him, her mouth twisting into a guarded smile when she realized he wasn’t letting go of the topic. “I’m nervous.”
“Why?”
“You’ll see soon. On fifth floor there is a good view.”
“Uh-huh. So you’ve spoken to the beasters in this War Quarter?”
“On comm only. They don’t come this low, the same as us. We’ll meet them but not today.”
“Okay.”
He let people pass him until he was once again beside Cyn.
Vargr swept in and landed with a clang on the stairs, cursing as he did so and sending him a black look. The shadows on his face ran deeper than usual. “When we get up there, you will want to remember I said this—what you see will leave a scar.”
“Oh?”
He inhaled and fell into step with Rutger and Cyn. “Hearing about something bad is never the same as seeing. I don’t know how this was kept quiet.”
That silenced them both. Cyn looked thoughtful and took Vargr’s hand. The contact of skin on skin could be far more comforting than words.
He walked out onto the fifth-floor balcony with the others, Cyn then Willow to the left, Vargr to his right. Most of the rest of those accompanying them were strung out equally to either side. This was an edge of War Quarter. Before them the chasm between quarters spanned the gap from these buildings to the buildings of a different quarter with an unknown name. It was close to midnight, a dark time for humans like Maura, who’d stayed behind in Big Daddy with Mads and Locke.
High above a predatory bird circled. An owl perhaps.
He had the grim intuition that Willow was deliberately splitting up from Mads when danger was nigh, just in case she was killed. It would leave Mads to carry on.
The bird dived, a black speck flitting across the night sky.
“There!” someone said, as they stepped to the railing and glass at very edge, and they pointed. The gasps of horror began.
To their right, in an interrupted stream, people were falling from above, silhouettes dropping rapidly and zipping past the level they were on, falling all the way down until they stopped, smashed into the ground. There were no sounds of screaming, only muted thuds when they hit. Some were arching as they dropped and stretching out their arms, as if they strived to march upward to where the Lure called them—to the Top.
