My hand flew to my mouth, stifling my ragged breathing. My heart fluttered under my skin. Were they talking about me? Why would bandits want to destroy the Mission?
Unless they were …
Resistors didn’t live in the woods. And I’d never heard of them targeting a Mission that hadn’t even gone operational. If the bandits were actually resistors working against the House and Progress, I had more to fear than being robbed. And so did Julian.
I had to warn him.
Their rustling footfalls paused, and I closed my eyes tightly like a helpless child, as if it would turn me invisible. If they spotted me andattacked, I’d have no choice but to defend myself with radiance. But I didn’t want to kill two people.
As I held my breath, they began talking once more, their footsteps crunching along an unseen path.
“At least he managed to get the fool girl to open the gate before the Senior sent her on her way,” the man was saying.
The woman laughed. “That boy could get a river to spill its secrets if he smiled at it right.”
There was no doubting who they spoke of.
I stopped breathing. Radiance rose in me like bile. It hurt. Everything hurt.
I’d fallen for his smile. For all of him.
Trembling, I blinked and exhaled with a shudder. Tears left cold tracks down the back of my hand. The ache of shame I’d felt for being thrown out of my own Mission was nothing compared to the raw chasm that opened in me now.
Ezra had used me to gain entrance to the Mission.
The man and woman in the woods were walking away. I wanted to spring to my feet and unleash the rage that filled me like thunderclouds. I’d burn them, and the trees around us, and my own traitorous hands that had found such—such joy touching Ezra’s. Shivering, I forced myself to remain still, only because, in my reckless infatuation, I’d exposed Julian to far more than embarrassment. I’d given resistors a way in. If these resistors were like the sects in Sterling City, they wouldn’t show up for a peaceful negotiation. They’d kill him.
And it would be my fault.
The moment I could no longer hear their footsteps crunching against dry leaves, I rose on shaking legs. Bark scratched my back through my blouse, a welcome sting that helped me center myself as the ground spun gently. There was no time to think about what Ezra had done. What I’d done in his arms. I had to push it all down.
Silvery-blue threads of radiance wove between my fingers, hot tendrils that demanded to be released. “Not now,” I whispered. It was both an admonishment and a promise. I wouldn’t be able to hold this in forever. When it was time, there’d be no holding back.
I counted to three hundred silently as I listened for any more signs of danger in the woods. My heartbeat raged, and my ribs were too tight, and everything inside me was too much. The House of Industry discouraged strong emotions. Now I could see why. My thoughts were poison, and my tenuous control slipped through my fingers like water. I’d never felt anything like this white-hot turmoil before.
All around me, leaves began to brown and smoke as if held to the edge of a bonfire’s blistering heat. Would I burn up from the inside?
No. Not before I burned them.
I focused my fury on the only thing I could do—warn Julian. Little by little, the heat in my hands subsided, and I felt like myself again. A flattened, wrung-out version of the girl who’d once woken up and looked out the window to watch the sunrise paint the distant mountains gold.
I hated her now. She’d touched her lips and thought of Ezra’s mouth. She’d fallen back into her bed and smiled into her sheets and wondered when she’d find him again.
A skeletal bush beside me started to smoke, and I jumped away from it, startled, before I realized I’d set the frayed edge of a broken branch on fire. Using my bare hands, I squeezed the embers away. It stung. I deserved it. My entire life, I’d fought to keep my emotions from ruling the radiance within me. All it had taken was a boy’s soft laugh to crumble my control to dust.
I’d harden myself again. I’d never let someone take my control away.
It was dark by the time I could tell where I was. Following the path the workers took from the rail yard to the Mission, I broke into a run. Theshadows were deep and dark, but I couldn’t risk moving slowly. My hair stood out like flame in the moonlight. I’d be recognized sooner than later, and I had no way of knowing who was with the resistor bandits and who wasn’t. All I could do now was sprint and hope that I’d reach Julian before they did.
Through the trees, I could make out the flicker of torches and fires at the work camp in the distance. The Mission was totally dark—even the sliver of Julian’s window, a room that should have been glowing with lamplight far into the night. A chicken scratched idly in the middle of the courtyard and clucked at me ruefully as I hurtled by and threw myself against the door, aching with hope that I’d find it soundly locked.
It swung open before I could press my hand to the locking mechanism. I didn’t have to look close to know the lock had been jammed. It hadn’t shut properly because Ezra had called my attention away. I’d given him time to sabotage the lock.
“Julian!” I called out as I rushed inside, my voice startling me with its rawness. The lamps in the entranceway roared to life, lit by my reckless bolts of radiance. The light cast the hall in white-blue shadows before the small flames tempered to a soft glow. “Julian! Are you here?”
Was I already too late?
I could barely convince my feet to move for all the hurt and fear that clouded my thoughts. Upstairs, my door was closed as I’d left it this morning, but Julian’s hung open, and moonlight gleamed from inside.
