“We’re not going to kill you, if that’s what you’re asking. Killing is what your kind do.” It’s practically the same line his Gold fed me right before he violated my will.We’re not like you full-bloods; we don’t just kill everything we’re scared of.
“I just experienced first-hand what your kind do,Ezzo.” I glare at him until he blinks. “Or does torture not count in your opinion? Are you perfectly okay with hurting Shades so long as it suits your needs?”
“Not as okay as your Council is with it.” The shame in his voice turns to grit. “Do you know what it’s like to have your bones broken by an Orange, or to have a Green heal you over and over so that they can keep pulling you apart limb from limb? Because I do,” he says,absently clawing at his ribs. “I also know what it’s like to be starved for days and beaten for hours. So please, tell me all about howyourkind doesn’t play with its food.”
The memory of him in the court chamber—bruised black, swollen, and bleeding—assaults me unbidden, every bit as uncomfortable now as it felt when they were leading him in.
“It was the trackers’ job to—”
“Findme.” Ezzo doesn’t allow that flimsy excuse to pass my lips. “Their job was to find me and get me in front of the Council. The pain they inflicted was a choice.”
“Well, then . . . they must have had—”
“A good reason?” he asks, cutting me off again. “Because I didn’t run, or put up a fight, or try to escape.”
It’s getting harder and harder to contradict him.
“Then, I don’t know . . . you must have—”
“Right.Imust have.” He rolls his eyes, bitter. “The problem couldn’t have possibly been on your side.”
“My side does what’s necessary to protect the Gray becauseyourside is draining the shadows.” I don’t know why I’m even bothering to debate him on this when that’s what it comes down to in the end: the pursuit of the lesser evil.
“My side is a handful of Hues who barely make it to adolescence—hasn’t it ever occurred to you that we’re in no position to be draining anything?”
The assertion is a little rich coming from the Hue who just had his golden friend drain me.
“That’s only because we’ve kept your numbers in check!” I grind the truth to a sharp point. “Before the purges were instituted, your kind almost collapsed the Gray! A few bad apples don’t change that.”
“How about twelve bad apples, then?” Ezzo’s expression hardens, his fingers drumming an agitated concerto against his knees.
“Is that number supposed to mean something to me?”
“Not particularly, no. It’s just the number of trackers they sent to kill my parents.” His admission catches me entirely off-guard. “I was only nine at the time and the village we lived in served as anight-port between two cities, so when I saw that many trails converge, I assumed it was a trading party, not a raid. Because why would the Council send twelve trackers to apprehend one Indigo and her typic husband? That wouldn’t make any sense.”
And yet, I’m suddenly sure he’s about to tell me that’s exactly what they did.
“So that morning, when Mom sent me to pick berries from a nearby field, I didn’t understand what she was doing,” Ezzo continues, his voice clouding with grief. “I didn’t realize that she and Dad had chosen not to run, not to fight, because it meant saving me, changingmyfuture. But I can tell you this much: the mess your trackers left of them . . . that wasn’t justice, it was glee. They enjoyed it.”
Despite the pain still coursing through my body, it’s impossible not to feel a pang of pity.
“Look, I know it may not seem fair, but they did break the law,” I say, softer than he deserves.
“Ah, well, I guess that explains why the trackers had to break so many of their bones, then.” His face fills with disgust, his eyes darkening to midnight. “Though I do wonder what the justification was for cutting off their ring fingers and tossing their wedding bands in the hearth. Is that part of the training?” He doesn’t give me a chance to reply. “Better yet, do you think there’s a reason they had to stab a typic and passive Shade so many times their blood ended up on the ceiling, or do you want to tell me again how thosefew bad applesare the exception to the rule?”
My stomach twists, and clenches, and bucks. If he’s telling the truth, then what those Shades did to his parents is inexcusable. The trackers are supposed to deal in quick deaths, not torture. In punishment, not cruelty. In order as mandated by a trial.
Snap out of it, Raya, he’s a Hue; they lie.Hells, if he thought it might save him from execution, he’d probably say anything to solicit my sympathies. Invent any atrocity.
“Tell me what you know about the death of the Gray.” His change of subject is as unexpected as it is abrupt.
Oh . . . so that’s why he’s here.I should have realized he’d have an agenda, something he was hoping to learn from this conversation before it veered wildly off track.
“The Gold tried to use my magic, didn’t he?” That must be what all that urgent yelling was about, why Ezzo didn’t believe my claim before but is considering it now.
“Yes, he did—and that Gold is Chase, by the way. The girl is Cemmy.” He makes a point of sharing their names, as if to remind me that they’re more than just illegal colors. “But the future wouldn’t answer his question. Instead, it sent him an abstract vision of the shadows dying. I take it that’s what you saw, too? What you were trying to say earlier?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Now that I’ve deduced what he’s really after, he’ll be getting nothing from me but snide remarks.
