“I’m going to take the lack of blood on the floor as a positive sign.”
He hooks a finger through the harness of my goggles and lobs them in my general direction. I snatch them out of the air before they can smack me in the face, scowling up at Orion.
“Sure, these are priceless and unique—just go ahead andtossthem.”
He ignores me, pointing at Dani as he kneels down on the worn rug laid across the floor. “You. I need to know whatever you know about the Rack.” Swinging his own rucksack off his back—his “bag of tools and trickery,” as he calls it—he starts rummaging through the items inside. “Because I’m guessing it’s not nothing.”
“I always knowsomething,” Dani says with a little grin. “I’ve been inside plenty of times, trying to scope out Gold Towner business.”
“Perfect.” Orion pulls out a tablet of whitewashed metal and glass and a stylus with it and holds it out to Dani. “Draw it for me.”
“A lodestone tablet?” Dani whistles appreciatively as she takes it and turns it over in her hands. “Lemme guess: birthday present?”
Orion winks. “Well, it definitely was a gift of sorts.”
I’m honestly pretty impressed that Orion has one of these, but I’m careful not to let that show and give him a big head. Lodestone tablets are practically nonexistent for dusters, although I hear they’re more common above the skyline. They’re filled with tiny metal fragments that react to the magnetic stylus, allowing you to write or draw on the surface and then wipe it clean, as opposed to etching on metal tablets, which is fairly permanent.
Dani eases down onto the floor, sitting cross-legged and situating the lodestone tablet in her lap as she starts to sketch the layout of the Gentleman’s Rack, talking as she goes. “Up front is the main area of the hall. There’s an enclosed bar in the center ofit, billiards tables and card tables all around the edges, and a few private rooms off the back.” She draws a quick grid of lines and then another massive rectangular space. “On the Crater side, it’s a warehouse. Gold Town stores a lot of goods back there—water, food, drugs, all kinds of stuff. That’s where the real business goes down.”
She sets the tablet down on the floor between them, and Orion studies it, a little frown line creasing the space between his eyebrows. “Say you’ve got a couple hostages or some valuable treasure you need to lock down: Where would they do that?”
“My best guess would be somewhere here.” She points to the gridded area between the two bigger sections. “There’s a bunch of offices and rooms like that in this space, and a vault where they secure all their paper. I never saw it in person, but I gathered it’s sealed off pretty tight. No windows, no access points.”
I lean forward on the couch, propping my elbows on the tops of my knees. “Sealed off from other people, maybe. Not for me.”
Orion grimaces, shaking his head. “I love the confidence, V, it’s really excellent, but I’ve got bad news for you there. You’re not going to be able to phase into this building.”
My gaze snaps up to his, my eyes narrowing. “What are you talking about?”
“I just scanned the whole place with your goggles, and I couldn’t see inside anywhere.”
That doesn’t make any sense. I can see through almost every wall in or above Covenant. Why would this random billiards hall in the Shipyards be any different? “You must have been using them wrong.”
Orion doesn’t sigh or roll his eyes at me, although I’m prettysure he wants to. “I wasn’t. I don’t know what they did, but that place is a black hole.” He takes the stylus from Dani and sketches extra, heavy lines along all the walls. “From the outside, it looks like a pretty standard-built old Covenant building, so my best guess is they double-lined the walls at some point or reinforced them somehow.”
Dani looks over at me. “Why would they do that?”
“Honestly? It was probably the Old Clock Tower.” Orion sighs. “Someone must’ve made it out. Someone who saw what Val could do.”
I try to remember everything that happened back there. At the carnage I left behind. I hadn’t exactly been keeping track of who fell to my knives. IthoughtI’d dealt with anyone who saw me phase, but now… I can’t totally remember.
Orion rubs at his eyes. “This is why I wanted you to wait…”
“Don’t act like this is my fault,” I snap. “Anyone who saw me in there would’ve turned me into the chapels as a saint.”
Dani shakes her head. “Not necessarily. Not if their loyalty is to Gold Town first. They could be playing it close to the vest, not sharing with anyone else till they know what their most lucrative move is.”
There’s a little flare of panic in my chest, sharp enough that I miss a breath. If she’s right and someone in the Gold Town Gang saw me phasing, if they told the others, then I need to get out of Covenant before that information spreads around to the preachers and the chapels.
As soon as I get Halle and Kelda back, we run. We put this city behind us, and we don’t look back. Find a tiny township somewhere in the middle of nowhere and disappear.
I sit back, digging my knuckles into my eyes. “Look, it doesn’t matter. If I can’t see inside, I can’t phase, so we need another way to get in, get to that vault room, and get my sisters.”
Orion taps the stylus absentmindedly on the side of the tablet as he stares down at the sketched diagram. “Dani, they’re still letting in business for the billiards hall, right? They haven’t closed it off to customers or anything?”
“Not as far as I can tell. Still looks like folks are going in and out.”
“Then that’s probably our best bet.”
