“Ender can?—”
“None of your business,” Ender cuts in. “Do not speak with her.”
The wordherslips past his lips like venom.
“Am I your wife,” I ask evenly, “or a prisoner?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” he says.
He opens his door and steps out into the dark, slamming it shut behind him before I can respond.
“Come on,” Knox says with a warm smile. “I’ll show you, girls, around.”
“Is he always like that?” Mercy asks.
“You mean, is he always so charming and polite?” Knox says. “Every day of the week.”
I snort, and Mercy smiles.
“It takes a second to adjust to Ender, he’s…guarded,” Knox explains.
The door is a reinforced steel frame disguised with wood paneling, and the windows are all barred. They went to great lengths to keep this place a secret.
The lamps are fitted with bare bulbs, and the floors are scuffed with boot marks. Mercy peeks into the cabinets, revealing a row of preserved rations.
Maps are pinned to the walls, layered over older ones, their corners curled and annotated in different hands. It’s strange to see paper instead of a digital grid. The reception here must beterrible. Old beer bottles are lying in a pile, their logos peeling off the glass, revealing the sticky residue underneath. Dust-covered military coats are draped across the old couches.
Knox opens the door to our bedroom. The space is small. There are two narrow beds along with a single window boarded from the outside but cracked just enough to let in a thread of frosty air.
Knox returns shortly after with our travel cases, setting them side by side at the foot of the beds.
“In case you wish to change,” he explains.
“Thank you,” Mercy says.
“Let me know if you girls need anything,” he says.
I look at Mercy the second the door clicks shut.
“Why couldn’t he be the husband?” I sigh. “He’s so much more tolerable than that brute.”
“You shouldn’t goad Ender,” Mercy says. “He is frightening.”
I roll my eyes. I lived with Warrick for twelve years. Nothing scares me anymore.
“I’m not afraid.”
I sit on the bed, the springs digging painfully into my thighs.
“Do you think everyone will fall for it?” she asks.
I nod. They will. This plan is foolproof.
“Let’s get some rest,” I say, lying down on the hard mattress. “Tomorrow everything changes.”
Light filters through the window in ribbons of gold. A bird trills on the ledge, and I blink at the unfamiliar surroundings until it hits me. Today is the day I go to the Forge. For years, I prepared for this moment, and now it is finally happening.
I owe it to my mother to become a weapon strong enough to take down Warrick and the Supreme Director one day.
