Red will knowingly let himself be captured by Federation forces, and through our link, we’ll track him back into the heart of the Federation, to the laboratory complex where they’ll take him. He will find a way to open the complex for us from the inside. According to him, each Ghost at the complex has a syringe embedded in its arm at all times, feeding it nutrients and medications that come from a central control room. If Adena can get into that room, she can contaminate their concoction with the serum. What happens after that is an open door. Perhaps the newly freed Ghosts will attack no one at all, be as confused and stripped of bloodlust as the Ghost we tested. Perhaps we’ll find a way to escape, or die fighting our way out of those labs. Or perhaps our tactic won’t work, or we won’t be able to do it effectively enough, and the Ghosts will react in a way that’s entirely unpredictable. Perhaps, in their confusion, they’ll try to attack anyone near them, including Karensan soldiers.
We have to wait until the Firstblade approves of our plan—but honestly, there’s not much of a decision to make. We can all see that this is our only chance.
The plan spins endlessly in my mind tonight as the four of us walk past the mess hall, where Strikers currently fill the long tables, eager to celebrate before we rotate out to the warfront again. Jeran and I sign to each other in conversation, but Adena and Red are both quiet and exhausted—Red from being bled as much as he can bear and Adena from making and packaging crates of serum to be shipped to the warfront. Still, the new companionship between the two of them is encouraging. The air carries with it the sharp cold of winter and the scent of hot cider and tea. Outside the mess hall doors, they’ve already started hanging up wreaths of pine and berries for the first day of Midwinter’s two-week-long festivities. The windows are lined with dangling droplets of golden cones and shining metal scraps. They cast a kaleidoscope of light against the cold streets. Even in a grim year like this one, we still try to scrape up some good cheer.
We continue on past the hall and out through the double walls, until we’re in the Outer City’s paths headed toward my mother’s home. Most other nations celebrate Midwinter too, and along the narrow corridors, bright strips of fabric hang from clothing lines between the stalls, while others burn circles of candles and lanterns outside the doors to their shacks. I can smell the cooking wafting from each tiny home, peppers and spices and sauces foreign to Mara, and the aromas make my stomach rumble. We ignore the stares we get from the vendors, this group of four Strikers out patrolling through the shanties. They duck nervously when I notice them. You’d think they’d know me by now—that my intentions here have nothing to do with them. But for some, our uniforms are enough to keep them hidden. And the way the guards treat them here, who can blame them?
My mother is already outside when we arrive on her street. She’s pieced together a haphazard set of crates, barrels, and giant metal tins in front of the open door, creating a jigsaw of a table and chairs for usto sit on, and covered the entire spread with an old blanket. On top is what would be considered a feast out here in the shanties—fragrant hand-rolled noodles tossed with herbs from her garden, fried minnow cakes, flat seaflour bread, and tiny squares of a sticky treat sweetened with sugarweed and honey.
When she sees us coming, she straightens and breaks into a smile.
“Thank you for dinner, Mother Kanami,” Jeran says to her in excellent Basean, bowing his head. My mother beams at him and pats his cheeks.
“Prettier every time I see you, Jeran,” she tells him, and he blushes so pink that Adena laughs.
Adena greets my mother with a bow and a hug, and I embrace my mother tightly. Already, though, I can tell her eyes have fallen on Red. Her smile fades, and her stare turns sharp and piercing. For his sake, I can only hope he left his mouse at home.
“I know you,” she tells him in Basean. And even though Red can’t technically understand her, the emotion he feels from me through our link tells him what he needs to know. That my mother recognizes him from the night of the invasion.
He stands stiffly there, not sure what to do.
Then my mother pulls him forward. She doesn’t try asking him why he did what he did that night, or why he didn’t shoot. Why he fled the Federation. Instead, she reaches up on her toes to give him a hug, and when she does speak again, she says, “You need to eat more, if you plan on being much good out there.”
Soon, others from the street have gathered in the dead end in front of my mother’s house too. Nana Yagerri brings platters of corncakes soaked in green chili sauce. The Oyanos and their son, Decaine, bring a bowl of ripe persimmons and pomegranates from their two trees. Kattee, who lives with her parents and sister at the intersection betweenour street and the main stall shops, comes with them, bearing potatoes seasoned with garlic and thyme.
Others come too, bearing no food at all. They stare uneasily at the Strikers in uniform seated at the table, particularly at Red, whom they seem to recognize as the Skyhunter. But their eyes are hungry, their bodies less fortunate than the rest of us have been in finding food, so my mother calls them over. At first the conversation’s awkward, but soon the chatter turns into loud debates and laughter as bowls and plates are passed around.
“You’re so quiet,” Adena says as she watches Jeran fill his plate again. She nudges him hard in the shoulder. “Speak up a bit. Everyone here’s going to think you’re a spy.”
Jeran swallows a piece of flatbread soaked in my mother’s stew and heaves a sigh. “If we might be heading into Federation territory, I’d like to spend my last days in Mara eating as much as I possibly can.”
Decaine smiles awkwardly at me as I pass a basket of bread to him. “I’m glad you’re here tonight, before you leave,” he says in Basean.
I can’t help smiling a little. “Me too.”
“Maybe, when you come back, I could make you a potato roast,” he adds, his ears turning pink.
Decaine has tried to impress me for years. And even though I have no interest in him, there are times when the idea of being with my own people appeals to me, calls to me until I remember that I’m different enough to be unable to bridge the gap. So I just shrug at him and offer him another smile.
“That would be really kind of you,” I decide to sign.
Laughter catches my attention. I glance to one side to see Kattee smiling at Red, who stares hesitantly back at her before he returns to eating potatoes.
I feel a strange sense of something unreasonable—annoyance?exasperation?—before I catch myself. Why do I care if she flirts with Red? Wasn’t I sitting here myself, dealing with Decaine’s awkward attempts? Red looks uncomfortable, and through our bond, I can tell that he doesn’t quite understand what to do with the attention. If he had been walled away by the Federation since he was twelve, then it’s likely he’s never known how to recognize flirting or how to return it, let alone been intimate with anyone before.
I jerk out of my thoughts to see Jeran studying me with curious eyes. Adena looks like she’s about to eat me with the way she’s leaning forward with her chin in her hands.
“What?” I scowl and shake my head at them, then purposely turn my gaze away.
“I think it’s sweet, how you look after him,” Adena signs with an innocent shrug, her round eyes never leaving mine.
I raise an eyebrow at her. “Is it not normal to worry about your Shield before he has to infiltrate the Federation’s lab complex?”
Jeran nods solemnly. “That’s what I prefer to do before I head out to certain death,” he signs. “Scowl in a chair.”
I sigh at his teasing and throw my hands up. Beside me, my mother casts glances between me and Red.
She hasn’t spoken again to me about the mission we’re proposing, or about whether I’m going to go. It doesn’t matter, because we both already know. She has seen the heart of what the Federation can do. She knows the depths of what we’re facing, and why I have no choice but to do this. Even though Adena has suffered the grief of losing family to this war, she’s never been over the border, never seen what it’s really like to be inside the Federation when they’re swarming over you, swallowing your world whole. She and Jeran are children of a free nation. My mother and I know better.
