Page 47

Ma doesn't move. "My daughter isn't home."

My heart slams so hard I actually press a hand to my chest, as if I can hold it in place if I push hard enough. Of course she thinks this is about Sola. Of course she does. She's late. She's always late. She knows things before the rest of us do, always slips out and comes back with that look on her face like she's halfway through a thought she won't share.

Please don't let them find her. Please, not her.

Somebody crashes into the side fence. Another door slams open across the way. One of the neighbors starts shouting that the district's locking down and if these bastards don't move their fine boots, they'll be sealed in with the rest of us, and in the middle of all that noise I hear footsteps flying up the side path, too fast, too uneven, somebody breathing like they've run the whole way in one go.

Then Sola appears out of the dusk, so fast it almost feels like she's been thrown there, hair half loose from its tie, cheeks flushed, one sleeve torn near the wrist, her eyes huge and fixed on the men at the front before they snap to Ma.

"Inside." Ma barks the order, and I've never heard her sound like that in my life.

Sola doesn't argue. She doesn't even look at me. She ducks low, slips through the gap Ma opens with one sharp movement, and Ma catches her by the back of the coat, dragging her fully inside before slamming the door hard enough to shake the wall.

For one wild second I think that's it. I think we did it. I think they were too slow and now she's home and we can all just stay quiet and wait for them to leave.

Then the voice comes again, closer this time, right outside the door.

"We're not here for her."

The whole world pulls tight around that one sentence. Ma goes rigid with her hand still on the latch. Sola's breath catches, and my own lungs lock so hard I can't pull air in properly.

"The younger one," the man says, calm as ever. "Bring out the boy."

Ma turns so fast her eyes find me at once, planting herself between me and the door. "You're not getting my son."

Sola reaches me next, her fingers clamping around my wrist so hard it hurts as she drags me down beside the kitchen counter.

I crouch because she makes me, folding in on myself so fast I almost hit the floor, my back pressing into the wood, my breath coming too fast and too thin, each inhale slipping off before it gets deep enough.

"Quiet," she hisses, and only then do I finally look at her properly.

There's dirt on her cheek. Blood on the heel of her hand. Her face is pale in a way that frightens me more than the men outside, but her eyes are steady, fixed on me like she's trying to pin me in place by looking.

"Sola—"

"Quiet."

Outside, the men shout again, voices harder now, while the horn keeps blaring and the Ward bells start up over it, deep and heavy, rolling through the district until every window seems to rattle. Somewhere nearby, a child starts crying. One of the men curses. Another tells him to leave it.

"We'll be back. You can't hide him forever."

Boots scrape against stone. Then the voices pull away, and none of us move.

They never even tried to get past the door. They could have. Instead they only watched, as though they already knew they didn't need to.

Around us, little by little, the lane empties. The shouting dies first. Then the doors slamming. Then the last echo of boots on stone. The bells stop, and even the horn cuts off. Wind moves through the lane instead, cold and thin, catching at the walls hard enough to make the old wood creak.

The district settles into that awful silence it sometimes does, like everybody's inside with the lights low, waiting for the Ward to hold. Waiting for morning.

Ma still has one hand on the front door when she turns, her face white with fury. "What did you do?"

"I didn't bring them here."

"They asked for Rowan."

"I didn't do anything," I blurt out. "Ma, I swear."

Ma rounds on Sola so fast I almost flinch with her, catching hold of her arm. "Then why were they here?"