“Take us to Little Sword Lake,” I murmur. “Jon said we would find something there, something that will help.”

I expect more arguments, but no one dares cross me. It’s not wise to annoy a lightning girl when you’re flying in a metal tube.

Thunder rolls beneath us, in the clouds below, a harbinger of the lightning churning in the rainstorm. Great bolts strike the land, and I feel each one as an extension of myself. Fluid but sharp as glass, burning through everything in their way. The Little Sword is not far, on the northern edge of the storm, and it reflects the steadily clearing sky like a mirror. Cal circles once, high enough and deep enough in the clouds to hide our presence, before he spots a runway half-buried in the forested hills around the lake. When we touch down, I all but leap from my seat, though I have no idea what I’m looking for.

Shade is close behind me as I sprint down the jet ramp, eager to get to the lake. It’s a mile north, if memory serves, and I let my inner compass take hold. But I barely make it to the tree line before a familiar sound stops me cold.

The click of a gun.

TWENTY-TWO

She’s holding the pistol wrong. Even I know that. It’s too big for her, made of shimmering black metal, with a barrel nearly a foot long. Better suited to a trained soldier rather than a shivering, slight teenage girl. A soldier, I realize with cold clarity. A Silver. It’s the same kind of gun a Sentinel shot me with, so long ago in the cells deep beneath the Hall of the Sun. The bullet felt like a blow from a hammer and went straight through my spine. I would’ve died if not for Julian and a blood healer under his control. In spite of my ability, I raise my hands, palms open in surrender. I’m the lightning girl, but I’m not bulletproof. But she takes this as a threat instead of submission, and tenses, her finger itching too close to the trigger.

“Don’t move,” she hisses, daring to take another step toward me. Her skin, the dark, rich color of blackwood bark, offers her perfect camouflage in the forest. And yet, I see the red bloom beneath, and the tiny scarlet veins webbing the whites of each eye. I gasp to myself. She’s Red. “Don’t bleeding think about it.”

“I won’t,” I tell her, tipping my head. “But I can’t speak for him.”

Her brows furrow in confusion. She doesn’t have time to be afraid. Shade appears behind her, solidifying out of thin air, and wraps her up in an expert military hold. The gun falls from her grasp, and I snatch it before it can hit the rocky ground. She fights, snarling, but with Shade’s arms firmly locked behind her head, she can’t do much more than sink to her knees. He follows, keeping her firmly in hand, his mouth set in a grim line. A scrawny girl is no match for him.

The gun feels foreign in my hand. It’s not my chosen form of weapon—I’ve never even shot one before. I almost laugh at that. To come so far without even firing a gun.

“Get your Silver hands off me!” she growls, struggling against Shade’s grip. She’s not strong, but slippery, with long, lean muscles. Keeping her still is like holding on to an eel. “I won’t go back, I won’t! You’ll have to kill me!”

Sparks crackle in my empty hand, while the other still clutches the gun. The sight of my lightning freezes her immediately. Only her eyes move, widening in fear.

Her tongue darts out, wetting dry and cracked lips. “Knew I recognized you.”

Cal’s heat outruns his body, enveloping me in a pocket of warmth moments before he skids to my side. His fingertips burn blue with fear, but his flames recede at the sight of the girl.

“I got you a present,” I mutter, pressing the gun into his hand. He glares at it, seeing exactly what I saw.

“How did you get this?” he asks, dropping to a crouch so he can look her in the eye. His manner, cold and firm, takes me back to the last time I watched him interrogate someone. The memory of Farley’s screams and frozen blood still turns my stomach. When she doesn’t answer, he tightens, a coil of hard muscle. “This gun? How?!”

“I took it!” she rages back, squirming. Her joints crack with the action.

I wince with her, and lock eyes with my brother. “Let her be, Shade. I think we can handle this fine.”

He nods, glad to let go of the wriggling teenager, and releases her. She pitches forward, but catches herself before eating dirt. She skirts away from Cal’s attempt to help. “Don’t touch me, Lordy.” She looks liable to bite, her teeth bared and gleaming.

“Lordy?” he mutters under his breath, now just as confused as the girl.

Above her, Shade narrows his eyes in realization. “Lordy. High lords—Silvers. It’s slum slang,” he explains for our benefit. “What Town are you from?” he asks her, his tone much kinder than Cal’s. It takes her off guard, and she glances at him, her black eyes darting in fear. But she keeps looking back at me, transfixed by the thin spindles of sparks between my fingers.

“New Town,” she finally replies. “They took me from New Town.”

Now it’s my turn to bend, so I can look at her fully. She seems like my opposite, long and lean where I am short, her braided hair a gleaming oil black while mine fades from brown to splinters of gray. She’s younger than me; I can see it in her face. Maybe fifteen or sixteen, but her eyes speak of weariness beyond her short years. Her fingers are long and crooked, probably broken by machinery too many times to count. If she’s from the New Town slum, she’s a techie, doomed to work the factories and assembly lines of a city born in smoke. There are tattoos on her neck, but nothing so superfluous as Crance’s anchor. Numbers, I realize. NT-ARSM-188907. Big and blocky, two inches high, wrapping halfway around her throat.

“Not pretty, is it, lightning girl?” she sneers, noting my gaze. Disdain drips from her words like venom from fangs. “But you don’t like to bother with ugly things.”

Her tone grates, and I’m tempted to show her exactly how ugly I can be. Instead, I hearken back to my court training and do what so many did to me. I smirk in her face, laughing quietly. I hold the cards here, and she needs to know it. Her expression sours, annoyed by my reaction.

“You took this from a Silver?” Cal presses on, gesturing to the gun. His disbelief is plain for all to hear. “Who helped you?”

“No one helped. You should know that firsthand,” she throws back. “Had to do it all myself. Guard Eagrie didn’t see me coming.”

“What?” Only my lessons with Lady Blonos keep me from gasping outright. A soldier of House Eagrie. The House of Eyes. Any one of them can see the immediate future, like lesser versions of Jon. It’s almost impossible for a Silver to attack them without them knowing, let alone a Red girl. Impossible.

She only shrugs. “Thought Silvers were supposed to be tough, but she was nothing. And fighting was better than waiting around in my cell. For whatever they had planned.”

Cell.

I fall back on my heels, leveled by understanding. “You escaped from Corros Prison.”

Her eyes fly to mine, and her lower lip quivers. It’s the only indication of the fear coursing beneath her enraged exterior.

Cal’s hand finds my elbow, steadying me. “What’s your name?” he asks, his tone taking on a gentler edge. He treats her like a spooked animal, and that provokes her like nothing else.