Chapter Twenty-One
“I CANNOT EXPLAIN WHY I STILL HAVE MY brOTHER’S CHILDHOOD DRAWINGS EVEN NOW, A DOZEN YEARS SINCE THE ARCHANGELS TOOK HIM AWAY.
NOR DO I KNOW WHY I HOLD SUCH CERTAINTY THAT THERE IS A GREATER MEANING TO THEM BEYOND A YOUNG BOY’S IMAGINATION.
BUT THE CLARITY AND FREQUENCY OF THIS STRANGE KNOTTED DESIGN HE MADE OVER AND OVER … IT HAUNTS ME.”
The vault room is small, the walls lined with shelves full of cash and records deemed important enough to lock away, with six square feet of open space in the middle where two kidnapped girls could be sitting.
But I’m standing right here. And they’re definitely not.
There’s a heavy creak of hinges as Dani and Orion pull the vault door open wider and step inside behind me.
“They’re not here,” I say between gritted teeth. Not that I need to point it out or anything. They can obviously see as much for themselves.
But Orion isn’t even looking at me. He doesn’t seem to register the absolute failure around him at all.
He’s staring at a corner of the vault room, his eyes pinned on a large, intricate-looking contraption on the floor that’s slightly bigger than my head and looks like someone took four or five giant metal ropes and knotted them together.
“It’s here,” he murmurs, bending low to study it, his hands moving lightly over its surface. “It’s actually here…”
I stand over him, arms crossed. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s an Aaldenberg knot.” He glances up at me and immediately spots the lack of recognition on my face.
“Named after Elsje Aaldenberg, the first person to theorize their existence. They’re supposed to be these highly secure, arcane safes that hold vital information, but no one’s ever confirmed their existence before, let alone cracked one open. ”
My jaw tightens, anger roiling in my stomach. “Like I give a single shit!” I go to grab him by the vest, trembling all over, wanting to shake him—
—and then my fingers hit something thin and flat and metal on his inner pocket.
The telegram dispatch. From the warden on the prison train.
It comes back to me so clearly now: his reaction when he found it, how his hand has been straying to it, over and over, ever since, in order to make sure it was there.
“Val…” Orion’s watching my face, nervous. “Don’t…”
With quick hands, I pluck the telegram from his vest and turn it toward the light, skimming the words etched into the surface:
Y’ALL SEEM AWFUL ANXIOUS TO GET YOUR HANDS ON THIS SO-CALLED “USELESS” PUZZLE BOX. RECKON GOLD TOWN WILL KEEP IT SAFE IN OUR VAULT FOR A LITTLE BIT LONGER …
My eyes snap over to that thing—the Aaldenberg knot—and rage surges through my body. I whip the telegram straight at Orion’s head, not caring whether the edges of it cut him. “You knew this would be here!”
He ducks the little metal card just in time and then straightens, looking uncomfortable. “I knew it was possible, but that’s not the only reason why I—”
“Were my sisters ever even here?! Or was this just another fucking Skywayman job? Was Fast Draw lying about this for you?”
“It’s not like that, Val, I promise. I thought I could do both at once, and I—”
“Then why didn’t you just tell me?”
“Why do you think?!” Orion snaps. “I told you I have my own stuff going on. I wasn’t about to hand you information this valuable.”
I scoff. “Hilarious that you don’t trust me.”
He sets his jaw, staring me down. “Look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn’t have leveraged this shit in a heartbeat if it meant getting your sisters back.”
I don’t have to answer; we both know I would have, without hesitation.
I would have offered it up in exchange or used it against him, regardless of the outcome, as long as Halle and Kelda were safe on the other side.
Because I’m Val, but I’m also the Butcher and the Butcher is ruthless. They have no friends, only enemies.
I round on Dani, who’s been suspiciously quiet, and throw my hands wide, gesturing at the ridiculous amount of cash and confidential records all around us. “What about you? Were you also just using this whole situation to get inside the vault and get your precious Gold Town insider information?”
She glowers at me. “Don’t take this out on me! I haven’t done anything but help!”
“Why not?!” I know I sound wild and I don’t care. “It wouldn’t be the first time you used me for your own ends.”
“Fine. Sure.” Dani steps around me, shoulder-checking me hard as she slips her rucksack off her shoulders and pulls open the drawstrings. “You know what? Maybe I will go ahead and clean this place out, since you already assume that’s what I’m here for in the first place.”
She starts grabbing handfuls of paper and shoving them into her bag, pointedly glaring at me as she goes, but I turn my back on her, storming back and forth in the small space, a scream building beneath my skin.
Trinity’s song surges up, wild, almost aggressive, tugging at me, and I want to follow it, chase it down, disappear into it.
The edges of my vision go fuzzy with blue-white light—
And that’s when I spot them. Scrape marks on the floor, like something heavy was dragged across it. They’re by a corner of the room closest to the office … where there’s a section of shelves that juts out a little bit from the others.
It takes some maneuvering for me to jam my fingers deep enough into the crevice to work the shelf section free and start scooting it away from the wall inch by inch. When I’ve made enough space, I jam myself into it to see what might be back there.
There’s a big vent close to the floor with a grate over it. Except the grate isn’t screwed in like it’s supposed to be. It’s loosely set back into place, the screws nowhere to be seen. And just inside, I spot the thin, small shape of a copper hairpin, forgotten on the bottom of the vent.
There are a million copper hairpins on Trinity. It could be anyone’s.
But I know it’s Halle’s. I know it. Halle and Kelda were in this room, and they found a way out of it. They’re trying to escape.
Which means I need to catch up with them, fast. Vents in a place like this only have one direction. Up.
Orion looks up from his precious mystery box, frowning at me as I wriggle past the displaced shelves. “Val, what are you—”
I sprint out of the vault room, ignoring both of them.
Skidding around corners, I make it to the staircase and dash up to the next level.
Feverishly, I go from room to room, shouting my sisters’ names into any vent I can find, hoping they will hear me.
They’re not on the second level, though, so I go up to the next, to the very top floor of the Rack.
“Halle! Kelda!”
My mind is on overdrive as I search the rooms. How long ago did they make their escape? Minutes ago? Hours?
“Halle! Kelda!”
Maybe they already made it out? Which means I’m wasting time in this place when I need to get back out on the streets of Covenant before they run into trouble out there. But where do I even start looking? Where would they go?
“Halle! Kel—”
“Val?”
I stop short, my breath freezing in my lungs. I’m almost sure the voice wasn’t real, that I hallucinated it in my desperation to find them when—
“Val? Is that you?”
Halle. Her voice is coming from a vent in the ceiling of this room, and I run over to it, climbing on a nearby table to get as close as possible.
“It’s me! I’m here!”
“Val!” Kelda. The relief hits me so sharp I press my hands to my stomach, trying to breathe.
“Where are you?” They sound close, but I can’t see anything through the vent and there’s no telling how their voices may echo and skew where they’re at.
“We’re almost at the top,” Halle calls. “At the roof, I mean. Can you—”
There’s a clang and a shout, cutting her off, and then Kelda screams and I’m running.
The quarters here are too cramped, too unfamiliar, making phasing tricky, so I pour on speed as I sprint back to the staircase.
I take the steps two at a time, not even slowing as I hit the door and barrel through it, out onto the rooftop of the Gentleman’s Rack.
It’s a wide, open space, perfectly flat, and lit all over by naphtha lamps that blaze with blue-white light.
On the far side, spaced in a loose half circle with pulse pistols and rifles drawn, are about a dozen Gold Towners, ready and waiting for me.
Have they been lurking up here the whole time?
Was their plan always to let me in, only to lure me up here?
It doesn’t really matter. Because Halle and Kelda are there, sitting in the middle of them like bait, bound and gagged and clutching at each other.
They look exhausted and scared and maybe in need of a steam shower, but they’re unharmed.
Kelda swallows a sob, pressing her face into Halle’s back as Halle tries to put her body between Kelda and everyone else.
She tilts her chin up bravely and stares me down, a masked figure bedecked in knives, even though there’s tears in her eyes and she’s trembling all over.
I turn my goggles to the woman standing right behind my sisters, both her pulse pistols pointed at their heads. I recognize her; she was in close with Bloody Bill. One of his more trusted lieutenants. “Rough Rory Rhodes. Nice to see you still alive and kicking.”
In my peripheral vision, Halle freezes at the sound of my voice, sucking in a faint, sharp gasp.
Rory Rhodes scowls and cocks the hammers back on both weapons. “Hands up and weapons down, Butcher. Or you know what the consequences will be.”
“You’re the one who should be thinking about consequences, Rory.” My voice comes out in a growl, muffled by my mask so that it hardly even sounds like me. It barely even sounds human.
Which some people might argue I’m not.
“You sure about that?” Rory scoffs and points at a wound up by her collarbone—a deep gash, recent, roughly sutured together. “I saw a few things in that Clock Tower, Butcher. Things I’m pretty certain you’d like to stay secret.”
Shit. Orion was right, damn him. I wasn’t careful, someone survived the Clock Tower, and now it’s coming back to bite me in the ass. My gloved fingers tighten into fists. “Dead people are the best at keeping secrets.”
“That’s why I invited a few friends up here tonight.
” She nods over her shoulder, and I scan the buildings around us.
There are figures on top of them, the flicker of their life signs hovering behind bulky shapes that look like cinematographs in some cases, box cameras in others.
“All of them work for the dailies. Plus, quite a few civilians watching from their windows, I suspect. It’s a pretty impressive audience, wouldn’t you say?
” Rory grins acidly at me. “Weapons down. No tricks. Or the Butcher’s true nature becomes a top-of-the-reel story across Trinity. ”
Everything inside me goes still. For all the hundreds of times I’ve thought about my secret getting out, I never imagined it happening like this.
One choice, one stark moment of decision.
With so many witnesses, the moment I phase, even once, word will spread.
It’s over. The Archangels will come for me.
Just thinking that makes me feel cold all over, a fear that’s trapped deep in my bones.
But the alternative … I look at Halle and Kelda. At their twin heartbeats pounding side by side.
It’s not even really a choice, is it? It never was.
Slowly, I put my hands up and step forward, the picture of compliance.
Rory nods at two of the other Gold Towners, and they circle around until they’re at my back, nudging me forward with the barrels of their guns.
My pulse is thrumming so hard in my ears I can’t even hear my own footsteps on the rusty metal roof.
Underneath it, Trinity’s song hums, tense and waiting, although I couldn’t even say what it’s waiting for.
We come to a stop a few feet from Rory and my sisters, and Rory steps forward, undisguised glee on her face as she slowly relieves me of all my visible weapons—Wrath, Reason, and Mercy.
“You thought you were so invincible,” she murmurs. “But Gold Towners always come out on top in the end.” Then she reaches up and rips my goggles and mask off my face, flinging them across the roof.
Kelda cries out, and I stand there, exposed, as my sisters take in the sight of me, clad in the blood-spattered uniform of the Butcher.
Truly laid bare for what I really am. I see the realization settle into their eyes and the lines of their faces.
I don’t know what to say to them in this moment.
But, at the same time, I still feel like I should say something.
“Hey.” My voice comes out raspy and choked. “Sorry I’m late.”
Kelda tries to yell something around her gag, struggling toward me, but Halle holds her back, and one of the Gold Towners swings his pulse rifle around to them, shouting at them to stay out of it, to be quiet and this will all be over soon.
I catch Kelda’s eye and shake my head. “Do what they say, smalls. Everything’s going to be okay, I promise.”
Kelda goes still, and Halle holds her close, both of them staring at me, terrified. Whether it’s for me or of me, I don’t know, and it’s pointless to dwell on it. They can hate me or fear me or whatever they want, as long as they’re alive.
“I just need you both to do one thing for me…,” I tell them, unshed tears burning at the backs of my eyes as I steady my breathing to the rhythm of Trinity’s song. Blue-white light haloes the edges of my vision as I twist my arm blade free.
“… close your eyes.”