CHAPTER 20 EZZO
EZZO
The urge to find a tavern and drink myself into oblivion is almost overwhelming.
For a brief second there, I’d felt useful again; I had a trail to follow and a puzzle to distract me from the pain.
But now, I don’t really know what to do anymore.
On the one hand, I want to keep tugging at this tangled thread, see what answers I can unravel.
On the other, I want to leave Sarotuza to the monster it created, let the Divine Meridian continue killing Shades.
It’s nothing less than they deserve, and the shadows, well .
. . it doesn’t seem fair for their fate to once again fall to me.
I’ve already done my part, haven’t I? Given all I had to give?
That’s not how it works, Ez. Eve’s voice wraps my fingers around my scry, the ghost of her patience making the decision for me.
Where are they? The cynical part of me says they’re long gone, that when I ran off with a Shade they decided that two saves was enough contrition, they didn’t need to stick around for number three.
But down deep, I think I knew that they’d still be here, that my scry would lead me to another abandoned house, where they’d decided to hole up while they waited to see if I would require that third rescue.
That whether I want them to or not, they’re trying to make amends.
“We were just starting to get worried.” Cemmy welcomes me back with only the barest amount of grief. “I see you dumped the Shade?”
“Turns out you were right, she was a bad idea.” The moment those words leave my mouth, I sag against the wall, consumed by the crushing weight of the day.
Of the last few days, actually. From capture, to court chamber, to cellar.
Chase might have healed the injuries to my body, but there’s some damage that no amount of Green magic can fix—like a fundamental break in spirit.
Why else would I have been so happy to let the trackers catch me again?
Why else would I have risked my freedom for a drink or willingly shackled myself to Raya?
“You look terrible, Ez,” Cemmy says, low and quiet. “When was the last time you ate?”
Honestly? I can’t remember. But the second she says it my stomach growls with a hollow ache.
“Too long ago.”
“Then come on, we’ve got plenty of food to spare.
” She leads me into the front room, where she and Chase have turned an old trunk into a makeshift table, laden with a modest spread.
A loaf of bread, a heel of cheese, a cup of caramelized nuts and a handful of stale pastries—all things Cemmy can steal without drawing attention, even in the real world, though she tends to do her stealing in the Gray, where no merchant could race after her should her sticky fingers accidentally reveal their bent. A perk of the physicality of her gift.
Speaking of gifts . . . Before I fold down to the dusty floor, I phase into the shadows for a moment and blink into mine, quickly scanning the area for trails.
“All clear?” Cemmy doesn’t so much as blink when I reappear. She’s used to me popping in and out of existence without warning, though there is a tiny hint of a smile playing at her lips.
“For now.” I do my best to ignore it. I didn’t check the coast for them, I did it for me; I’m not ready for another cell yet.
“How’d it go with the Shade?” Chase asks, adding to the table a wrap of butter and some cured meat. “She give you anything useful?”
Gods, how to even begin answering that question.
“It’s a long story.”
“We have time, Ez.” Cemmy motions for me to tuck in. “If you want to tell it.”
So, I do tell it, if only to purge the wealth of questions and contradictions from my head, share the madness with other people.
“A void?” Cemmy asks once I’m done with the telling, turning the word on her tongue. “I’ve never heard that term before—at least not in relation to Shades.”
“Me neither.” Chase drums a restless tattoo against the trunk. “Could the Indigo have misheard him, maybe? Or misunderstood?”
“It’s possible,” I say, since I wasn’t there with her. “But I saw his trail for myself and it was definitely . . . different. Less like a trail and more like a dearth in the shadows—an absence—but one I could feel.”
“Okay, so then what do you want to do next?” Cemmy asks, arms wrapping around her knees.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, we’re not leaving Sarotuza until we know you’re safe so . . .
do you want to stay, do you want to go? Tell us what you need.”
“I can’t go yet.” That realization dawns on me unbidden, like a midnight sun.
Hells, I’m not altogether sure that I could go, even if I did want to, that the future would actually allow me to leave.
It seems to want him here. If Raya was right about that assertion, then the fates would only conspire to lead me straight back to the city, because while changing the future is possible, fighting it is an exercise in futility.
Mom taught me that. But it was her death that taught me never to ignore my suspicions, no matter how absurd they might feel, to keep my eyes open, always, and rely on the strength of my gift.
“For some reason, the Council is blind to what the Meridian is doing to these typics; I can’t go without first finding out why that is, and why he’s doing it. ”
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Cemmy says, as though I’d meant that I as a we.
“No, that’s—Just because I’m choosing to stay doesn’t mean the two of you have to get involved.”
“We’re already involved, Ezzo.” Chase’s voice is resigned. “I saw the same future the Indigo did, remember? And it was all our colors in that vision, so if you’re going to stay, we may as well stay with you, get to the bottom of it together.”
“Any idea where we should start?” Cemmy asks before I can disagree, almost as if to stop me doing it.
“None whatsoever.” So instead, I concede. “I only got this far because the future was guiding Raya.”
“Then maybe it’s time to ask a different Shade for help.” Cemmy trades a meaningful look with Chase. “The Red did say we could reach out again if we needed to—and she knew an awful lot about a whole bunch of illegal things, so maybe she’ll know something about this.”
“I’m sorry—the Red?” That’s about the last thing I expected Cemmy to say. “What Red? Since when do you know a Red?”
“Since the day we had to rescue you from an impenetrable castle.”
Her head shakes with the question. “How else do you think we learned about the portals, Ez? Or managed to subdue an entire court? Did you really think we did that by ourselves?”
“I—” Didn’t think about it at all, to be honest, though now that she’s said it, it feels downright obvious.
Of course they’d have needed help breaking into the Academy; until this morning, none of us even knew portals existed, never mind how to find or use one, and we’ve certainly never gone up against a room full of Shades—few Hues ever attempt that and live to tell the tale.
“Gods, where did you even find a sympathetic Red?”
“That’s also a long story,” Cemmy says, climbing back to her feet. “We can catch you up once I’ve set the meeting.”
*
The meeting, as it happens, is to take place in a very normal-looking house, on a very normal-looking street, at the very heart of the one part of Sarotuza that’s dangerously low in iron.
The color district, Cemmy called it, which feels like the last place three Hues should ever be—especially in the Gray, where our eyes are a death sentence and we can’t disappear among the typics.
“You didn’t want to go anywhere a little less . . . Shade-friendly?” I ask, blinking out of my gift. The number of trails in our vicinity is a rainbow sea, stormy and shark-infested, a shipwreck waiting to happen. “We’re pretty exposed here.”
“I didn’t pick the place, Ez, she did.” Cemmy strides up to the door with a confidence I don’t feel.
“She being the Red that got you into the Academy?”
“That’s the one.” Cemmy’s knock is a rhythmic pattern they must have pre-agreed. Four raps of her knuckles followed by two more, then another three. “And while it may not have been my first choice, she said it would be safer for us to make the approach in the Gray.”
Yeah, I’m sure she did. The blood starts pounding in my ears. It’s the perfect trap, after all, allowing the trackers to catch us here; it would prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there’s illicit color flowing through our veins.
“Don’t worry—if she wanted to set us up, she would have done it at your execution.” Chase’s attempt at comfort isn’t quite as reassuring as he thinks. “It wouldn’t make sense for her to do it after she helped us escape.”
“I still don’t understand why a Red is helping us at all,” I mutter, just in time for the door to swing open and that Red to say, “Because you really seem to need it.” She’s nothing like what I expect.
She’s young, for starters—eighteen or nineteen, at best—with skin as dark as mine and a thick braid that snakes down past her hip.
But the most surprising thing about her is the eyes.
Not their deep brown color, but the black spiked rim.
This girl’s not a rogue, she’s a Council Shade.
“And I prefer Saleen to ‘the Red’, if you don’t mind,” she continues.
“Referring to a Shade by their color is a bit reductive.”
“Erm . . .” Saleen? That name rings a bell for some reason I can’t quite place. “Sorry, I—”
“Relax, I’m just messing with you.” Saleen winks, beckoning us inside. “He looks better, by the way,” she says to Chase. “I guess that means you found the Green?”
“Right where you said she’d be—I appreciate the tip.”
“Anytime. Oh, and we can phase back now if you want to drop your In-Betweens. The neighbors get a little twitchy when they see an unfamiliar face in the physical realm—we’ve had some problems lately with the Church trying to sneak iron into the district—but come in the Gray and they don’t so much as blink. ”