56. Zeno
ZENO
Arc Eight is not what Zeno expected.
Auxiliary patrols stop at Arc Seven—Eight was deemed a waste of resources a long time ago—so he’s never seen it before.
The people here don’t seem to care much about the Trials, probably because the Academy doesn’t care much about them.
They mill about, selling questionable wares and advertising new bars and whorehouses.
At least half of the residents sport brands on their foreheads of all different kinds. More than a few for murder.
Ophelia is walking between all of them with her hair held back tight.
Her curls were too bouncy to fit under the hood of her cloak, and it took propositions from five different pimps for Eudoxia to rip off a piece of her shirt as a hair tie.
Ophelia’s eyes still scan around, like she’s looking for someone.
The whole place smells of the sea, but not in the gentle way that the Academy does. It smells like fish and salt and sewage pulled from and dumped into the waves.
Not to mention the constant buzzing on the streets from generators positioned every block or two. The hovertrain from the countryside ends here, and the Arc is devoted in large part to creating electricity to keep it running. The locals don’t look especially bothered by it.
At the docks, a woman catches sight of his blood-covered shoe. He quickly whips his cloak over it, expecting her to cry out, but instead of screaming for help she gives him a wicked smile, missing half her teeth, and walks away.
They find a bench within view of the boat Kallias procured, and sit down to wait for the boys.
“This place is horrible,” Eudoxia whispers.
Ophelia crosses her arms. “The horrible thing is that the Academy claims the Arcs aren’t separated by class.”
“I guess,” Eudoxia says. “We don’t even patrol here. And crime only grows if there’s no one to enforce Justice.”
“I don’t think these people need Justice,” Zeno says, hearing his father’s voice in his head. “They need help.”
“But from who?” Lazarus asks.
Ophelia answers quietly, “No one helps the hopeless if there’s no hope.”
They fidget for half an hour on their little bench, every minute sharpening Zeno’s unease, until Alexander stumbles through an alleyway just to their left. He’s a mess. No cloak, swollen knuckles, bloodshot eyes, and—Forms, are those gunshot wounds?
“What happened—” Zeno starts before Ophelia pushes in front of him.
“Where’s Kallias?”
Alexander’s face is murderous. And sad. So, so sad.
“Alexander—” Zeno starts again.
“—Where is he?” Ophelia interrupts.
“He’s gone,” Alexander whispers. Or, it comes out as a whisper. His voice is too shredded for Zeno to tell.
“For how long?” Eudoxia insists. “The boat is right here, Alexander, we can’t just wait for him.”
Her beautiful one-track mind. Usually he loves it, but right now he can’t help but wince.
“We’re not using the boat.”
“What?”
“Come on,” Alexander says before breaking into a sprint back through Arc Eight.
“What is he doing?” Lazarus hisses to Zeno.
Zeno shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
“What happened, Alexander?” Ophelia asks, this time much softer. Zeno can’t tell if it’s genuine or if she’s just trying anything to get an explanation out of him.
Alexander sighs with his head in his hands, catching his breath from their run to the hovertrain station. His whole body is shaking with adrenaline. Lazarus is already ripping off parts of his clean shirt for tourniquets to stop the bleeding in his arm and leg.
“He was spying on us,” he finally says, and everyone stills.
Arete is the first one to speak. “Kallias?” she whispers. The waiting room in the hovertrain terminal is so empty that Zeno can hear it from where he sits.
“He’s with the Educator.” Alexander winces, lip quivering like he might cry. “But he…”
“He what?” Eudoxia prompts.
“He told them some things, kept the important ones to himself. They think we’re on the boat right now. They’ve planned an ambush.”
“But why did he have to stay behind?” Arete quietly cries.
“I don’t know,” Alexander says quietly before shrugging Lazarus off and kicking the wall hard with his injured leg. “I don’t fucking know!”
“I do,” Ophelia says.
Alexander sneers at her. “Oh, do you?”
“Look around, Alexander!” Ophelia scoffs viciously.
“There are no guards here. If Kallias had run with us, they wouldn’t believe a thing he’d ever told them.
There’d be Auxiliaries swarming every inch of the city.
But now they’re all twiddling their thumbs at the docks, because no one has any reason to doubt that that’s where we’ll be! ”
A voice over the PA system announces, “The hovertrain is departing from Arc Eight in ten minutes,” and then silence settles.
Eudoxia breaks it. “That was good of him,” she says. “We shouldn’t let his sacrifice be in vain.”
Alexander glares at her. “You guys know what to do, then. Take the hovertrain to the coast, buy a boat, and leave.”
He starts for the exit.
“What?” Zeno asks, not following.
“He did this on purpose—made me keep the decoy boat a secret. He thought I’d run down here and leave him behind. But now I’ve shown you what you need to do, so I’m going back for that sneaky fucker.”
“Alexander, you can’t leave,” Eudoxia yells after him, yanking at his bleeding arm. Alexander recoils from the pain. “Shit, sorry. But we can’t go without you.”
“I brought you here. Now you can go.”
“We know nothing about your world. We don’t know how to sail. We’d be blind out there.”
“I’m not leaving him.”
“So you’re leaving us?”
“He’s martyring himself for you!” Alexander yells.
“He’s not martyring anything,” she says, getting up in his face despite her height. “They think he’s a spy. They’ll treat him as such.”
“And when they don’t find us on the boat?” Alexander asks. “What do you think they’ll do when they realize he lied for us?”
“He’s smart. He’ll figure it out.”
“How could he possibly—”
“You’re being an idiot—”
“Guys!” Zeno yells, pushing in between them. “This isn’t productive.”
“It’s hard to be productive when you’re arguing with a selfish bitch.”
Zeno inhales sharply. “Alexander—”
“You are such a shortsighted asshole, Alexander. He did this for you! Are you really going to waste it by dying in a suicide mission to get him back?”
“Yes!”
“Forms give me strength.” Eudoxia sighs explosively.
“You don’t know what they do to him there, Eudoxia,” Lazarus butts in from where he sits on the floor. “We can’t leave him.”
Alexander’s head snaps to Lazarus. Emotions flit across his face in quick succession. “You knew?”
Lazarus winces.
“You knew this whole time and you didn’t tell anyone?”
“Who was I going to tell?”
“Me!” Alexander shouts. “You should have told me!”