17
I don’t know how long I sit in my room with my back against the door, waiting for the tremors to subside.
My body feels too small, too fragile, for the force of my rage and terror.
I want out of it, out of my skin, and yet I can do nothing but sit here and hate and hate and hate.
Something about hearing my impending death stated with such matter-of-fact certainty hit me like a physical impact.
There’s a reason I prefer to keep my hands covered whenever possible—a reason I always bathe with the lights off.
The mere sight of my onyx-tipped fingers sends me into a spiral of panic.
The Warden had known precisely where to strike, and he’d made it hurt.
It’s that thought that eventually spurs me back to life.
He doesn’t get to hurt me. I can’t allow his words to reduce me to this.
He’s only telling me what I already know, and my refusal to accept my fate is the reason I’m here.
I can’t waste time feeling sorry for myself—that’s not who I am.
I’m the kind of person who takes action.
I creep back downstairs, a glance at the clock in the foyer letting me know it’s late afternoon. The Warden is nowhere to be found. I do a quick sweep of the main floor to confirm this, and once I’m certain I’m alone, I turn my mind to investigating.
The house is still and silent as I creep through each room in turn.
My only company is the irregular rattling of the wind stirring the shutters.
I search painstakingly through the Warden’s belongings—including his business documents—making sure to put everything back the way I found it.
I learn shockingly little from the endeavor.
The Warden possesses few personal effects, as though his presence here is a short-term arrangement.
What I do learn is useless: He wears only neutral colors.
He writes in black ink, his scrawl messy.
His cupboards are surprisingly organized.
He shares his brother’s affinity for art, at least to some extent.
Frustrated, I consider taking advantage of the solitude to call Gabriel again but decide against it.
Mainly because I don’t have any more information to impart—none that I want to impart, anyway—but also because I don’t know how to feel about our last conversation.
By evening there’s still no sign of the Warden, and my frustration grows.
How am I supposed to get him to the Reaches if he’s nowhere to be found?
I drag myself back upstairs to my room and sprawl across the bed, training my gaze on the ceiling.
I can’t help wondering if my earlier reaction has the Warden second-guessing our arrangement.
If he’s marked me as weak because of it.
Maybe he’s even left for the Reaches without me.
The realization sends dismay surging through my bones, and I sit bolt upright. It’s precisely the type of thing he would do—get the information he needs from me, then continue on alone. I’m a fool for not seeing it sooner.
I leap from the bed as my fury hardens into resolve. Regardless of how it feels, I’m not trapped here. I’ll give the Warden until tomorrow. If he still hasn’t returned, I’ll make for the Reaches myself. Ideally I’ll find him along the way and make him regret ever knowing me.
First, however, I need more than the blood-encrusted clothes on my back.
I bathe quickly, and ten minutes later I’m striding past the fountain of the woman with the empty pot, my hood drawn up to conceal my face.
What little money I have feels heavy in my pocket.
It will get me a train ticket but not much else.
I mentally calculate that it’ll take two hours to get to my apartment and back, assuming I don’t encounter a delay.
Dusk spreads like spilled ink across the sky, which is cloudy with the threat of rain.
The air feels thick in my lungs. Once I’m a short distance away from the Warden’s house, the gray-washed streets become busier, muffled shouts and raucous laughter emanating from a few of the crowded buildings.
Some look to be pubs or taverns like Tuonela’s, but others have closed doors and muted lighting, dark figures slipping in and out without exchanging pleasantries.
I’m tense, ready to reach for a weapon if necessary, but the people I pass appear just as keen to go undetected as I am.
Those who aren’t visibly intoxicated keep their heads down and move with purpose.
Others engage in fervent conversation, clearly conducting some sort of business.
Despite the dilapidation and general atmosphere of danger, the Trench isn’t the chaotic hellscape the Regiment makes it out to be.
It’s organized. A functioning micro-city.
I suspect the Warden is to thank for that.
Here, even as his house is swallowed by the shadows in my wake, I can feel the suffocating force of his presence.
The Warden’s fingerprints are all over this place.
His laugh echoes in the brush of wind against my cheeks.
It occupies my mind as I catch sight of the train tracks, replaced a moment later by resignation.
A great obsidian steam engine is pulling away from the platform, belching acrid smoke into the air as it goes.
“Fuck,” I mutter. According to the board inside the station, the next train isn’t due to leave for another ten minutes, so I settle onto a wooden bench to wait, impatience needling at me.
“Well, well. Keller.”
My head snaps around, and I leap to my feet as I recognize the owner of the voice. It isn’t the Warden—thank hell—and my panic subsides even as annoyance flares. “Darva?”
My fellow sinner offers an unfriendly smile, circling the bench to stand at my side. Rather than meet my gaze, she stares out across the dark railway tracks as she responds. “I must say, I thought you’d be more difficult to find, given your”—her lip curls—“special assignment.”
Something about the lilt to her voice strikes a chord deep within me. Because I recognize that voice. Not from our previous encounters, but from a warbled, static-ridden version filtering through a rotary phone.
“It was you.” I clench my hands in my pockets, trying to make sense of my realization. “On the phone, I mean.”
Darva stiffens, wariness clouding her harsh features. She can’t have known it was me who picked up—I’d slammed the receiver down without saying a word. But something about the way her lips purse made me wonder if she’d guessed. “You were trying to call Gabriel.”
“And you were trying to call the Warden.”
She says nothing. The silence between us pulsates as we both weigh how to react. I remember what the Warden said the other day about having sources everywhere. It seems impossible, but then again, I know next to nothing about Darva. She’s unerringly private, and maybe it’s for good reason.
“You work for him,” I say as comprehension filters in, then bark a laugh, because how fitting. Gabriel considers himself infallible, and yet he has not one but two vipers in his midst. “You work for the Warden. You feed him information about the Prophet, don’t you?”
Darva doesn’t answer my question, but I don’t need her to. Her response is sharp, accusatory. “You’re going to betray him.”
“Gabriel?”
“No. The Warden.”
An acute sense of danger unravels in the pit of my stomach, and I match her evasiveness. “Are you here to fight, Darva?”
“Let me make one thing very clear.” She faces me now, nostrils flaring beneath the sharp point of her nose.
“People are loyal to the Prophet because they want something from him. Money. Safety. Salvation. But people are loyal to the Warden because he’s already given them everything.
The Trench is a safe haven for sinners, and he protects them without asking for anything in return.
Other than respect, that is. Even if people don’t know where the Warden is—even if they wouldn’t recognize him in a crowd—they respect his authority.
They’d do anything to keep him from falling into the Regiment’s hands. ”
“That kind of loyalty is admirable.” As I speak, the next train pulls up, letting out an ear-splitting whistle. I offer Darva a sarcastic salute. “That’s my cue.”
I’ve barely taken a step when her hand fastens around my upper arm, fingers digging painfully into my tricep.
A jolt of shock ripples through me. There has always been unspoken animosity between us, she’s never dared touch me before.
I still, fixing Darva with an icy glare. “Get your fucking hands off me.”
“I know what you’re doing.” Her voice is soft, barely controlled. “I know you think you’ll be able to take down the Warden, but you’re in over your head.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“Have you ever been loyal to anyone in your life, Keller? I’ve no love for Gabriel, but I could respect if you were committed to him.
Instead, you’ll betray anyone the moment it serves you.
” Darva makes no attempt to conceal her disgust, mouth pulling into a sneer.
“Is that why even the Solemn Apostles didn’t want you? ”
I wrench out of her grip as the train emits another loud whistle. “You know full well I left the Apostles because they all died.”
“So you say.”
“I saw it. The whole damned church went up in flames.” Darva doesn’t know a thing about me. She’s only trying to get under my skin. Still, my fingers inch toward my gun.
“The Prophet took you on because he felt bad for you,” she continues snidely. “A poor little cult girl with nowhere else to go. He probably only kept you because you let him fuc—”
I yank my gun from my waistband, spinning to the side in an attempt to put some distance between us.
But Darva is a better fighter than I realized—she drags me back in, grabbing my gun arm and twisting as I pull the trigger.
Though the silencer is on, the sound reverberates across the platform, and the doors of the train squeal shut in response.
This is the Trench; no one is going to summon the Regiment.
The train is simply going to leave without me.
Darva lets out an animalistic growl. My shot missed, ricocheting off the ground near her feet.
Worse, she yanks the weapon from my hand entirely, and I hear it clatter to the stone platform.
By now she has her own gun out, and she slams the barrel into my cheekbone.
Hot pain shoots through the left side of my face.
My vision blurs, but I squint past it, fingers scrabbling for my knife.
I find it just in time for her to hit me again, this time flinging me backward.
The breath whooshes out of me as my tailbone thuds against the ground.
I should have known better. Gabriel—and the Warden—hired Darva because she’s good.
She’s trained to kill in ways I never will be.
“Don’t talk to me about loyalty,” I say with a laugh, even as I lie sprawled on the platform in front of her. “Last I checked, you’d pledged yourself to Gabriel, and you do a hell of a job pretending to worship him.”
She narrows her eyes. Her gun is pointed directly at my head. “You’re right. I do a much better job than you, and still he favors you. What’s that about, Keller?”
I don’t know how to respond. To anyone else, it doesn’t make sense that Gabriel hired me when I was a naive and homeless nineteen-year-old with nothing to offer. Nobody understands how easy it is for him to control me.
“Not sure what to tell you,” I say, my brain occupied with trying to work out a way to disarm her.
I can throw my knife, but even if I hit her somewhere critical, there’s a chance she’ll still get a shot off.
I need to stall. “Oh,” I add, belatedly understanding.
“You don’t like that Gabriel confides in me.
You want him to confide in you, so you can relay it to the Warden.
Have you been disappointing him, Darva?”
She ignores me, peering over her shoulder at the train tracks. “I don’t think Gabriel will be overly surprised when your body’s discovered. Maybe he’ll even think you decided to end it yourself.” Her cold gaze drops to my gloves. “After all, you’re half dead already, aren’t you?”
“You’re one to talk,” I say through my teeth, but her words send a surge of panic through me.
Darva is going to shoot me, then push my body in front of a train.
I expected death to come in a number of ways—the Warden, the Bloodrot, an assignment gone wrong—but somehow being shot execution-style by a fellow sinner never crossed my mind.
I push myself to stand. If she’s going to kill me, then I’ll die on my feet, looking her in the eye.
The wind whips my hood back, and my gaze traps Darva’s as her face splits into a grin. Every muscle in my body is as tense as a strung bow. Though I know it’s futile, I brace to reach for my blade. At the very least, maybe I can make her suffer alongside me.
Darva’s grin suddenly falters. Her eyes go wide as a grinding snap cuts the air, and then she crumples to the ground, revealing a dark figure standing directly behind her.
“Oh dear,” the Warden drawls, stepping into the light. “What a pity.”