“Where is my mother?” Tessa cried out. “I want her to come forward and speak for me.”
The judge hesitated, and then glanced toward the crowd. There was a moment’s pause, and then a small, dark-clad woman who bore more than a passing resemblance to Tessa appeared out of the crowd. A few hands reached out as if to assist her, but she brushed them away with her crushed, gnarled fingers, with her hands turned withered and streaked with vivid red scars. Hawk cringed as he glimpsed them, thinking of the pain she must have endured. He had never seen her before, but there was no mistaking who she was. Once, when she was younger, she must have been beautiful like Tessa. Now, however, her face was pinched and tight, and there was no warmth in her dark eyes.
Those eyes shifted momentarily to find his, then slid away again. She rolled up to her daughter and stopped.
“Is it true,” she demanded. “Do you carry his child?”
“Mother, please tell them—”
“Do you carry his child!”
Tessa flinched, her face crumpling. “Mother—”
Her mother spit on her, her face contorted with rage. “You have disgraced us, Tessa. Betrayed us! You were told not to see this boy again. You were forbidden! If your father . . .”
She was unable to finish the thought. She took a deep breath. “Do you know what you have done? Do you have any idea? What will happen to me, Tessa? Have you thought of that? Your father is gone. Now you abandon me, too. I am crippled—useless to all! Do you know what that means? Do you?”
Her face turned hard and set. “If your father were here, he would not speak for you, and neither will I.”
Tessa looked stunned, her blank eyes filling with tears. Her mother held her gaze a moment, and then turned away and disappeared back into the crowd.
“Wait!” Hawk leapt to his feet. “I know what you intend for me, but you can’t blame her! She did it because I threatened to hurt her if she didn’t do as I said!”
The judge barely glanced at him as two of his captors took hold of him and forced him back into his chair. “Tessa and Hawk, you have been found guilty by this court. The penalty for stealing stores is death. You will be taken to the walls of the compound at sunset today and thrown over. We grant you forgiveness for your acts and wish you a better life in the next world. This court is adjourned.
Take them away.”
Shouts rose from the crowd mingled with scattered applause. The guards descended on Hawk once more, seized his arms as he tried in vain to break free, and swept him from the room.
The last thing he saw, looking back over his shoulder, was Tessa sitting where he had left her, weeping into her hands.
Chapter TWENTY-SEVEN
LOGAN TOM SPENT the remainder of the night keeping watch in the hallway outside the door he had tried unsuccessfully to pass through earlier. Realizing that the gypsy morph was in all likelihood the boy called Hawk—the one he’d unfortunately let pass him by on the street before coming into the building—he had determined to wait for his return. Hawk would be back soon, Owl had insisted. He had gone to the compound to visit his girlfriend. She would not say anything more than that. No one quite trusted him yet. Candle, more than the others, believed he was there to help. But it was Owl who made all the decisions, and she was taking no chances.
So, despite everything—or perhaps because of it—she had steadfastly refused to let him enter their quarters. All she had been willing to agree to was letting him remain in the hallway outside the door. She had promised that they would not make up their minds about him until Hawk’s return. She promised that they would not try to slip out the back or flee into the city and that they would let him cast the finger bones again when Hawk returned.
Then, having left his staff lying on the floor where he could reach it, they had backed into their lair and closed and locked the door. There had been no argument from any of them, including Candle, that he should be allowed to come inside.
So he sat in the hallway all night with his back against the far wall, facing the door and waiting. He slept off and on, but never deeply and never for very long. He had time to think about what he would do once he had determined if the boy Hawk was, in fact, the gypsy morph. How hard would it be to persuade him of his lineage? It was one thing to offer your help; it was another to gain acceptance. None of these street kids knew anything of Knights of the Word. Why should they? But it made his job just that much more difficult. There was no reason for the morph to trust him any more than these other street kids did.