As I move, Daphne’s cheek slides off the back of my shoulder and she jolts awake.
“I need a pill,” she says after a moment. “I’m hungry.”
Kiran’s holding Dell’s headstall, smoothing her forelock over the star between her eyes and whispering something I can’t make out.
“There’s one in the bottle,” I tell her, sliding to the ground. She’s sitting behind the saddle and fishes the dirty, crackling plastic out of the leather bag.
“There’s something all over it.”
I don’t have to look back to know she’s making a sour face.
“Bloodroot,” I tell her. “I found some in the solitary yard and dried it.”
“Of course you did,” she mutters.
Brax emerges from a nearby brush, feathers still stuck to his damp jaw. His tail curves happily. I knew he’d like it out here.
“Daphne is what they call you?” I hear Kiran ask. “Like the flower, right?”
“We’re all named after flowers,” she says tentatively as he checks Dell’s girth.
“Not all of us,” I say. Some of us are named after weeds.
“They got it wrong,” he tells her. “They should have called you Strawberry.”
Her cheeks glow to match her red hair. Mine do, too.
“Strawburries are plants, not flowers,” I say. I don’t know why he’s being nice to her. She hates Drivers.
“You can…” she swallows, and deliberately lowers her voice to a more husky tone. “You can call me whatever you like.”
She moves her leg so that it skims his arm while he tightens the leather strap around the horse’s ribs.
I snort and look to Kiran for proof that she’s being ridiculous, but he’s grinning like a fool.
Brax’s growl distracts me. He’s lowered to a crouch, staring behind us into the shadowed woods. Kiran and I share a quick glance before he unhooks the bow from over his shoulder.
“What is it, Brax?” I whisper, straining my ears.
“What’s going on?” Daphne says.
I lick my dry lips, listening, hearing every bird whistle, every crackling branch. I pull the bow from over my shoulder and notch an arrow. I’ve only got three—the loaded quiver is with Kiran—so I better make them count.
Like thunder from across the skies, the sound reaches me. Hoofbeats. Moving fast.
I look to Kiran. He tilts his head north, in the direction of Glasscaster.
Trackers.
His hand is on my arm then and he’s trying to hoist me onto Dell, but I squirm away.
“You can ride,” I say. “If they see the horse we’re done for. Take Daphne and get out of here!”
“Clover?” Daphne’s voice is thin. Kiran looks at me for a long moment before removing a handful of arrows from the leather quiver over his shoulder and shoving them in my direction.
“Stay high,” he says. “Don’t shoot one unless you can shoot them all.”
An instant later he’s thrown his leg over Dell’s withers, and they’re gone.
*
I DON’T BOTHER RUNNING after them. I make for high land, just as Kiran said. On the way I snag an armful of dead leaves and shake them over my path, walking backwards. I hope it’s enough to cover my tracks. Then I find a high tree, thread my arm through the bow, and get to climbing.
“Hide, Brax,” I order when I reach the lowest branch. He whines up at me, and then lopes away. I wish he would go farther, but I can see him, twenty paces off, ears perked towards the north and the oncoming danger.
They arrive quickly, before the fear has time to poison my blood. Three men on horseback. All Virulent thugs. I can see their X’s from here. I look down on them from my position three stories up, in the split in the tree trunk. My arrow is notched and ready to fly.
I will not be taken this time. Not when I know what awaits me in the city.
One’s wearing checkered pants and has grease smeared on his shirt. The other two are in dark gray, with knit hats covering their hair.
“Prints turn that way,” says Checkered Pants. Looks like he’s the leader.
One of the others dabs at his mouth with the collar of his shirt.
“I should be sleeping,” he grumbles.
“Then go knock off,” counters the third. “I’ll take your share of that reward Gray was talking about.”
“Greer,” corrects Checkered Pants. “The mayor’s going to stretch his neck when he realizes his kid’s favorite toy went missing.”
My heart trips in my chest. If I hadn’t been convinced they were searching for us before, I am now. And not just us. Me.
My hand falters, but I lift it again, steadying my breath. The quiver is just over my shoulder, but I’ve already stuffed a dozen extra arrows into the waistband of these Driver pants. Kiran’s words echo through my head. I might be able to strike them all before they know what’s hit them, but I’m safer hiding if they don’t know I’m here.
The vision of the Watcher, the blood draining from his neck, fills my mind, and the sweat rolls down my forehead and burns my eyes. I’m not sure I can do it again.
“What’s that?” says one of the men in gray.
“A dog,” answers Checkered Pants. “Kill it before its pack comes.”
Brax. I bite down hard enough for my teeth to crack.
One of the Trackers pulls a black gun from his waistband and aims it into the brush. I can’t see Brax. I nearly fall out of my hiding place trying to follow the man’s sight line. In the silence, I hear a low growl and know they’ve found my friend.
I draw back the arrow and the string stretches with a morbid creak.
The Tracker fires one shot. Two. I nearly drop the bow right onto the man below me. My lungs collapse. I can’t find the air.
“Get it?” asks Checkered Pants.
My shaking hands restring the bow, preparing to avenge him even as I’m refusing to believe he’s dead.
“Scrammed,” says one of the others. “Scared him off. He won’t bother us no more.”
“We’ll pick up the last set of hoofprints and start again,” says Checkered Pants. “I want to catch her before the weather turns and we lose our trail.”
A few seconds later they disappear, riding at an urgent trot towards the south.
I want more than anything to get down from this tree; I need to warn Kiran that they’re on his tail, I need to find Brax and make sure he’s all right. Right now the tree feels just as much of a prison as the solitary pen at the Garden did. But I can’t get down. Not yet. I have to wait a little longer. Just a little longer, until I’m sure they aren’t coming back.
Until I’m sure this isn’t a trap.
I count to one hundred and am just about to climb down when I see Brax.
He’s come to the bottom of the trunk, panting. He’s not injured. There’s no sign of blood on him. My stomach feels as though I’ve just fallen from this very tree I’m hiding in. He paws the trunk, crystal blue eyes trained on mine.
He’s telling me the way is clear.
I swing down, feeling the sting from a dozen cuts I gained on my hasty climb up. I grab him by the scruff of the neck.
“Next time hide, you idiot.”
He licks my face. His breath stinks worse than ever.
That’s when I hear the scream.
I recognize the voice; I heard it just yesterday in the solitary yard.
Daphne.
I’m running before I can think to stop. I try my hardest to focus on the origin of that cry—how loud it was, exactly where I turned when I heard it—because Daphne doesn’t make another sound.
I should have killed the Trackers when I’d had the chance.
“Brax, find Kiran,” I say. “Come on, boy.”
He spins on his hindquarters and runs. I follow, racing after him, forgetting my need to stay silent. Kiran saved my life. He’s out here because of what I did. I can’t let anything happen to him.
And Daphne. Crazy as she makes me, I can’t leave her now.
Brax runs though the brush, opposite the direction of the Trackers, away from where Kiran and Daphne rode off. Either they switched course, or we’re going the wrong way.
We do not search long.
The woods open to a clearing facing a steep shale cliff. Daphne and the horse are pressed against it, held in place by a large black bear.