TWENTY-THREE
THEIR EYES BEAR DOWN ON me, inquisitive, curious. I have no clue what happens now. The only thing I know for certain is that this vote could be the end. I’ll have spent the last days of my life chasing after truths that never revealed themselves, hurting the people I love in the process.
Why was I so stupid, so reckless? I need to get back to Emma. I struggle against my bindings. I have to get back to her. My breathing is suddenly erratic.
“Screw you. All of you.” I spit at the center of the table. The liquid lands in front of a tall, thin woman. Her brows dip toward the bridge of her nose. “You especially,” I shout again, eyeing my father. He looks hurt, but he betrayed me. He shook my hand knowing this vote would come; and shouting feels painfully good, like salt in a wound.
“You’re going to cast my life away with a vote?” I continue. “Do you know what I’ve been through to get here? Do you know what you’ll take away from me if you don’t vote in my favor?”
An aged man with little hair smiles from the head of the table. “We’ve caught a fiery one, I see.”
“Ryder, he’s just upset,” my father interjects. “And confused.”
“Easy, Owen,” Ryder says, running a hand across his dull scalp. “I never said fire was a bad thing.” The way my father retreats at his words, slouches back into his seat, tells me who is in charge. Not Harvey, not Elijah, but this man: a face I have never seen until today.
“What’s going on here?” I ask. “I want answers. I demand them.”
Ryder pushes back his chair and stands, using his arms to support his weight on the table before him. His gentle nature, but unmistakable confidence, reminds me so much of Maude. Maude, who I once trusted.
The old man looks directly at me and says, “My name is Ryder Phoenix, Gray. We come from the same place, you and I, from Claysoot. I understand your frustrations because I lived them myself. Several of us here have. I give you my word, regardless of your vote’s outcome, you will have the truth.”
Answers. I should be relieved and yet I’m hung up on his name. Ryder. Ryder Phoenix. Why is it so familiar? And then I remember; the early scrolls. The boy Maude had run the first experiment on. The boy that led to the discovery of the Heist. He is so much more than a boy now, aged and grown before me, but it must be him.
“The whole truth. All of it,” I demand. “About the Laicos Project and why you’re working for Harvey after what he did to you.”
The lone woman at the table snickers. “The boy is hardly in a position to be making demands.”
“It’s fine, Fallyn,” Ryder says. “The whole truth, Gray. I promise.”
I don’t thank him, even if I should.
“This is a vote in regard to the life of one Gray Weathersby, son of Owen Weathersby, captured from the Franconian Order and brought in by Brianna Nox two days ago. Votes will be one per person, nay for death and yea for mercy. Majority rules.” Ryder turns to me and adds, “Do you have anything to say that has not already been spoken?”
I look around the rock-enclosed room. Eyes glare at me, my father’s the only pair that look remotely kind. Blaine would tell me to reflect first, to ready my words before I spill them. I take a deep breath and begin, speaking as calmly as I can manage.
“I was supposed to be executed. I came in search of safety, but I was planning on coming here either way. I saw records in Taem. Records that documented executions at Frank’s hands. The truth is, I climbed over the Wall for answers and found only more questions. And all those questions led me here. Because I think you have answers. I know you do.”
It’s a fragment of the truth, and maybe that’s why it comes out so easily. I had come for safety. But I’d also come for Harvey, for the answers he possesses. I keep that small detail to myself for now.
Ryder nods and sits back into his chair. “And now, we vote.”
The man immediately to Ryder’s right stands. He is about my father’s age, maybe older. I’m not used to seeing men over eighteen and it’s hard to tell. “Raid Dextern,” he says, announcing himself to the room. “Yea.”
That’s it. No reasoning. No motive. Just yea, a vote for life, and he returns to his seat.
My father stands next. “Owen Weathersby. I’m sorry, Fallyn,” he says, addressing the woman to his side. “I understand your reasoning, and I even know it possible, but if we are wrong, and he is truly my son—well, I just can’t take that chance. My vote is for life.”
Fallyn stands, palms pressed into the table. She has a wild look in her eyes, not unlike Bree’s when I first encountered her in the forest.
“Fallyn Case,” she says. “He could be a Forgery, another trick of Taem, engineered to look like something that will tear at our heartstrings and later murder us as we sleep. And even if he’s not, he’s just too much of a risk. You’ve heard him. Irrational. Vengeful. I vote death.”
This is the first vote for my death, and yet instead of fear or dread, I am hung up on her mention of Forgeries. What are they? Is Harvey responsible for them as well?
The next man stands, and I suddenly recognize him. It’s the boy from Frank’s records. He looks even younger in person than he had on paper. “Elijah Brewster,” he says. “I have to agree with Fallyn. It’s too risky. Nay.”
It’s all tied up, and down to one vote. One measly vote.
Ryder does not stand. “I do not think the Order would have engineered such a rash Forgery,” he says. “Forgeries are far more reserved. They are so plain that you overlook them. But this boy is emotional. The rage in this one, the anger, the bitterness, the fire—that is real. That is what is left of a Heisted boy, a life plucked from one world and thrown without background into another. I vote mercy in this case. I vote yea.”
Fallyn slams her fists on the table. “If you’re wrong, Ryder, the blood is on your hands.” She storms from the room. Elijah follows her, knocking his chair over as he leaves.
“You’ll pardon Elijah and Fallyn,” Ryder says, removing the rope that bound me to my seat. “They’re only trying to protect our people.”
I scoff at this and Raid whispers something to my father before skirting after the others.
“Well, that about does it,” Ryder says. “I’ll leave you two alone. I’m sure you have plenty of catching up to do.”
“What about the truth?” I call out to him.
“Oh, we’ll get to that eventually. You need to clean up first. Eat.”
“But . . . you said . . .”
“I promised you answers, Gray, but I did not say they would be instantaneous, nor did I say they would come directly from me. Talk to your father. Get to know him. Visit your brother in the hospital. These things should be more important anyway.” And with his carefully formulated wave of guilt working over me, Ryder, too, exits.
My father shows me to my room. I’m lost immediately, overwhelmed by the various tunnels and burrows that snake off the main valley area he refers to as the Basin. Each passageway looks the same, each turn identical, but he promises I will pick it up in time.
I want to ask him about Harvey, about the Laicos Project and why the Rebels are working alongside a monster, but the details don’t add up. Word in Taem was that Harvey was gathering followers, and yet, I haven’t seen him once since arriving, not even at my vote, which seemed to include influential Rebels. Maybe Frank’s records are wrong and Harvey’s not in charge. Maybe Harvey isn’t even here at all.
Pushing the questions aside, I tell my father about my journey. I start with the letter I found and climbing the Wall. I tell him about Emma and her jail cell and my ordered execution. He is silent until we reach my room, a tiny thing set in the middle of a tunnel that looks like all the rest. There’s a simple cot and a dresser and a painting on the wall that shows sunshine and blue skies in the way a windowless room within rock never could.
“Your mother, Sara. How is she?” he asks. I pause, unsure how to tell him. He’s practically a stranger, and yet I know it should be personal, delivered softly and with care. I think my silence says enough.
“No,” he mutters in disbelief. “When?”
“We were fifteen. Pneumonia. Carter tried everything, but she couldn’t save her.”
I watch as a thin sheet of water builds in his eyes. He so clearly loved her. It makes me wonder if he hated the slatings the same way I do, if he ever murmured that word to my mother despite its weight.
“Blaine’s a father,” I say, desperately trying to distract him from the oncoming tears. “Her name’s Kale, and she’s the cutest thing there is. Not even three yet.”
He sits on the edge of my cot and runs a hand through his hair exactly as I do when I’m anxious. “I barely got to be a father myself,” he says. “I can’t imagine being a grandfather as well.”
It’s odd to see him lost. I guess I always figured a parent should have all the answers. When I got hurt as a child I ran to Ma. When I needed comfort or advice, she always had both. To see my father confused and conflicted is somewhat startling. He shakes whatever parental concerns he’s dealing with aside and looks back up at me.
“I’m assuming you know about Sara’s experiment,” he says. “It’s why you climbed, right?”
I nod.
“I was seventeen when she had the two of you. I came to see her that day after I finished hunting—because we’d agreed to continue slatings together—and you were both there, bundled up on her lap. She pulled me to her side and told me you didn’t exist. Blaine, yes; but you, Gray, you were a ghost. With the exception of Carter and me, no one was to know that you had even been born, at least not until the following year. It was Sara’s way of challenging the home she could never accept.
“You have to understand that even though I loved your mother dearly, I thought she was losing her grip on reality. She hated Claysoot and the Heist. She was always telling me about how unnatural the place was, sharing her doubts and suspicions and making me promise to not repeat her words.”
I’m shocked at how little I knew about my own mother. She never expressed any of these feelings to Blaine or me, not in all the years leading up to her death. It’s like we were raised by a different person.
My father swallows heavily and continues. “She was the only one obsessing about these things. No other villager questioned the Heist, including me. And I wanted to spend my final year with both my sons. I wanted to be able to carry you both outside, through fresh air and sunlight. I didn’t want my only time with you, Gray, to take place inside, hidden away from the world.
“Sara won, though. Above anything else, I could not bear the thought of her being unhappy during our last year together. She was so sure the experiment would prove something. I thought she was crazy.” He rubs his knuckles and looks up at me. “Turns out, she was completely right. Claysoot is unnatural and the Heist is so much more than a standard part of life. It’s been a giant scheme all along, and she never even got to see that.”
“Yes, Claysoot is one big experiment and you go working hand in hand with the man that started it. What a great way to honor her memory.” I feel bad as soon as I say it. I only want to confirm that Harvey is in Crevice Valley, but my father’s in mourning and I still can’t be decent for five minutes. If Blaine were here, he’d shoot me a disapproving big brother look for sure.
“Harvey is a very influential man. Powerful. Smart,” my father says. So Harvey is here after all. “We need his help.”
“I think the only help you need is someone with the guts to torture answers out of him. So that we can get everyone out of Claysoot. So they can be free.” Blaine would be glaring now, but I wasn’t expecting this sort of loyalty for Harvey. Especially not from my father. It doesn’t make any sense.
“It’s not that simple,” he says.
“Then tell me why you’re working with him, because I don’t get it.”
“It’s only going to make adjusting harder. Maybe you should rest, visit Blaine in the hospital, take it easy. I’m not sure turning everything upside down is a good idea.”
“No, it’s an excellent idea. I need to hear it.”
“I’d feel better if you settled in first.” I cross my arms over my chest. He looks between me and the door and adds, “What are the chances you let me leave this room without giving you any details?”
“Slim to none.”
He sighs. “I should have known you’d demand answers immediately. I was the same way.”
I lean against the dresser and wait. He kneads his palms together. Stares at the floor. It feels like hours before he speaks again.
“Harvey didn’t start the Laicos Project. Frank did.”