“Don’t worry, Ro. We’re just here to trade,” Breakfast reminded him calmly. He rubbed his hands together in delighted anticipation as they followed the lookout at a cautious pace. He was enjoying this.
They went around a bend in the track and saw the lookout talking to a tight huddle of grubby-looking preteens. Breakfast took the lead.
“Okay, you three just hang back, stick close to Lily, and look scary.” Breakfast glanced back at Rowan, Tristan, and Una. “Like you normally do. Let me handle this.”
“Maybe I should be the one—” Rowan began.
“No, let Breakfast go talk to them,” Una interrupted, her eyes narrowed into a slyer-than-usual position.
Rowan looked to Tristan. “He’s got this,” Tristan said confidently. “There’s a reason we always send Breakfast to buy the weed before a party.” Rowan looked confused and Tristan smiled reassuringly. “Breakfast is clutch at dealing with people like this. He hardly ever gets his ass kicked.”
The “hardly ever” part of Tristan’s sentence made Rowan even more nervous than before, but it was too late. Breakfast was already talking with the cluster of tunnel teens. They saw him gesture casually back to the group, and Lily took note of how the tunnel kids zeroed in on her and Rowan. Their posture stiffened as they regarded Rowan’s gigantic willstone, which was still roiling with Lily’s energy.
Breakfast worked on them with his innocuous goofiness and mildly irritating charm, and persuaded the kids to bring Lily’s group to trade with the elders. They got plenty of stares as they made their way through the tent city that had sprung up in the abandoned branches of the subway tunnels.
The people down here weren’t Outlanders—they were more European looking. Lily had been expecting a blend of races, but as she considered it, it made sense. These were the castoffs of the cities who didn’t have the skills to survive outside the walls. They wouldn’t be accepted into an Outlander tribe, and without a tribe, a person outside the walls was as good as dead. That’s why they hid in the tunnels. They had no other place to go, except into indentured servitude at one of the ranches. Most of the faces that looked fearfully at Rowan’s giant smoke stone were young kids—dirty, pale little things who looked desperately malnourished.
So many women and children, Rowan. There are no grown men here.
The men usually have to turn themselves in. They go to work on the ranches, and the city guard turns a blind eye to the fact that their families are hiding down here. The ranches get the strongest and cheapest labor, and the cities only have to deal with the nonviolent women and children.
Lily looked around her. They’d been brought down the tracks to another abandoned station—but this one was full of people. She wondered briefly why this station was occupied when the other one wasn’t, but kept her questions to herself.
It’s like they’re hostages. Why doesn’t the city do something about this?
Because they all make money off it, Lily. Ranching is extremely lucrative. Ranchers donate money to the Council’s election campaigns, and the city conveniently ignores the people who live down here.
What about the Covens? Didn’t Lillian try to do something about this?
She could feel Rowan cringe inwardly. Just the mention of Lillian’s name made something inside him recoil.
Yes, she did. The Covens used to have limited power. Remember, the Covens aren’t elected—witches are born with their power, like aristocracy, but the Council is elected. They used to be the only branch of government that could write laws, but Lillian said that the Council was corrupted by the need to raise election funds, and she campaigned to make it possible for witches to write laws, too. At first she used that power to help the tunnel people and the Outlanders. But later, when she changed, she used it to draft legislation that allowed her to hang scientists.