MARKS- Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-Four

I go through life as normal as possible the next morning. Combing my hair. Washing my face. All the while my body twitches with energy. I scoop cooked oats out for Mason and Reid and Liddy, and choke down a few spoonfuls myself. I’ll need my energy today.

Nolan seems worse this morning. His face is a color I can’t bear to see. After breakfast, I tell one of the other women I need to make more dye and ask her to watch Liddy. Ward has returned to the city, and Blair is so distracted with worry and fear, she won’t notice I’m gone. At least until later.

I tie my cloak around my neck and snatch my basket. Then I head for the back tunnel. I give a small smile to the man standing watch and raise my basket as if to signal the innocence of my outing. He merely nods and lets me pass. The others hidden on the bluff above will think me only headed to the forest for walnuts.

The day is cloudy and small gusts of wind rush at my back, as though the weather itself is pushing me onward. I thrust my fingers in my pockets, which are empty. A pen is hidden in the front of my dress, wedged between my breasts. And two scraps of paper lay flat under the sleeves of my shift, on my shoulders. It’s early, and with any luck I can get to the city and back before dark. The only time I traveled from the city here was through the sewers with Ward, and that trip was a blur. But the crowded city and King’s castle dot the horizon. It can’t take me that long to get there.

Sentences of seven crowd my mind as I walk. I’m not sure what I’ll write when I get there, but I need to have sentences already in mind. I’m not even sure where to find the medicine I need. Some apothecaries will have it, though who knows what it will cost. And I have no money. I’ve heard rumors of drugs and other things being sold on the black market. But I haven’t the slightest idea where to find an underground ring of people selling things. And that may be opening a door I don’t want to stumble through.

The clouds let up by mid-morning and patches of early spring sunshine dot the pale blue sky. Yellow is a wonderful color. It is light and warmth, daffodils and firelight. Hope and music.

The sunlight strengthens by the time I reach the city. I need to avoid Mera and Houghman’s and anyone else who might recognize me or give away my presence. And above all else, I need to avoid the guards. I thought out my plan only enough to get me here, but my feet move as if of their own accord toward the north part of the city.

Two blocks from Dunway Street I spot an apothecary shop. The street is crowded with shoppers, but no guards. One deep breath is all I allow myself before I walk into the shop.

A bell rings above my head when I walk through the door. A man behind a counter looks up at me. I give him a small smile then let my gaze skim the ground. A hesitant look over my shoulder and the scene is set. Let’s see what he does.

“Can I help you, miss?”

I raise my eyes to his and bite my lip. “Do guards come in here?” I ask, then look to the door again.

“Only when they want to steal something.”

Perfect. He hates guards, too.

“What can I help you with?” he asks.

Over his shoulder are shelves stocked full with bottles and jars. All labeled. I bite my lip again and let my gaze trail over the first row of bottles before looking at him. “I, um.” I look to the door again. “I’ve heard there’s a medicine that can help a woman lose a child should she not desire it.”

His eyes narrow. “I don’t condone such things.”

He stares at me, his work abandoned. A small back room is to my right, its door standing open. A long work table is back there, a mortar and pestle resting on it. Dried herbs hang from the ceiling. His work station, I presume.

“I didn’t think I did either,” I tell him.

Now his head cocks to the side, my words reeling him further and further into the wide pool of my lie.

“I always thought I’d be married,” I tell him, “and want it.” My lip quivers, and I take a shaky breath. I don’t look at the man but skim the second row, quickly scanning the labels on the bottles. I cross my arms over my stomach and look at him. “Medicine isn’t the only thing guards steal.” Tears leak out my eyes, and I blink fast and sniffle.

The man’s eyes melt from suspicion to sorrow. His gaze drops to my stomach. It’s common knowledge that some of the King’s men take what they want, including women and girls right off the street. It does little to evoke sympathy in some, though, who treat the girls and their subsequent children as outcasts. They’ve been touched by the King’s men and so tainted, though certainly not of their own choosing.

More tears stream down my cheeks, and as the man studies me, I study the shelf behind him. There. Third row. I clamp my teeth on my lip to keep from smiling, and look back at the man. His face is blank. He could be wavering.

“Please, sir,” I tell him in a breathy whisper. “My father will kill me. He’ll think I could have stopped it.”

The man looks out the window then back to me. “Give me five minutes.”

I nod and he walks back to the small room. I watch as he plucks different things from shelves and settles at his table. When his head is bent over his work, I reach my arm across the counter and snatch the bottle I’ve come for. I tuck it into my basket and cover it with the cloth inside.

The apothecary returns with a small vial. I keep my hands wrapped around the handle of my basket. “I’ve no money.”

He smiles. “And I didn’t give you anything.” He grabs my hand and pushes the vial into it.

I smile, the first genuine act I’ve had since I walked in here. “Thank you.”

He nods and returns to his work station. I tuck the vial into my basket and let myself out of the shop. Relief floods through me, sweet and cool like a summer rainstorm. I have the medicine Nolan needs, an entire jar, and need only get back to the cavern undetected. I grasp the bottle and slip it down the front of my chest, safely nestled against the pen I didn’t even have to use.

I scan the crowd to see if anyone saw the movement, and my nose prickles with a familiar scent. 

Smoke.

Something is burning.

I lift my head and find the billows of smoke coming from two blocks over. I didn’t pass any printing shops on that street. What is the King up to now? Others step out into the street, studying the smoke. A few head toward it. I follow them, slipping the hood of my cloak over my head. The smoke is one street away when dread forms a knot in my stomach. When I round the corner, I stop.

A huge bonfire sits in the middle of the street. The flames leap as high as my head. A guard emerges from one of the houses, a stack of papers in one arm, and with his other he pulls a woman behind him. Tears stream down her face and she screams at him. The guard tosses the papers into the fire, then seizes the woman by her shoulders and drags her to a wagon.

They’re taking her.

For having papers? Is she Lyran? But no, they couldn’t know that yet. Another guard comes from a house on the other side of the street, papers in hand. He has no one with him. But then two guards step behind him, a man between them. They lead him to the wagon and throw him in.

Which means even owning papers and pen is illegal. It’s come to that, and Ward hasn’t told me. There are papers still at Mera’s. I wonder if she’s found them. I pray she has and buried them somewhere far away.

A scream echoes down the street. I turn and watch as guards drag another woman and two children to the wagon. Saints above. The man they’ve just loaded screams and lunges forward, but a guard stops him. When the children reach the wagon, they reach for their father.

No. No, no, no. They’re taking children. The man’s wife struggles and throws her weight to the ground, but the two guards strong-arming her deposit her in the wagon with as much care as they would a sack of potatoes. Oh, I hate them all. The two guards spin, and a dagger of terror slices through my heart.

Ward.

His eyes somehow pierce right through the crowd to me.

I press a hand to my face to keep from sobbing. Ward is being made to do this. Hurting others because he loves his family. Love is his only crime.

More guards barge into doors on this street.

This street.

Dunway Street.

Horror blossoms in my stomach. Sam and Meggie.

Meggie has paper hidden amid diapers she uses for the child she has surely born by now. The daughter I wrote for her.

She’ll be home, and guards will take them both.

Sam and Meggie live just a half block away. The guards and their wagon and fire are blocking the street. I won’t be able to get past them, and I don’t have time to double back and take a different way. Smoke blows past my face, ash clogging my throat.

I have to save Meggie.

But how? I duck my head and push my way through the crowd, back the way I came, then dart down the first alley I come to. It’s deserted. I peer over my shoulder, then slip between two piles of crates. Fear snakes an arm around my throat and squeezes. Air, I need air.

I face the stone wall of the building in front of me and bend over myself. Then I wrench my pen and paper from their hiding places and scrawl a sentence. Meggie’s papers and pens will remain hidden. I scrawl my name beside it, then tuck the paper strip far down the front of my dress. I glance up the alley and, seeing no one, chuck my pen as far as I can toward the alley’s other end. Then I sprint to the street.

Smoke chokes the air, the clouds not giving it a foothold, as though they want no part of the King’s evil. My words give me no comfort, and the idea of something happening to Meggie unlocks years of hidden horror. I push through the crowd until I’m one of the many in the first row of onlookers. The guards have made good progress, no surprise since there are so many of them today. I hover along the edge of the crowd.

Guards burst in and out of buildings, their bright tunics harsh against the faded yellows and greens of the houses. Most emerge from the buildings without paper or prisoner, which means either people are smart enough not to have paper, or clever enough to hide it somewhere the guards can’t find it. Though something tells me that if papers are in these houses, the guards here are going to find it. If they don’t, and it’s found later, who knows what consequences will fall on them.

Guards are three houses away from Sam and Meggie’s. I’ve lost sight of Ward. And besides, he can’t help me here. My heart thunders, and I grip the basket so tight my knuckles turn white.

The fire is huge, fed with something other than the measly piles and snatches of paper being found. Fueled with wood, I see now, probably from furniture plucked from under the bottoms of people as they sat on them. Rage boils inside me. The King’s callous disregard of his own people knows no bounds.

The guards move closer. Two houses.

One.

Still nothing happens. No one intervenes.

And then the thought hits me: maybe it’s me.

Maybe I’m the way my words will work. I’m the only one who knows Meggie’s papers are there, and I’m here. I’m the only one who can help.

Two guards head toward the shop Meggie lives above. One of them I don’t know. The other I do.

Breck. The greasy-haired one who nearly had me. The one who suspects I’m up to something. Well, I hope those suspicions are still lodged in that thick head of his.

“Breck!”

His head snaps around. I take a step forward. There, he sees me. He narrows his eyes, and I tilt my chin, daring him to do anything about the fact I know he’s there and know he wants me, and I’m not running.

He says something to the guard beside him.

Then he strides across the street, headed straight for me.