As if connected to my thoughts, the cuff around my left arm vibrates gently, and I glance down to see the blue wires begin to glow—a hesitant, flickering light that fills me with wild, buoyant hope.
Dad.
I can find him.
He can fix this.
I just have to hold on a little longer.
“What does this mean?”
Melkin stands to my right, watching me closely, and I scramble to find something to say. I can’t tell him I think we’re closing in on Dad. I don’t know how he’d react, and it’s best not to introduce any new elements into our precarious partnership until it’s already accomplished.
“It means we’re on the right track.”
His skinny brows crawl toward the center of his forehead. “I thought we already knew that.”
I shrug and step forward, as much to tug the ribbon free as to hide my face from his prying eyes.
“You mean this is a sign?”
When I don’t answer, he shifts his weight forward, his shadow swallowing me from behind, and says in a voice I scarcely recognize as the mild, courteous Melkin I’ve been with for a week, “Who’s working with you? Better come clean now, girl, or you’ll not get a second chance.”
I fold the ribbon carefully and stow it in an inner cloak pocket before turning to face him. He looms above me, all sharp angles and seething suspicion, his hand resting on his knife hilt.
“Calm down. No one’s working with me, but you had to know we’re following my dad’s trail since he’s the one who hid the package. You should be relieved I recognize his signs.”
Not that he had ever once deliberately left a sign before. But he’d never left without planning to return either. I give him kudos for knowing I’d follow him, and for knowing what would show me I’m on the right track.
Melkin’s hand slides off his knife and he steps back, though his eyes still look troubled. I turn from him and plunge into the trees again. I can’t bear to waste time. He follows me, and in a few moments, shoulders his way past me to resume the lead, his expression once more a sea of calm.
I’m not fooled. He’s afraid. Of the consequences if he fails his mission, yes. But also of me and any tricks I might pull. I want to tell him he has nothing to fear from me or my dad as long as he doesn’t stand between the Commander and justice, but I don’t think he’d believe me. Not completely. It’s hard for him to fathom the Commander falling hard enough to lose the power to ruin lives, and Melkin has two other lives at stake beside his own.
We break for a lunch of cold rabbit leftovers, creek water, and silence thick enough to cut with a knife. Finally, I look him in the eye and say, “What’s the problem?”
He chews a bite of rabbit slowly, the bones of his jaw swiveling like a set of Logan’s gears. “I don’t like this whole situation.”
“That makes two of us.”
“What if we’re being led into a trap?”
I squint at him through a shaft of blinding afternoon sun. “Who do you think is leading us into a trap?”
“Someone who wants whatever is in that package.”
Which could be anyone. Trackers from Rowansmark. Others working for the Commander. Highwaymen who’ve heard of its existence. If I wasn’t absolutely sure the signal came from Dad, I’d be thinking the same thing.
I pull the ribbon from my pocket, smooth it over my knee for a moment, my fingers slowly tracing the silvery S. A. stitched into the corner, and then hand it to Melkin. His fingers are cold as they brush against mine.
“S. A.?”
“Sarabeth Adams. My mother.”
Quiet falls between us, though the Wasteland is quick to fill it up with the warbling chirps of birds and the drowsy buzzing of insects. Beneath the chirping and buzzing, I catch what sounds like the faint snap of a twig.
I freeze and look at Melkin, but he’s staring at the ribbon and seems oblivious. Turning, I scan the area around us, but can’t see anything amiss.
I’m not reassured.
“Do you miss her?”
I snap back around to Melkin. “Not really. She died right after I was born.”
I don’t have time to give him more than that. Someone is behind us. I’m sure of it. I toss the rest of the rabbit meat away from me, slide my arms into my pack, and remove my knife from its sheath.
“I bet Jared does.”
“I guess,” I say, keeping my voice low. “Come on. We need to go.”
He looks at me, the ribbon threaded through his fingers like a bedraggled set of rings. “I can’t lose Eloise. She’s …” He chokes, clears his throat, and says, “Do you think the Commander will keep his promise to set her free if I …”
“If you what?” I can barely focus on him. I’m standing now, my Switch in my hand, scanning the trees.
He stands as well, towering over me again, his eyes suddenly reminding me of the dark, depthless holes carved into the ground by the Cursed One. “If I do what was asked of me. Will he keep his promise if I do what he asked of me?”
His knife is out too. That’s good. At least he isn’t completely immune to the signals I’m sending out. My voice is little more than a breath of air as I tell him, “I think someone is tracking us. Coming for us. I heard a branch.”
He palms the knife.
“To the right. About thirty yards. Maybe more. I haven’t heard anything since, but either we leave now or find a place to set up an ambush and wait.” I look up at him, expecting a decision, and see the endless dark of his eyes still pinned on me.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
I glare and consider whacking him with my Switch, except I don’t want to make the noise. “We’re in danger, Melkin. Get moving.”
His arm snakes out and snags the front of my cloak as I try to pass him, and I stare at him in disbelief.
Does he want us to die?
“Do you think the Commander will free Eloise if I do what he asked of me?”
The idiot isn’t going to move until he hears what he wants to hear. Is the Commander going to keep his word? Not unless it somehow benefits him to do so. But I’m not about to open up that can of worms while someone is bearing down on us, and Melkin’s common sense has taking a flying leap to parts unknown.
“Yes,” I say with as much conviction as I can manage in a whisper. “Yes, I’m sure he will. Keep your end of the bargain, and she’ll be fine. Now, let’s go.”
He releases my cloak. Pressing his lips into a thin line, he uses his knife to gesture toward a dense line of trees to our left.
“You first.”
I don’t need a second invitation. Brushing past him, I slip into the trees, moving like a shadow, while Melkin slides in after me, his knife glittering beneath a stray ray of sunlight.