“Well, it looks like they move through here a lot,” Breakfast said, looking down. “Look—there’s no dust on the ground, but there is on that bench over there.”
“You’re right, Breakfast. Good eye,” Rowan said. “The trail leads down the tracks.”
“Do we stay or try to find them?” Una asked. “I could really use some food.”
Rowan bit his lower lip and frowned in thought, looking at Tristan. “What do you say?”
Tristan glanced at Lily, worried. His eyes darted down to the three willstones that hung around her neck. “If they see her, will they know who she is?”
“I can hide two of my stones and use a glamour,” Lily said, already removing her largest and smallest willstones and tucking them into her bra.
“Something less pretty than your normal face,” Rowan suggested. “You want to blend in.”
“Got it.” Lily altered her face until it bordered on plain. “You should change your face, too,” she told Rowan.
“Why?” Una asked. “Would he be recognized, too?”
Lily grinned. “Rowan is known as Lord Fall here,” she said. “He’s totally famous.”
“Really?” Una quipped impishly, looking Rowan over.
“I was Lord Fall, now I’m just an Outlander. But I should still use a glamour,” Rowan said, changing the way the dim light hit his face until Lily barely recognized him. “Our clothes are still a problem, though.”
“We stole them, and we’re looking to trade with them. You said they were valuable,” Breakfast said, brewing up a plan. “Come on, guys. We’re badass thieves, on the run from the city guard. Act the part.”
“I don’t know,” Rowan said, looking Lily over. She snatched a thought from the front of his mind. Nothing in the world could make someone as refined and fragile looking as Lily appear like a badass. Even with her glamour-altered face, there was still something inherently graceful about the way she moved that she could never wholly hide.
Lily could feel her mechanics’ empty bellies rumbling, and their hunger upset her in a way her own hunger wouldn’t. Her coven was her responsibility and she felt an inexplicable need to provide for them. “If we want to catch a train south, we’re going to have to go to a station that’s still in use,” she said, trying to win Rowan over with sugar rather than spice. “We’re bound to run into other people when we do that anyway.”
I’ll be fine, Rowan, she added reassuringly in mindspeak.
He finally relented, and they set off down the tracks. They still had some of Lily’s strength in them, and Rowan wanted to encounter whatever awaited them before it completely wore off.
They followed the tracks until they could see more signs of habitation and came to an abrupt halt when they spotted the first tunnel denizen, standing next to a barrel fire. The scruffy kid, who was twelve or thirteen tops, saw them and froze like a deer in headlights. Before anyone in Lily’s group could call out to him, the kid took off down the tracks.
“A lookout,” Rowan said, dismayed.
“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.