The Offering (The Pledge 3)

But Eden noticed. She glared sideways at her younger brother, and I wondered how it was that he’d come to be here in a place like this without his sister. She kept her eyes trained on him the entire time she spoke to Brook. “We’ll stay for the day, gathering the food and supplies we’ll need. Then we’ll leave at dusk.”

Brook slammed her mug onto the table, barely aware she was spilling her coffee as she did so. “No! We can’t risk another nighttime ride. The first one was too treacherous. It’s difficult enough for the horses—every step they take is like walking through a minefield.” And then she shot a disapproving look in my direction, making it clear that my riding skills were in question as well.

She was right about riding in the dark, of course. It was dangerous, although less so with me along, shedding light wherever I went.

Once we’d gotten far enough from the palace that there was no chance we’d be seen, Eden had allowed me to shed my cloak, and we’d used the glow from my skin as a lantern of sorts, illuminating the trails and making it at least a little easier for the horses to see where they were stepping. It wasn’t until we’d entered the forests surrounding the work camp that she’d clamped down on us once more, warning us to remain quiet and keep close.

But it wasn’t just the darkness that put us in harm’s way. There were also nighttime predators, both animal and human, waiting for their chance to pounce on us.

Eden shook her head. “We’re not taking the horses,” she told Brook, and now I was the one who set my mug down. “Then, what? How will we travel?” Caspar grinned, not just at Brooklynn this time but at me as well. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

He pulled on his coat, which was patched and threadbare, with sleeves that were too short, as he led us back outdoors. The sun was just coming up on the horizon, bursting into the gunmetal sky with fingers of orange and pink and the oddest blooms of gold. It was spectacular, and I breathed deeply, trying to inhale its glory.

Keeping his head low, Caspar led us along an overgrown path that was so encroached upon on both sides by weeds and grasses that only the narrowest space of path was even visible at all. We followed him between and around more of the small cabinlike buildings, similar to the one where Brook and I had slept, and it soon became clear that the compound was massive and mazelike, and as unkempt as the pathways we walked on. It could have easily been regarded as abandoned by anyone looking at it from the outside.

It was no place for children. Especially those who were all alone in the world.

As we rounded a corner, a girl joined us. She didn’t say anything, just nodded to Caspar, and then to Eden. She was younger than Brook and me, and I put her somewhere around her thirteenth or fourteenth year. Her skin was darker than mine—as was everyone’s, it seemed—but not from spending time outdoors. Hers was naturally browner, as if she’d inherited it from her parentage, the way Brook had. Her hair, too, was dark, almost black, and was long except around her face, where it looked as if it had been hacked and chopped with a dull-edged knife, likely to keep it away from her eyes. But that wasn’t what was most notable about her, nor was it the fact that her eyes themselves were the most unusual shade of blue. Not like Angelina’s or mine, pale and crystalline, but startling, piercing . . . electric. Much like the sapphire I wore pressed against my heart.

No, the most startling thing was her bird. A stark black crow sat, unmoving, on her shoulder, like an inanimate prop. It wasn’t until the bird blinked that I realized it was truly alive.

I waited for someone to introduce the girl as she fell into step beside us, but no one did, as if her presence were just accepted, like an unexpected gust of wind.

We approached a crumbling circle of stacked stones that I recognized as a well. Around it there were several rusted buckets, most of which had succumbed to various forms of plant life that grew in and around them. It was a good indicator of just how long ago they’d been discarded.

As we neared the well, I wrinkled my nose at the odor coming up from the ground. “You don’t . . . drink from that, do you?” I probed, eyeing the corroded bucket that hung from a pulley above the well.

Caspar and the nameless girl exchanged a look as we passed the disintegrating stone structure. “Well went bad years ago. We get our water from upstream. Near the mouth of the river.”

I thought about the children I’d met the night before. Most of them were small, and I tried to imagine them toting heavy buckets of water to and from camp. “Is that far?”

Caspar grinned at me, clearly understanding my concern. “Never mind ’bout us. We’ll be just fine. From what Eden here tells me, you got enough on your minds without worryin’ about a buncha kids.”

I shot Eden a glance, wondering how much she’d told him. But she shook her head discreetly, her silent reassurance that my identity was still safe. I turned my attention to Caspar instead. “How come you’re here? I mean, why aren’t you with your sister instead of being here, in the work camp?”

I could feel Eden’s irritation as surely as I saw her lips purse and her eyes narrow. Her glower made my toes curl, but I had no intention of letting her intimidate me. I had a little sister, and the idea of her in a place like this . . .

Well, it would never happen.

Caspar either didn’t notice Eden’s scowl or was accustomed to his sister’s irritation, and he laughed at my curiosity. “When Eden left, I was just a boy. I wasn’t old enough to go with her.”