Cora froze. Leon did too.
Cora frantically tried to probe the guard’s mind. When she’d read Cassian’s thoughts before, it hadn’t mattered what language they’d been in. But all she came up with now was a cold, suspicious feeling. Panic started to seep into her, but Leon remained calm. He gave a noncommittal grunt like she had heard the Kindred do, and started walking again with authority.
One step.
One more.
The guard spoke again, sharper. Out of the corner of her eye, Cora glanced at Leon, wondering if they should run for it. The Kindred were so fast that it would take a miracle to get to the drecktube in time. There was the gun, but that was only a bluff.
They turned slowly. The guard was facing them, and she didn’t look pleased. She wore an intercom on her wrist—she could have twenty more guards there in seconds.
The guard took a step closer, head moving in measured jerks between Leon and Cora. There was nothing they could do; there were no words to answer her. Cora glanced at Leon; sweat was trickling down his face. At the same moment, the guard noticed.
Leon broke character. “We’re screwed!”
The guard reached for her wrist intercom. Time seemed to slow. Cora twisted the shackles, but it was useless. There was no stick to drive through her eye. She spun on Leon. “Run, now! Take Anya—I’ll hold her off.”
“Like hell,” he said.
Cora was about to throw herself at the guard when a blast of sound fractured through the hallway. She cried out, and Leon cringed. A gunshot? She twisted around to see Leon’s holster—empty. Where was the gun? Another shot rang out, and the Kindred doubled over. Cora looked around frantically. Her hands were empty. So were Leon’s. So were Anya’s; she was still slung over his shoulder, delirious.
Who was firing the gun?
And then she saw it. Hovering in the air four feet off the ground. Still aimed in the direction of the guard, who had collapsed.
Cora jerked around to face Anya, with her drug-laced smile.
“Anya’s doing this,” Cora choked. “She’s doing it with her mind!”
The floating gun started to aim at the crouching guard again, but Cora reached out and plucked it from the air. The smile on Anya’s face fell.
“That’s enough,” Cora said. “Leon, move!”
They raced down the hallway. The gun felt warm in Cora’s hand. She’d never imagined power like that. Levitation. Even making it shoot—that was so far beyond her own abilities that she’d thought it impossible.
They raced around the corner to the drecktube. Leon climbed in and dragged Anya in like she weighed nothing.
Cora stuffed the gun in the strap of her dress.
“Someone’s going to find that guard,” Leon said.
“Yeah,” Cora answered, still shaking, “But not until morning. We’ll be long gone by then.”
They started crawling. Leon seemed to know where he was going, which was good, because Cora couldn’t focus on anything. That tear in the back of her head was throbbing. Cassian had said Anya had fractured her mind beyond repair. But could a fractured mind do what she had just done?
Eventually, they saw the tube that led back to the Hunt; Leon had marked it with chalk. Cora tried not to think about the wounded guard.
They had Anya.
Cassian was on her side.
Once they had Nok and Rolf safe, she would be ready for the Gauntlet. She ignored that itch in her mind that said there was more to the Gauntlet than Cassian was letting on.
35
Cora
CORA SLAMMED THE DOOR of her cell closed.
She mussed her hair to make it look as if she’d slept, and kicked around her blanket, seconds before the morning lights flickered on. The clock above the doorway clicked onto Morning Prep.
She sank against the bars, chest rising and falling hard. She had made it. They had made it. It was all she could do, once the lights flickered all the way on, not to laugh out loud in joy. She pressed a hand over her mouth and whirled toward Lucky’s cell.
But the joy on her face died.
He looked awful. Dark circles around his eyes, hair tangled, like he hadn’t slept at all. As soon as the lightlocks clicked off, she pushed open the door. The other kids all tumbled out of their cells, trying to beat one another to the feed room. Cora bided her time until they cleared.
“What’s wrong?” she asked Lucky.
He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and glanced at the fox. Their argument from the night before flooded back to her, his assertions that he’d do anything—even stay behind—to protect the animals, and that it was her responsibility to do the same for the kids.
“The others know,” he said.
She jerked back in surprise. “How much?”
“Not everything, but enough. They’ve been protecting us.” He glanced toward the medical room, tucking a few torn-out journal pages into his pocket. There was handwriting on them, but it wasn’t his. “Did you get Anya?”
“Yeah. She’s safe, but . . .” She remembered the gun floating in the air. “I’m not sure anyone around her is. She’s delirious. She isn’t going to be able to train me like that.”
“It must be the drugs,” Lucky said. “They’ll have to leave her system before she can tell you how to control minds.”
The clock clicked over to Showtime, and Cora’s stomach grumbled, but she ignored it. Lucky rubbed his shoulder uneasily as he watched the backstage kids tumble out of the feed room, Shoukry and Christopher arguing over half a breakfast cake. His fingers fumbled again with the torn-out pages.
“What are those?” she asked.
He didn’t answer. She was tempted to probe inside his mind and see what was bothering him. She went so far as to send her thoughts just to the edge of his, but flinched when she saw images of guns, darts, dead animals—all surrounded by an overwhelming feeling of sadness.
“Don’t worry about it.” When he met her eyes, he blinked and his weariness vanished. He gave her half a smile. “We’re getting close. You’re going to beat this thing, I know it.”
His words bolstered her hope.
That morning, she raced through her songs as if she’d chugged ten cups of coffee. Her limbs felt light and jittery. Arrowal and the Council members hadn’t come today. Roshian was rotting where no one would ever find him. For the first time in days, Cora let herself revel in a sense of hope, as she pulled Shoukry onstage and they belted out the refrain together.
“I haven’t thought of that song in years!
” Shoukry said with a laugh. “We used to listen to it at the roller-skating rink. It played at my fifth birthday party.”
Cora squeezed his hand, beaming.
Shoukry leaned in close. “Whatever you’re planning,” he whispered, “we’re with you.”
Shocked, Cora couldn’t form words to answer until Shoukry was already stepping off the stage, and by then, the front door was opening.
Cassian entered, and any words vanished in her mind.
His eyes met hers and he stopped. Suddenly she was back in his quarters, and it made goose bumps erupt on her arms. They were in this together now. No more secrets. No more lies.
He nodded toward the alcove.
Once they were in the solitude behind the wooden screen, she thought her racing heart would slow, but it only beat faster.
“We freed Anya,” she said.
“Where is she?”
“With the Mosca.” Cora picked up one of the cards on the table, the queen of diamonds, turning it anxiously between her fingers.
“It will take a while for the drugs to clear her system,” Cassian said. “A full day, perhaps longer. The Gauntlet arrives tomorrow, and the tests begin the day after that. That does not leave us much time. How much progress have you made teaching yourself to read minds?”
A thump sounded from beyond the alcove. The music outside stopped halfway through a song. Cora glanced at the slats, but dismissed it. Makayla must be taking her break early.
“I can see images sometimes in people’s heads, sense the feelings that go with them.”
“I don’t know how Anya goes about controlling minds, but my guess is you’ll need more than that. You’ll need to extract specific words, as a starting point. It isn’t like levitating dice, because there are no amplifiers built into the mind. You must probe beneath consciousness, like reaching into a murky pond and finding a stone at the bottom.” He took her hands, and she flinched at the sudden contact. He placed her palms on either side of his head, just above his ears. “Tell me what I am thinking.”
He closed his eyes.
She scanned his face, looking for any tells or clues that might give away his thoughts. The scar Mali had given him. The bump in his nose.