The Hunt (The Cage 2)

“Guards?” Lucky started. “But why . . . ?”

And then his face went white.

Cora gulped down last of the ice-cold water she’d scooped from the trough, feeling it freeze her insides. The last time guards had come, they’d dragged away Chicago.

Oh no. Not yet. Not Lucky . . .

“They can’t take him!” she said. “They don’t have any proof of his birth date. You know how time works differently—he must still have a few days.”

Her voice came out desperate, but Dane still wore that thin smile.

“Cora, it’s okay.” Lucky sounded full of resignation. “You and Mali, you’ll watch out for each other.” He faced Dane squarely, and Cora felt like time wasn’t quite moving right. No, this was all wrong. “I’m ready,” Lucky said.

Dane’s hooded eyes flickered between them, his face very serious, and then suddenly he doubled over, fingers digging into his thighs, laughing so hard tears formed at the corners of his eyes. He straightened and clamped a hand on Lucky’s shoulder, squeezing a little hard.

“Oh, that was priceless. That was wonderful. Thank you.”

Cora glared at him. “It was a joke?”

Dane snickered a few more times, fingers kneading Lucky’s shoulder. “That close to nineteen, are you? Well, it seems it isn’t your birthday quite yet.” His smile changed into something far more self-satisfied as he turned to Cora. “They haven’t come for Lucky. They’ve come for you.”

He dragged her toward the door before she barely realized what was going on. Lucky yelled out, but it was too late. Dane had already kicked open the backstage door and there they were: five Kindred guards dressed in black uniforms.

“This is the one,” Dane said, with relish.

“Good,” said a deep voice. “Escort her to the Castle.” Cora twisted her head around toward the Kindred who had spoken, a man dressed in a dark-blue uniform with twin-knot rows down the front, arms folded behind his back, face pinched with that wrinkle cutting down the front of his forehead.

Fian.

Her heart pounded, daring to hope, remember his words the last time she’d seen him. We are on your side. Remember that. Maybe this wasn’t as bad as it seemed. But then she caught sight of another Council member beside him, a stout man a generation older whose uniform bore more knots than she’d ever seen. Twenty, she counted. He had to be the highest-ranking member of the whole Council.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “I haven’t done anything.”

“That is for the Council to decide,” Fian said. He turned toward the high-ranking Council member, saying a few deferential words in their language. The Council member never took his eyes off Cora, but he nodded slowly.

The guards led her toward the door, where Tessela stood at attention. Cora twisted her head back to look at the Council member with twenty knots, who was watching her steadily. There was no emotion on his face, but a sense of danger rolled off him nevertheless.

Had one of the Council’s spies seen something? Had they overheard something she and Cassian had said in the alcove? That voiceless whisper in her head . . . what if it was a Kindred?

They led her into the rough-hewn foyer. The hosts and hostesses of the different menageries, dressed in their ridiculous costumes, all turned to watch. But the guards led her straight past a vacant podium and into a menagerie that was dark and smelled like dust. Only faint light came from the wall seams, illuminating outlines of furniture.

“Leave us,” Fian ordered the guards. “I will question her here. Tell Arrowal he will get a full report shortly.”

Arrowal. That must be the high-ranking Council member.

The room filled with the sounds of boots as the guards left. Dust choked the air; there were no sounds of kids, no music or guests. Cora pressed a hand to her throat. Even after Fian’s reassurances, she still had nightmares about being choked.

“What’s going on?” she asked, once they were alone. “You said I could trust you.”

A dim light flickered on.

“And you can,” he replied.

She spun—they weren’t alone. Cassian stood in the shadows, and relief made her heart thump harder, though something seemed different about him. Maybe the uniform. Maybe the black eyes.

Black, she realized. He’s cloaked.

She quickly pinched her arm as Mali had taught her to do, letting the sting of pain shield her mind so that he couldn’t read her thoughts. One slip and he would know that she planned on cheating the Gauntlet.

“I apologize for having to scare you,” he observed.

Slowly, it sank in that Cassian was behind this arrest, not the Council. As her fear waned, she looked around the menagerie. The furniture was heavy and wooden. A throne. Cells made of stone and wooden beams, as in a medieval castle.

“What is this place?”

“An abandoned menagerie. The Council sometimes uses it for private interrogations, as its observation panels have been turned off. Fortunately, the Council specifically requested you be interrogated without anyone’s knowledge. They do not know I am speaking with you right now.”

“Interrogated for what?”

“A few days ago, I formally initiated the application process to sponsor a human participant in the Gauntlet. It caused a stir, as I had anticipated.” He paced the length of the room. “There are six other candidates who have submitted applications. Two Scoates. Three Conmarines. One Temporal.”

He glanced toward the doorway, as though he feared being overheard. “The Council made it known they would prefer no human participants this time, but they cannot legally prevent it. They demanded to know the name of the human competitor I was sponsoring. I refused to tell them. Now they are systematically interrogating some of the more problematic humans. Arrowal is leading the effort. He is the Kindred’s chief delegate, which means he will also be the Kindred’s Chief Assessor for the Gauntlet. Fortunately, Fian is his second in command.”

He nodded to Fian, who turned to Cora. “Arrowal wishes to locate this individual before the testing begins, when it will be too late to stop that person’s participation. Your name, among others, was mentioned as that of a potential agitator.”

“Why?” Cora asked. “I’ve done everything they’ve asked. I’ve sung on cue and haven’t broken any rules.”

Cassian exchanged a long look with Fian. “They found out the truth about your previous enclosure. That it failed because of your escape attempt.”

“How?” she breathed. “I thought you hid that information.”

“Somehow, someone found out.”

Cora swallowed. “One of their spies.”

Cassian nodded slowly. “I warned you the Council could have watchers stationed anywhere. It seems my fears were correct. They have narrowed down the list of potential agitators to six, which means they will be watching you even more closely. Mali is on the list as well, and Anya, and Rolf—”

Cora jumped on the name. “Rolf?” Among all of them in the cage, he had been the least troublesome to the Kindred. “Why, what has he done?”

Cassian folded his hands. “Your concern right now is not to give the Council any further cause to distrust you. Dane submits regular reports about all of your behavior to the hostess. Tessela can filter them, but only so much. Now that you and Mali are on the list, they will be watching the Hunt even more carefully.”

Cora was silent. She pinched herself harder.

Cassian frowned. “You are in pain.”

She folded her arms to hide how she was pinching herself. “Just a headache.”

“Headaches can be serious, when you’re dealing with perceptive abilities.”

She swallowed harder, thinking of how blood had flowed from her nose when she’d broken out of her cell. “Is that what happened to Anya? Her mind ruptured?”

“We did not realize we were doing any damage. We thought the nosebleeds and the headaches were minor side effects, not lasting—that is why we have been so careful not to push y

ou during trainings. With Anya, it got much worse. She started to hear voices.”

“Voices?” Maybe that voiceless whisper last night really was in her head—the first symptom of a brain rupture.

“Fian will return you to the Hunt,” Cassian said. “Be cautious; do not give Arrowal a reason to suspect you any further.”

He turned to go.

“Wait,” she blurted out. “I need to ask you about something. Lucky found a code one of the other boys left behind. POD30.1.”

A ripple of confusion passed over Cassian’s face. He glanced back at Fian. “That is impossible.”