But she’d finally done enough for Ophion that they’d informed her Emile had been sent here, and survived against all odds. At last, she had a location for him. Convincing Command to let her come here … that had been another labyrinth to navigate.
In the end, it had required Pippa’s support. Command listened to Pippa, their faithful and fervent soldier, leader of the elite Lightfall unit. Especially now that Ophion’s numbers had taken such steep hits. Sort-of-human Sofie, on the other hand … She knew she was an asset, but with the Vanir blood in her veins, they’d never fully trust her. So she occasionally needed Pippa. Just as much as Pippa’s Lightfall missions had needed Sofie’s powers.
Pippa’s help hadn’t been due to friendship. Sofie was fairly certain that friends didn’t exist within the Ophion rebel network. But Pippa was an opportunist—and she knew what she stood to gain should this op go smoothly, the doors that would further open to her within Command if Sofie returned triumphant.
A week after Command had approved the plan, over three years after her family had been snatched from their home, Sofie walked into Kavalla.
She’d waited until a local dreadwolf patrol was marching by and stumbled into their path, a mere mile from here. They immediately found the fake rebel documents she’d planted in her coat. They had no idea that Sofie also carried with her, hidden in her head, information that could very well be the final piece of this war against the Asteri.
The blow that could end it.
Ophion had found out too late that before she’d gone into Kavalla, she’d finally accomplished the mission she’d spent years preparing for. She’d made sure before she was picked up that Pippa and Ophion knew she’d acquired that intel. Now they wouldn’t back out of their promises to retrieve her and Emile. She knew there would be Hel to pay for it—that she’d gone in secret to gather the information, and was now using it as collateral.
But that would come later.
The dreadwolf patrol interrogated her for two days. Two days, and then they’d thrown her into the cattle car with the others, convinced she was a foolish human girl who’d been given the documents by a lover who’d used her.
She’d never thought her minor in theater would come in handy. That she’d hear her favorite professor’s voice critiquing her performance while someone was ripping out her fingernails. That she’d feign a confession with all the sincerity she’d once brought to the stage.
She wondered if Command knew she’d used those acting abilities on them, too.
That wasn’t her concern, either. At least, not until tomorrow. Tonight, all that mattered was the desperate plan that would now come to fruition. If she had not been betrayed, if Command had not realized the truth, then a boat waited twenty miles away to ferry them out of Pangera. She looked down at the children around her and prayed the boat had room for more than the three passengers she’d claimed would be arriving.
She’d spent her first week and a half in Kavalla waiting for a glimpse of her brother—a hint of where he might be in the sprawling camp. And then, a few days ago, she’d spotted him in the food line. She’d faked a stumble to cover her shock and joy and sorrow.
He’d gotten so tall. As tall as their father. He was all gangly limbs and bones, a far cry from the healthy thirteen-year-old he should have been, but his face … it was the face she’d grown up with. But beginning to show the first hints of manhood on the horizon.
Tonight, she’d seized her chance to sneak into his bunk. And despite the three years and the countless miseries they’d endured, he knew her in an instant, too. Sofie would have spirited him away that moment had he not begged her to bring the others.
Now twelve children crouched behind her.
The alarms would be blaring soon. They had different sirens for everything here, she’d learned. To signal their wake-ups, their meals, random inspections.
A mournful bird’s call fluttered through the low-hanging mist. All clear.
With a silent prayer of thanks to the sun-priest and the god he served, Sofie lifted her mangled hand to the electrified fence. She did not glance at her missing fingernails, or the welts, or even feel how numb and stiff her hands were, not as the fence’s power crackled through her.
Through her, into her, becoming her. Becoming hers to use as she wished.
A thought, and the fence’s power turned outward again, her fingertips sparking where they curled against the metal. The metal turned orange, then red beneath her hand.
She sliced her palm down, skin so blisteringly hot it cleaved metal and wire. Emile whispered to the others to keep them from crying out, but she heard one of the boys murmur, “Witch.”