“Not everyone knows about the work Commander Brum has authorized here,” said Hanne, following the script Nina had laid out for her. “We got word the local governors are coming to the factory to investigate complaints about poisons in the river. We don’t need more trouble.”
“Bureaucrats,” grumbled the guard. “Probably just looking for another bribe.”
Another bribe? Did that mean local officials had been paid to look the other way about the fouling of the river—or about the girls in the abandoned wing?
A moment later the gate creaked open.
“Leave it that way,” said Hanne. “Time is short.”
“Wait a minute,” said the guard. He threw open the back doors of the wagon and peered at Leoni and Nina in their pinafores. “What are these two doing here?”
“For Djel’s sake, do you think I’m going to take care of a bunch of crying women and shitting infants?” said Hanne. “Maybe you’d like to come along and wipe their asses?”
Saints, she really was a natural.
The guard looked utterly horrified. “No thank you.”
He slammed the doors shut, and in the next second, they were rolling through the gate into what had once been the eastern loading dock for the factory.
“Let’s go,” Adrik said, herding them to the big double doors. “That all took longer than it was supposed to.”
Leoni dripped acid onto the locks to the ward and they fell with a hiss and a clang.
Gently, Nina pushed the doors open. They moved into the darkness, down the hall, toward the dim glow of a lantern. She could smell bodies, the tang of sour milk, soiled diapers, the old industrial smells of grease and coal.
The ward was full of the muzzy sounds of sleep, soft snores, the moan of a woman turning in her bed. A girl in a thin shift lay awake near the lantern, eyes hollow, skinny arms cradling her belly like a giant pearl.
When she saw Nina and Leoni her face broke into a happy, hopeful smile. “You’re here early!” she cried. “Do you have my dose?”
“Where’s my dose?” said another, rising from her blankets.
“Saints,” muttered Adrik as lanterns were lit along the row of beds and the horror of the ward came into view.
Adrik looked sick. Leoni’s eyes were full of tears.
Hanne had clapped a hand over her mouth. She was shaking her head.
“Hanne?” Nina murmured.
“No.” She shook her head harder. “No. He didn’t do this. He couldn’t have. He must not have known.”
A baby began to cry. The reality of the girls’ need, of their clumsy bodies, their hopeful expressions felt overwhelming. Why had Nina believed they could get away with any of this? But she had chosen this course—for all of them.
“Sylvi,” Hanne said on a sob.
Sylvi Winther, Nina remembered, one of the people Hanne had nursed in secret.
The hollow-eyed girl looked up, but there was no recognition in her eyes. Hanne went to her side, but the girl shrank back, confused.
“It’s me,” said Hanne. “I …” And then she remembered her uniform, her altered face. “I … I’m sorry.”
“Come on,” Nina said. “We need to move.” From her pocket, she drew the sedative Leoni had mixed. It was milky white, boiled from the stalks of jurda plants instead of the leaves.
“That doesn’t look like my dose,” said the girl by the lantern, frowning.
“It’s something new,” said Nina soothingly. “We’re taking all of you to a new base.”
“All of us?” one of the girls asked. “The babies too?”
“Yes.”
“Does the new base have windows?” asked Sylvi.
“Yes,” said Hanne, her voice raw. “And fresh food and sea breezes. It will be a hard journey, but we’ll make it as comfortable as possible.” At least that much was true.
One by one they offered the girls their doses and began to lead them to the cart.
Adrik consulted his watch. “Get going.”
He raised his arm, and Nina’s ears popped as he dropped the pressure in the factory to create an acoustic blanket and mask their movements.
Nina knew the layout of the factory floor best, so she would take Leoni to set the explosives while Adrik and Hanne finished loading the prisoners and their infants. She helped Leoni stack the makeshift bombs in a basket beneath a pile of soiled linen and they crept deeper into the heart of the fort. It was blessedly silent, the day not yet beginning, and thanks to Adrik, their footsteps made no sound to break the quiet.
Nina dashed ahead to the main body of the factory and into the western wing, as close as she dared to the barracks and the kitchens. She didn’t want to risk running into any patrols. She set the small explosives along the wall as she headed back, all of them connected by a long fuse.
Nina had just planted the last of her bombs when she heard a cry. Leoni. She raced back to the main hall on silent feet. As she entered, she heard voices and shrank up against a dusty vat, peering around it.
Leoni stood with her back to Nina, arms raised. Jarl Brum had a pistol trained on her. Nina clung to the vat, staying as still as possible.
“Who sent you?” he demanded. “You will give me answers or I will bleed them out of you.”
“You disgust me,” Leoni said in Zemeni.
Their voices had a strange, muffled quality. Did Brum hear it? Did he know Grisha power was at work? Slowly, Nina crept down the row of machinery. If she could get behind Brum, she could disarm him.
“I don’t speak your ugly tongue,” he said. “And I know you understand more than you pretend to.”
Leoni smiled, the expression startling in its beauty. “And you understand less than you will ever know.”
“I knew you weren’t just traders. Where is your compatriot? And what about the guide, Mila Jandersdat? Does she know you’re spies?”
“You’re so very bald,” Leoni said, still in Zemeni. “That won’t be the worst thing Mila Jandersdat does to you.”
“Was she a part of this?” Brum growled in frustration.
“How many girls?” Leoni said, switching to clumsy Fjerdan. “How many did you hurt?”
“Those aren’t women,” Brum sneered. “They’re Grisha, and I’ll be happy to give you your first dose myself. The might of Fjerda is about to descend on you.”
He reached for a lever in the wall, and Nina knew an alarm was going to sound.
“Wait!” she shouted, unsure of what she intended—and at that moment Jarl Brum crumpled to the ground.
Hanne stood behind him holding a wrench and breathing heavily. “He knew,” she said brokenly. “He knew.” Then she fell to her knees beside him and cradled his bleeding head. “Papa,” she said, tears sliding down her cheeks. “How could you?”
“Come on,” said Nina. “We have to get the girls and get out of here.”
Hanne ran a sleeve over her eyes. “We can’t leave him to die.”
“You saw what he’s responsible for.”
“What the government is responsible for,” said Hanne. “My father is a soldier. You said it yourself, this country made him this way.”