But waiting around here isn’t going to change anything. I made my choice.
I pull a silver chain out of my pocket. A pure black crystal glitters on the end of it.
At our meeting with the rebels, Ellis said to “look close to home” for a way to contact her. I didn’t give it a whole lot of thought at the time. But a few nights ago, when I was flipping through my old sketchbook she gave me at that meeting, I found this necklace taped into the back. There was no note, no explanation, but I knew what it was immediately. Ellis’s power crystal.
I couldn’t bring myself to tell the others about it—not that my silence stopped Lai from digging around in my thoughts and finding out. She probably knew as soon as I found it. Then again, she did do me a favor by telling me all about Ellis’s gift of controlling shadows. Ellis can travel through them, send shadow butterflies as messengers that only their intended receiver can see and hear, and use those same butterflies to observe people through their shadows. But that last one can only happen with the knowledge and permission of the person being watched.
My fingers close around her power crystal. Deep breaths. It’ll be fine. I can do this.
Power crystals don’t work unless you’re touching them and you want to use their power. One out of two down, but it takes a couple more calming breaths before I manage to call out to the power—not exactly sure what’ll happen when I do.
The shadows around me shift and surge, and it takes all my willpower not to step back out of their way as they detach from the ground and walls to engulf me. I expect to feel pain or be unable to breathe, like if a wave of water crashed over me, but I don’t feel anything. When I blink, I’m in a dimly lit room that is definitely not some back alley of Sector Eight.
Another few blinks and the room starts to come into focus around me. Or maybe my eyes just adjust to the half-light. It looks like an office. There’s one door and a window that’s pitch black on the other side. Mismatched furniture takes up most of the space. The air smells damp and heavy with—what, incense? I realize the room is so dark because the only light is from the candles scattered around it. Wax drips down them to pool in shallow bowls set on the dark wooden furniture. Mahogany? I stare at the main desk. The design, the feel of it …
“Do you remember, Erik?” a voice asks behind me. I whip around. No one was in the room a few seconds ago, but now, Ellis stands between me and the door. Behind her is Cal, along with the pale-eyed girl with the ice gift and the vicious rebel I fought on our team’s second mission. Joan and Devin, I think. “You made all the furniture in this room.”
It takes everything in me not to back away. My heart races like crazy. This is really happening. I’m here with the rebels.
I force my face and voice to be calm. “I can’t say I remember, but I do recognize my own work when I see it.”
Disappointment falls over Ellis’s face, but it’s quickly replaced by excitement as she claps her hands together. “So, you decided to come back? I knew you would.”
Cal looks just as happy as Ellis—maybe even more—but Joan watches me with narrowed eyes. Devin outright scowls.
“It’s hardly surprising after we dealt Sector Two such thorough losses,” Joan says. Her pale blue eyes gleam in the candlelight. A single braid of dark brown hair hangs over one shoulder, but pieces stick out like she made it in a hurry. When I look at her more closely, I realize the edges of her eyes are red. Her dark tan skin seems to have taken on a more sickly hue since the last time I saw her, too. Or maybe it’s just the candlelight.
She turns to Ellis. “Are you sure we can trust him? Seems to me like he’s just running to us with his tail between his legs now that the military’s turned on him.”
“For once, I agree with her,” Devin snarls. “He’s just a coward. We don’t need him.”
My irritation flicks on, and that emotion I don’t hide. “I’m sorry my timing isn’t exactly trustworthy to you, but it’s not like I’ve had a whole lot of time to think things over since you nearly killed me and my teammates. Things have been a little busy.”
“I didn’t realize one needed time to know where their loyalties lie,” Joan says.
“Oh, Joan, you’re starting to sound like Devin,” Ellis teases. Devin’s eyes flick to her like he doesn’t know whether to take that as an insult or a compliment. Joan scowls darkly at the comparison. I can’t blame her. From what I remember of Devin, he’s crazy for violence. Not someone any sane person would want to be compared to.
Ellis turns to face me again. Long blond hair tumbles past her shoulders, over plain black clothes that seem to be the color of choice around here. They’re stark against her pale skin. “He was lied to for months by the military, and then we suddenly sprung the truth on him. I’m sure it took time to process.”
“I’m sure being branded a traitor didn’t hurt, either,” Joan mutters.
Cal doesn’t look like he even heard their conversation. He grins from ear to ear. “You really decided to come back to us, Erik?”
“I wouldn’t have come here with all my stuff otherwise,” I say. Joan and Devin are throwing me off, but as distrustful of me as they are, neither of them actually seems suspicious of me being a spy. That, at least, calms my racing heart a little.
“Excellent!” Ellis says with another clap of her hands. “Oh, it’s so good to have you back, Erik! You have no idea how much we’ve missed you.”
Her excitement catches me off guard. It feels weirdly genuine. Is she just that good at faking, or is it real? Is it possible we all really were good friends? That they cared about me—that I cared about them? I mean, a part of me must have known we were, with all the effort they put into seeing me and trying to convince me to come back. But it’s still hard to wrap my head around.
That’s why I’m here, I remind myself. I’m going to learn the truth for myself. I’m finally going to find what I’ve been searching for these past several months.
I must not be hiding my surprise at Ellis’s reaction that well, because her smile wavers. “Well, you don’t remember us, of course. Not yet. But don’t worry, Erik. We’ll remind you.”
“Yeah!” Cal agrees with shining eyes. He reaches me in three steps and clasps my hands in his. Despite our pretty good talk in the sector, I have to force myself not to flinch from the physical contact. “We can talk as much as we want now that you’re here. And we can work together again to take down the sectors! No one will be able to beat us with our team back together.”
My breath trips over the guilt stuck in my lungs. I try to hide it, but Ellis’s eyes narrow.
“Erik,” she says slowly. Carefully, like she’s trying not to spook a wild Feral, the vicious creatures that roam Outside. “You do know that coming back includes fighting with us, right?”
Thank the gods. She thinks I’m nervous about fighting the sector—not that I’m here as a spy. And I need to keep it that way. “Of course,” I say. “You think I’d come back just to sit around and chat?”
Ellis watches me carefully. Shadows flicker over her face from the candles, giving her an almost sinister look that doesn’t match the warring sympathy in her eyes. “Well, we can deal with that later,” she says eventually. “For now, there’s something I need you to do for me.”