I swallow, hard. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t suspect. Everything is fine. “Yeah?”
She holds out her hand, palm up. The shadows in the room shift again, and when I blink, a black butterfly is sitting in her hand. The edges are hazy like I’m looking at it through water. When Devin sees it, he smirks. Joan’s face remains neutral while Cal frowns.
“I trust you, Erik,” Ellis says in a voice that sounds more like she wants to believe that. “But I need to take precautions. You understand, don’t you?”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak.
“I’m going to put my butterfly in your shadow to keep an eye on you, make sure you’re not doing anything to betray us. It’s nothing bad—like I said, just a precaution—and it won’t hurt. I just need your permission, or my butterfly won’t be able to enter your shadow.”
Lai warned me Ellis would probably ask to monitor me as a test of loyalty—but it’s still unnerving. Knowing about it beforehand doesn’t make it any easier to say the words I know I need to. Once I agree, she’ll be able to see my every movement, hear anything I say. If I make even one mistake in getting info back to Lai and the others, Ellis will know what I’m up to. I’ll be as good as dead. But I can’t say no, or I might as well stab myself with my own sword right now.
“Yeah, sure thing.” My voice sounds steady. I think. “Do what you have to.”
Ellis smiles. Her teeth don’t show like they did before. She doesn’t move, but the butterfly takes off from her hand and flies straight for me. It lands on a section of my shadow falling across an armchair. It melts into it, but I don’t feel anything. My body doesn’t feel any different from before, either.
“That it?” I look at my hands, but there’s no change. “I thought I’d feel … something.”
Ellis laughs, and her apparent happiness from before finally returns. I try not to let out a sigh of relief. “Everyone always thinks that.”
Devin’s smirk is gone. Now he’s just glaring at me from under lowered eyebrows. “Are you sure about this, Sara? I don’t like it. I don’t trust him as far as I could throw him.”
“You can throw pretty far,” Ellis muses. Devin’s scowl deepens. “I’m sure, Devin. If Erik does anything suspicious, I’ll know about it right away.” Her eyes cut to me. She’s still smiling, but there’s an edge to it now. My heart misses a beat. “And I’m sure Erik knows what would happen if we found any reason to distrust him.”
I shrug and try to make the gesture look as careless as always. My heart pounds like crazy. “Why would I do something that stupid? Besides, it’s not like anyone back in the sector has my loyalties. Not anymore.”
“Good,” Ellis says. The edge falls away. “You’ve finally come back to us. Why don’t we catch up?”
Devin is still scowling, but I can’t read Joan’s expression. Cal is practically bouncing in place. “I’ll go make some tea,” he says. His excitement hasn’t dimmed since I got here, even though I haven’t returned his enthusiasm at all. I was expecting more of Joan and Devin’s reactions, not this … happiness. When Ellis isn’t trying to intimidate me, she seems just as excited as Cal—like she’s greeting an old, long-lost friend. Which I guess she is.
The rebels are supposed to be heartless killers who want to wipe out all the ungifted from the world. But even though that’s the goal of the war they waged, they just feel like normal people. Without the adrenaline and mercilessness of the battlefield, it’s hard to really see them as the enemy. Especially when they’re clapping in excitement and saying they’ll make tea for you.
But still, Ellis’s sharp smile won’t leave my head. I need to be careful. No matter how down-to-earth these people seem, they are the enemy. I can’t forget that—as soon as I do, it could cost me my life.
* * *
Once we’ve finished tea—still weird—Ellis takes me on a tour through the rebels’ home base. Cal and the others split off to go do whatever it is rebel leaders do. I thought I’d be glad to have fewer people around, but as soon as they’re gone, I realize how much worse it is to be alone with Ellis.
After she leads me into the hallway, down a few flights of stairs, and out of the building, I realize why everything is so damn dark. We’re underground. Way above us, an earthen sky looms. It’s not as high as the dome of a sector, but it’s still up there. The cavern is wide and tall enough that the place doesn’t feel claustrophobic. A city of low, ramshackle “buildings” thrown together from sheets of wood and metal spreads out around us as far as I can see.
“Wow,” I say. “I didn’t know places like this existed Outside.”
“I doubt anyone in the sectors does,” Ellis says. She doesn’t stop walking, so I keep trailing her as my eyes try to suck everything in. Not because I think it’ll be helpful for Lai or whatever, but because I want to see it all. “The Etioles don’t explore Outside. Even if they found a place like this, what good would it do them? They can’t even go Outside without safety equipment—it’d be too much of a hassle for them to try and settle in.” She taps the side of her nose. “Nytes, on the other hand? The air Outside doesn’t affect us.”
“Makes sense,” I say. There’s no electricity. Flashlights and candles light up everything. As we pass a collection of rubble and blankets that’s serving as someone’s shelter, I realize the only real building in the whole area is the one Ellis and I just left. The homes are leaning wooden planks, or cobbled together with busted pieces of plastic and metal, or sometimes just blankets laid out on the ground around piles of things. Personal belongings. Small heaps of food.
I glance back over my shoulder. The sole building rises above everything else, a grand old thing with a steepled roof and elegant balconies.
“What’s with the building?” I ask. “You guys didn’t build that yourselves, did you?”
“It was already here when we found this place,” Ellis says. “When you and I found this place.”
A mystery if I’ve ever heard one—how did anyone find this place, anyway?—but I don’t push for more. With all the other questions I have, it isn’t exactly at the top of my list. And I don’t like the way she emphasized it being the two of us who found this place. It also makes me realize my mistake; I shouldn’t refer to the rebels as if I’m not a part of them.
I try to ignore my twisting stomach. “Okay, so, the building is like the central meeting point for all of us?”
“Something like that,” Ellis says. She steps over an abandoned teddy bear lying in what passes for a street. Empty paths twist through the messily assembled homes, but so far, none of them seem to lead anywhere in particular. “We call it the main office—and we use it for a lot of things. The room we just met in is where we make and discuss our plans. And by we, I mean me, Joan, Devin, Cal, and Gabriel—and you, in the past.”
“Gabriel?” I’ve never heard the name before. When I think back to the ambush, I don’t remember seeing a fifth person, either. The thought that we’ve been missing an enemy general isn’t a great one.