Then Elliot pressed binoculars into my hands.
“Look for yourself,” he said. “And tell me the Council doesn’t need to pay.”
I raised the binoculars.
Below us lay a camp — heavily fortified. Armed guards patrolled the perimeter. Barbed wire topped a tall outer fence, with a second fence inside layered with razor wire.
In the courtyard, I saw people.
Children.
They wore grey rags, clothes that barely covered their skin. They were thin. Malnourished. In their hands were spades and pickaxes, their small bodies bent as they worked the yard.
“What is this?” I asked, nausea rising. “A prison?”
“A holding facility for the children in Telluride who registered too high Dark on the APA during recent raids,” he said flatly.
“Where are their parents?”
He shrugged.
“Dead. Imprisoned. Disappeared. The Council marketed this place as a sanctuary — protection from ferals. Protection from us.”
Sy stepped forward, fury pouring from his tall form.
“You know of this place — and do nothing?”
“Did you not see the cannons?” Kieran snapped. “The ranks of light-magic guards on the walls?”
Sy didn’t look away.
“Your cowardice does not concern me.”
“My cowardice?” Kieran barked. “You arrogant son of a—”
He lunged forward towards Sy.
“Enough!” Elliot snapped, cutting across them both.
“I’ve seen enough,” I said. “We’re leaving, Sy.”
Sy’s attention snapped to me, his nostrils flaring. He nodded.
Elliot lifted his hands, as if to stop me.
“Seph—this is only one place,” he said quickly. “There are hundreds like it. All of them tools the Council uses to solve problems.”
“I never said the Council were good people, Elliot,” I said evenly. “But I don’t think you understand what you’re asking me to do.”
“Good?” Kieran cut in sharply. “Try monsters. The Council and the goddamn Order of Light are exactly what’s wrong with this world.”
He gestured toward the camp below.
“We can’t keep living like this. The world has to change.”
His jaw tightened. His eyes sharpened on me.
“And someone has to be willing to change it.”
