“Mom.” I crossed the room in three strides and dropped to my knees beside her chair. “What happened? Where’s??—“
“They took him.” Her voice was hoarse from crying and the ever-present strain on her damaged lungs. “The Assembly guards. They came an hour ago.”
I staggered back, head on a swivel as if my father was about to pop out of nowhere and tell me she was only joking. But he wasn’t here, and the terror in her eyes was real.
“They had a warrant. Someone reported him for illegal distribution of anchor crystals.” She pressed a hand to her mouth, and her whole body shook with suppressed sobs. “They arrested him, Juno. They took him to the Dredge.”
The Dredge.
The Dredge was where people went and didn’t come back. A prison suspended in the Gallery, designed specifically for those who violated the Assembly’s laws. I’d heard stories, everyone had. About the darkness, the whispers that drove prisoners mad, the dampening fields that stripped elementals of their power.
My father was in the Dredge. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. Kora’s hand landed on my shoulder. When I looked at her, I saw my own fear reflected in her eyes.
“We’ll figure this out,” she said.
But we both knew the truth.
Once the Assembly took you to the Dredge, figuring it out wasn’t an option.
You were already gone.
I sat on the workshop floor for hours after my mom finally fell asleep, her breathing labored even with the tonic I’d forced down her throat. Nearly the last bottle. We had one left, and it would last maybe three more days if we rationed it carefully.
After that...I couldn’t finish the thought.
Click curled in my lap, his tail my father had fashioned for him wrapped around my wrist. The workshop still smelled like my father. Like metal shavings and fire smoke. His tools hung on the walls in neat rows, organized by size and function. A half-finished anchor sat on the main workbench, the crystal already set but the metalwork incomplete. He’d never finish it now.
My father took pride in everything he made. His crystals were of the finest quality, salvaged from newly dead realms with enough power in them to crystallize. It’s why the Assembly contracted him often, and why they kept him on a tight leash. But they never paid him enough to make us comfortable. That was intentional, no doubt.
“We could break him out.”
I looked up to find Kora standing in the doorway, backlit by the dim glow of the hallway crystals. Her dark red hair fell loose around her shoulders, and her arms were crossed tight across her chest.
“From the Dredge?” My voice came out flat. “With what army?”
“I don’t know. I just—“ She moved into the room and dropped down beside me, her shoulder pressing against mine. “There has to be something we can do.”
“The Assembly doesn’t make mistakes. They don’t arrest people without evidence.”
“So someone really did rat him out.”
“Looks like it.”
The guilt twisted in my gut. This was on me. I was the one who’d risked it all for illegal scavenging. I was the one gathering clients in secret, slipping them scraps off the records. I was the reason he was trapped in that place, the reason he’d be left to rot there.
“I can practically read your thoughts.” Kora peered at me from over her bent knees. “It’s not our fault. Without the extra work, your mom would have died long ago. It’s not our fault the Assembly doesn’t look out for their own. It’s only illegal because they decided not to share the wealth. Remember that.”
I just nodded without bothering to argue, knowing she was right, but my heart didn’t want to accept it. We sat in silence for a moment. Through the workshop’s small window, I could see the night sky, stars scattered across the darkness like the crystals in my anchor pendant. Somewhere out there, beyond the reach of our realm my father was suspended in darkness, locked in a prison designed to break minds and bodies.
“We need money,” I said finally. “A lot of it.”
Kora frowned. “For what? You can’t bribe the Assembly, Juno. They’d just arrest you too.”
“Not a bribe.” I scratched behind Click’s earhole, he closed his eyes and vibrated. “There are lawyers who specialize in Assembly law. People who know how to navigate the tribunal system, who can argue for reduced sentences or transfers to a regular prison.”
“That kind of lawyer costs??—”
“Thousands of sovereigns. I know.”
