Page 99 of Bride of the Enemy Alien

I could catch him if I go alone, but going alone is stupid. Almost as stupid as running off on your own on some noble quest to save everyone. That’s a pretty high bar to beat.

“I understand,” Syin says at last, and that jerks my attention to him.

“What?” I ask.

He blinks slowly. Which is a Zmaj thing. They must have extreme control of their eyelids. It’s weird and freaky to watch the lids close, then open so slowly.

“I understand his thinking,” he says.

“What does that mean?” I ask, but all I get is another creepy slow blink. “Syin?”

“Maybe I was wrong about him,” he says. Then he turns and strides away before I can ask any more questions.

24

Kessa

By the time Lio brings the leaders into the little service chamber beside the old drain, Rosalind’s gaze goes straight to the broken token in my fist.

“Show me.”

I open my hand. The chipped clay token sits there, ugly and ordinary and more devastating than a bit of ration math has any right to be. It’s not romantic or soft, no matter if some part of me is spinning fantasies in that direction. It’s a broken corner, a route mark, and proof that a wounded alien male stole one of my tokens and used it to say what he could not say in a room full of people preparing to aim him.

He told me where to look.

He was also smart enough to not ask me to forgive him.

“Old service chute,” I say. “He didn’t use the guard passage or go through the east gate. He wanted me to know he avoided the active route stones.”

Syin frowns. “The service chute comes out near the ash gullies.”

“Near,” I say. “Not in. The chute collapsed two years ago after the lower tremor. It does not open cleanly unless someone knows the drainage slit under the salt shelves.”

Renn exhales. “You know it.”

“I know every route that has ever tried to kill someone in this City.”

Virn comes closer, his broad shoulders filling too much of the chamber. “If he wanted you to follow, why take the shard?”

“Because without it, the receiver keeps reaching for the City. With it, the receiver reaches for him.”

Syin turns away with a curse sharp enough to make one of the guards flinch.

Yes. There it is.

The awful truth, laid bare for all to see.

Rhazek did not run from us. He moved the bait. The living relay took the active shard and dragged the brightest danger out through the worst route, away from source-watch, away from fever row, away from every shelter full of children who already learned to wake without screaming because screaming wastes breath.

My eyes burn. I refuse them the satisfaction of crying. The City doesn’t need my tears. It needs distances, timing, water, guards, and a good knife.

“Where does it end?” Rosalind asks.

“Two places if you are desperate. Three if you are stupid.” I turn the token over in my fingers, buying half a breath to make my voice behave. “The obvious exit is Ash Seven. Too open, too exposed, too close to the ground sink. He would not choose it unless he wanted to be seen from above.”

“Would he?” Virn asks.

“Yes,” I say. “If being seen was the point.”