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“Let’s go,” I say.

The tunnel is narrow, just wide enough to fit us single file. It’s impossible to get a hold on the crumbling dirt, so Raven and I just slide down the sloping wall until we hit the bottom.

It’s maybe ten feet under the wall, where we are encased in absolute darkness for a minute, and then we’re on the Southgate side, staring up at the tunnel leading to the courtyard. It looks like miles from this perspective.

We scramble up the slope and emerge into Southgate’s courtyard, muddy and out of breath.

This is where the real danger is. Outside, in the streets of the Marsh, no one would ever recognize us, except for our immediate family members. No one has seen us since we were twelve. Raven’s family is far away to the east, mine to the west, but it’s only my mother left to recognize me. My brother, Ochre, is a part of the Society now, working in the Farm. And my sister, Hazel, has been kidnapped by the Duchess of the Lake, to serve as my replacement.

No. I can’t let myself think about Hazel right now. I can’t afford to be distracted. I’m doing this for her. To save her. To save all the surrogates.

But still, it’s impossible not to worry. Lucien said the Duchess has made an arrangement with the Exetor. An engagement. Between the Exetor’s son and the Duchess’s future daughter. He said that her surrogate—my Hazel—is pregnant.

And if that’s true, then Hazel is dead. Childbirth kills surrogates.

No. I shake my head and glance at Raven. She was pregnant when I rescued her from the Jewel in December. She survived. Hazel will, too. I’ll make sure of it.

But now I have to focus on the task at hand.

The building looms up before us, a stark outline against the rain. It looks smaller than it felt when I lived here, though that probably comes from spending so much time among the immense palaces of the Jewel. Besides, Southgate is the smallest of the holding facilities. Northgate was enormous. Even Westgate and Eastgate are bigger than this. Westgate has a huge garden all around it and a solarium in its center. It’s actually quite pretty.

“Come on,” Raven whispers. We skirt around the mound of dirt I pushed out to make the tunnel—I’ll replace it after we leave, hiding our tracks—and make our way to the greenhouse.

The glass structure glistens in the rain and we slip inside and pull back our hoods. Raven shakes out her hair and glances around.

“Are we early?”

I take out Ash’s pocket watch. Thirty seconds to midnight. “They’ll be here,” I say. It’s warm inside the greenhouse, the air thick with the scent of growing things, earth and roots and flowers. The rain patters gently as Raven and I wait.

At precisely five seconds past midnight, I can just make out hooded shapes hurrying across the courtyard. Then the door to the greenhouse opens and the group of girls we’ve been waiting for floods in.

“Violet!” some of them whisper, rushing over to greet me and Raven.

Amber Lockring strides forward, throwing back the hood of her cloak, her eyes gleaming. “Right on time,” she says with a grin.

“Five seconds late, actually,” Raven points out.

Amber wasn’t one of our friends here, though she lived on our floor. Raven confessed that Amber called me a freak on my first day at Southgate and Raven bent her arm behind her back until Amber said she was sorry. They had never liked each other after that. When we got the list of girls going to the Auction, Raven immediately chose Amber as the first one to reveal this secret to. When I asked why, she narrowed her eyes and said, “She hates the royalty just the way I did. And she was the only other girl in our dorm who wore pants.”

I had to smile at that. If they hadn’t hated each other so much, they might’ve been friends.

“You brought them?” I say.

Amber gestures proudly to the figures still huddled by the door, three girls with varying expressions of fear and suspicion on their faces. “Tawny, Ginger, and Henna. They’re the last ones. This is all of us going to the Auction.”

I do a quick head count. Only nine out of the seventy-seven girls at this year’s Auction are from Southgate. And they stand before me now.

“Did anyone see you?” Raven says.

Amber snorts. “No. Obviously. I have done this before, you know.”

“Great job,” I say.

“Ready?” Raven mutters.

I step forward.

It’s time to show these girls who they really are.