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The word dropped to the bottom of my stomach like an anchor.
Icarus spoke the words I’d been thinking: “So they’re definitely dead.”
“They’re alive.” The sound of Zed’s voice affected me in a strange way. There was something in his tone, some emotion I hadn’t heard or experienced in ages, but I guessed it was hope. The fact that he dared to hope in our dark world made him either crazy or naïve. Either was a liability—with crazy edging out naïveté in preference. Crazy people could survive in Nachtstadt. Naïve ones didn’t.
“Krovgorod, though,” Dare said. “It’s impossible.”
“We all know that it’s not,” Saga said with a significant look in Icarus’s direction.
Icarus didn’t make eye contact with Saga. Instead he looked toward me with an accusing glare, as if I somehow was complicit in this conversation. I didn’t react because I knew he needed an easy person to blame.
“Saga, I really hope this conversation isn’t headed in the direction I think it is,” I said.
The older man didn’t have the courtesy to try to look innocent. “I’m afraid you’re about to be disappointed, my dear.”
Icarus turned and marched out of the room without another word. The fact that he hadn’t yelled or thrown anything was a bad sign. Loud Icarus was way less trouble than quiet Icarus.
“I can’t believe you’re actually suggesting we risk our lives breaking into a camp to save a couple of kids,” I said.
“Excuse me?” Zed said.
I sighed. “I’m sorry if that’s hard to hear, but the chance of one person escaping Krovgorod is slim to none, much less two weakened prisoners and a rescue party.”
He stepped forward, as if propelled by rage. “I’ll go by myself then.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Dare said. “You won’t make it within a thousand feet of the camp.”
“Children,” Saga said, raising his voice, “if you’d all kindly shut your mouths, I’d be happy to tell you exactly how this can and will work.”
Zed stared at me hard for a few more moments before backing down. I had to give the guy credit for being brave, even if it was likely to get him killed. Still, I wasn’t keen on risking my life so he could play hero to a bunch of brats.
“Six, if you would please wipe that bull-headed expression from your face,” Saga said.
I relaxed my jaw and went to lean against the wall.
Before Saga could continue, a cry spilled into the book room from the corridor. A child’s shout, but I couldn’t tell if it was from fear or fun. At first, Zed kept his gaze on Saga, but when three more cries joined the first, he sighed. “I need to go check on them.”
Saga nodded. “Please. We’ll fill you in once you return.”
With that, Zed walked out the door without so much as a parting glance. Once he disappeared, the bunched muscles in my upper back relaxed another fraction.
“Now that he’s gone, I can talk plainly,” Saga said. The relief in his tone set me on edge. “The truth is he has handed us the perfect opportunity for our next big move against the Troika.”
“How is saving some brats a big move?”
He smiled and leaned against the side of Polonius. “It’s not, my dear. That is merely the excuse for the mission. The true purpose will be much bigger.”
I pushed off the wall and paced toward a bookcase filled with old books Saga called “encyclopedias”. He claimed they were quite rare. After humans began relying on the Internet for their information, many threw such reference books in the trash, believing them obsolete. But once the vampires gained control over all the servers and the digitized record of all human history, no one had access to even basic information. Saga had started collecting his enormous library long before the vampires became a threat, and as far as I knew, owned more books than any other being on earth. To me, they were dust collectors, but to Saga, they were as precious as blood to a vampire.
With my back to him, I said, “The mission?”
“Krovgorod is a work camp.”
“We already know that,” Dare said. After months of living with her, I knew the frustration in her tone wasn’t really frustration, but anxiety. She was extremely loyal to Icarus and was torn between learning Saga’s plan so she could share it with him and going to comfort him, even though she knew he’d reject it.
“Labor is not all that goes on there.” Saga’s tone was patient.
I turned around. Something tickled the back of my mind, but before I could snatch it, he continued. “As you’ll recall, our little adventure a few months ago put a crimp in the Troika’s plans to dispose of humans once they succeeded in creating a synthetic blood formula.”
