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“This is a loophole,” Dante says.
As he speaks, strands of the Interface rotate violently, curling in on one another in rapid and graceful precision until a long funnel of chaotically woven strands extends in a gentle diagonal toward the ship, opening a few feet from the deck. I take the risk and look up into the mouth of the loophole. It’s hollow as I expected, a perfectly round shaft of strands that stretch and swim in a kaleidoscope of color. My eyes squeeze shut and I listen for the music of the strands. It comes in a surge of violins, the notes sharp and lingering. This is all I need. I could climb through there and go back. But back to what?
“How did you do this?” I ask.
“Arras doesn’t control every talented person,” Dante says with a shrug.
That’s the understatement of the century.
“You have people on the inside,” I surmise.
“Of course,” Dante says, “a resistance wouldn’t be much good without spies.”
“What do your spies say about me?” I ask, recalling that Falon recognized my name immediately from her intel.
Falon appears at my side. “It’s my job to keep tabs on what’s going on up there. And girl, you’re all over my stream.”
“They put me on the Stream?” The color drains from my face. There’s no way I’ll ever make it back into Arras safely if everyone there is looking for me.
“A stream of information,” Falon assures me. “I have a web of spies, people who pass info to me from inside the coventries and ministry offices.”
“The same people that pass Kincaid info?” I guess. “You sell it to him.”
“Information is good business,” she says. “I can control what Kincaid hears and use the money he pays me to buy some people off him.”
“Buy people?”
“Refugees don’t come here for free. If they don’t have the credits, they owe their sponsor,” Falon says. I detect a note of disgust in her voice.
“That’s how Valery wound up at the estate,” Dante says.
“Speaking of, how is Deniel?” Falon asks him.
At the mention of his name my stomach constricts as though a wire is coiling tight around it.
Dante hesitates and shakes his head. “Gone.”
“Gone? Where?”
“Not where,” Dante says. “He was unwound.”
“What?” Falon asks, unmistakable anger in her voice.
“He attacked Adelice, tried to alter her. He was a spy,” Dante says.
“A spy?” Falon echoes. “Who authorized his credentials in Arras?”
“I’m not sure,” Dante says.
“Too bad,” Falon says, sighing. “He was talented. I should have known when he asked to go to Kincaid. We could have used a Tailor like him.”
“A crooked Tailor does bad work,” Erik reminds her.
“True. I guess we got lucky,” Falon says.
“How does this work?” I ask, still mesmerized by the tunnel of swirling light and color.
“It’s a convolution of space-time. They’ve twisted the strands of the Interface with those naturally occurring on Earth,” she explains.
