Page 101 of Land of Shadow

“Yeah, just trust me.”

“Okay.” Evie sniffles, her bottom lip trembling.

“Come on.” Gretchen sounds defeated, her head down as she wheels toward the elevator. “We’ll be downstairs.”

“I’ll let you know.” Wyatt closes his eyes and starts humming a song. Low at first, it rises until he’s singing softly, his voice mellow and rich, soothing. I’ve never heard it before.

Evie bursts into tears in the elevator, and I hold her as we exit back into the atrium. Her cries echo on the cold marble floors, all the rugs and most of the furniture removed by the Army, plenty of bloodstains still remaining.

“What can we do?” she asks through hiccupping breaths.

“Nothing.” Gretchen leans forward, cradling her head in her hands. “There’s nothing anyone can do.”

26

We don’t see Wyatt or Aang for the rest of the day. Instead, we sit downstairs, listless and unfocused. Gene shows up with lunch, but after he hears the news, he sits with us, a stark expression on his face.

When night falls, I return to my room, my head and heart aching. After only a few minutes of deliberation, I put my lamp in my window. Gage told me he’d come if he ever saw it, and right now I need to talk to him, to find out some answers for me and for Aang.

Sinking onto my sofa, I rub at my puffy eyes, my thoughts drifting down a few floors to Aang’s room. Has Wyatt gotten to him yet? I hope so. No one should be alone during something like this. His agony disturbs the deep well of grief I still have for Candice, but I don’t give myself the luxury of falling apart. Not now.

“Where do you go when you aren’t here?” I ask it somewhat absentmindedly when I hear Valen in the hallway.

“Thither and yon.” He strides in and takes one look at me, then sinks to his knees and takes my hands in his.

“The shit you say is so ancient.” I’m tired of the games. Or maybe I’m just tired. “And that’s not an answer. You never answer.”

“I know.” He kisses each of my palms, which is when I notice a gash along the side of his head, close to his hairline.

“Fighting again?”

“I won.” He shrugs one shoulder. “What’s happened here?” he asks, his gaze taking me in. “Something bad, I take it?”

“Aang’s partner, Idrine.” I refuse to choke up. “He’s dead. He went into one of the blood camps, and now he’s dead.”

He kisses the insides of each of my wrists, his touch soft and warm.

“What goes on in the camps? Tell me the truth.”

Dropping butterfly soft kisses along each of my knuckles, he says, “Take whatever horrible fate you’ve imagined befalls the humans who volunteer and triple it, then you might be close to the answer.”

I yank my hands from him. “Why?”

His look isn’t mocking, not cruel. Just frank. “You know why, Georgia.”

“You’re just killing people? Is it you? Is that where you go?”

He scoffs. “I have no need of cattle.”

“We aren’t cattle!” I yell. “We’re people. Idrine was a person, and you killed him!”

“I didn’t kill him.” He stands, his gaze snagging on the lamp in the window before returning to me.

“Not him, but others?”

“Many others,” he admits.

“What was I thinking?” I press my palms to my face. “Letting you in. I never should have?—”

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