Page 37 of House of Embers
“Ruen, darling, we have some resistance fighters to take into the city. You up for it?” Islay asked.
“Always,” he said with a laugh. “Anything to take down those bastards! When do we start?”
***
They didn’t start right away. Clover and Hadrian were brought into the drifter camp. They broke bread with them and heard their stories, laughing and enjoying the company of a people who had lost so much and still found so much joy. The last thing Clover wanted to do was bring them more danger, but at the same time,thiswas what she wanted for everyone.
Gerrond yawned. “I guess I should go to the mountain. I wanted to camp here, but Henrley is too visible this close to the Society.”
“Be safe,” Clover told him.
She had been uncertain about him, on edge that he might turn them in or kill them. But just a few hours with him at a campfire with the drifters proved every one of his stories true. If he was going to betray them, he was going to have to betray himself. She didn’t think he’d do that.
“I’ll check in as soon as I can. I’d very much like to get the drifters in on this war as well,” Gerrond said. “It could turn the tides.”
“We could use that,” Clover agreed.
Gerrond offered her his hand. “To a better future.”
Clover shook his hand and then Hadrian did. As the last embers were dying and the sun disappeared fully behind the horizon, Islay and Ruen hugged Gerrond goodbye and then nodded at the pair of them.
“Ready?”
“As we’ll ever be,” Clover said.
Clover and Hadrian fell into step behind the pair of drifters. They spoke about everyday matters for the hour trek into the valley, but Clover could sense the moment that the oppression of the city hit them. They fell back and put their fingers to their lips.
“Curfew,” Islay whispered.
Clover wished they could have gone out before it got dark to avoid the curfew, but they were too recognizable. The last thing they wanted was for Isa to find them again after her betrayal.
Islay pointed out a guard patrol on the edges of the valley. As soon as they passed, the four of them slipped into the shadows of the Dregs on the north side of Kinkadia. They were on high alert, but it was hard not to feel like they were finally home. Kinkadia was separated into sections—Draco Mountain to the east, the wealthiest mansions in Row before that, the mercantile district in Central, Artisan Village to the south, the nouveau riche on the Riverfront, and the Dregs to the north and west, where primarily humans and half-Fae scraped by. The Dregs also famously had Dozan Rook’s Wastes, where Clover had been a card dealer. Except that was long gone, bombed during the Red Masks’ raids for its association with Kerrigan. Her heart was a little heavy at that thought.
The RFA had relocated twice to keep their people safe in the weeks following the raids. But unless they’d moved again recently, Clover knew exactly where to find them.
It was another hour of dodging patrols before Clover stopped them in front of a hidden cellar door. She knocked on it twice and said the password. The doors were wrenched open, and Thea’s face appeared before her, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Clover!” she gasped, pulling her into a fierce hug. “You’re alive. The news…” She trailed off as she looked past Hadrian to the two new faces before her. “You have explaining to do.”
“These are drifters, Islay and Ruen. They’re on our side,” Clover said quickly.
“Well, come in at once,” Thea said. Everyone shuffled forward, and Thea grasped Clover’s arm. “Kerrigan?”
“Safe.”
Thea breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. And Darby?”
“Safe as well and with Kerrigan.”
“I’m glad.” She put her hand to her heart. “I feared the worst when you didn’t come back and just now, you showing up without them.”
“Isa betrayed us.”
Thea blinked rapidly as she hurried them into a small room with refreshments. “She did not.”
Clover furrowed her brow. “No, she was the one who knew our plans.”
“Isa has been magicallycollaredbefore the entire Red Mask council,” Thea hissed. “Her crime was not delivering Kerrigan, but you and I both know that it must be because he discovered her duplicity.”
