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you are now entering the republic of scion france

vous entrez maintenant à la république de la france de scion

The dockworker splashed ahead and ushered us into a mail van. “Keep quiet,” he said, and closed the doors.

Darkness enfolded me, as it had in the cell I had barely escaped. The never-ending void, broken only by the light above the waterboard, the fire of Rephaite eyes.

Warden shifted a few of the sacks and boxes in the van. As I crawled into the space he had cleared, I caught the stale reek of the sweat beneath my oilskin and the thick grease in my hair.

“He could hand us over,” I rasped.

Warden covered me with his coat. “I have no intention of letting Scion take you again.”

The engine rumbled to life. Icy perspiration trickled down my face.

“I want to sleep.” I breathed the words. “I just want to sleep.”

He settled in beside me, and his hands closed around mine. My wool-clad fingers seemed brittle in his grasp.

“Sleep,” he said. “I will keep watch.”

****

The poltergeist in Senshield had left a web of fine cracks on my dreamscape. As I dozed fitfully beside Warden, shunted by the motion of the van, memories rippled through the flowers in my mind, which were steeped in murky water.

I saw my grandparents, hauled into the shadow of the anchor. I saw their farmhouse, its briar roses, the hand-carved sign above its door that showed a honeybee in flight.

I saw my father, murdered by a golden blade.

****

Somehow the dockworker drove out of a guarded port with the two most wanted fugitives in the Republic of Scion. After an eternity, the van stopped, and Warden scooped me back into his arms. I was starting to hurt again. Pain seethed like the red heat under the earth, waiting to burst forth.

The dockworker had parked on a quiet street. He shepherded us through a door, into a small hallway.

“This is your safe house,” he said tersely. “You will hear from someone in the network soon. Do not go outside.”

The door clicked shut behind him.

Only my labored breathing disturbed the silence. A staircase led up to the next floor. Warden was still for a time, his hand at the back of my head.

In the colony, he had found ways to help and protect me. He had wielded a degree of power, even if it had been a façade. Now he was a fugitive. A god in exile. He had no means of stopping my pain.

Upstairs, he set me down on a four-seater couch, mindful of my injuries. Its cushions were so wide and deep I sank right into them. I stared at the parlor: the plasterwork ceiling, the cream walls and herringbone floors. A table stood by a wall-length window, promising long breakfasts in the amber glow of morning. All was clean and comforting.

“The fireplace is false,” I said.

Warden glanced at it. “Yes.”

“But how are you—” A wild laugh was bubbling up. “How are you going to cope?”

“Cope,” he repeated.

“You need a fire. To stare into, pensively. Did you know,” I said to him, “that you do that a lot?”

He tilted his head, which set off a fit of silent mirth. My ribs ached. When I lifted my hands from the couch, blood lingered in their wake. Warden turned to close the nearest set of shutters.

“Is there anything you need before you rest?” he asked.