Page 142 of The Last Hope

“Do you hear that?” I ask Stork. I don’t wait for him to answer. The cries sound for a third time, and maybe I’m going mad, but with the news of being a wanted criminal, there’s no time to waste.

I run.

My feet carry me, and I hold in my breath to squeeze between the buildings. It narrows before widening up into a bigger alleyway. I stumble over a rotted floorboard, and five stories below, water glides along the canal. Fyke, I prefer the Saltare-3 alleyways that were on the ground.

I take three more steps and then my leg goes barreling through the bridge. A plank breaks off and crashes into the canal below. Someone grabs me around the waist before I face-plant and break my leg in two.

“Careful, dove.” Stork breathes along my neck, his chest rising and falling heavily against my back.

The cries grow louder.

He looks up at the same time I do. “You hear that too,” I say.

“Yes.” Hope fills his voice like a thousand balloons lifting straight into the air.

Zimmer appears beside us after squeezing through the narrowed part of the alley. He raises his brows at me, my leg halfway through the bridgeboard. “Already breaking things, Franny?”

“I hate this place,” I mumble.

“You and me, both.” He bends down and braces me underneath my other arm. With Stork, they both swiftly but gentlypull my leg out of the hole. Freed and together, we race toward the sound.

Rounding a corner, I seeher.

Swaddled tightly in a blanket. And in the arms of a Fast-Tracker. A teal uniform matches the blue swirling tattoos that cover his arms. I squint to read his name tag on his breast. THEPREMIEREHOTEL.RIKTOR.

The baby screams shrilly as if he’s hurting her, but he’s doing nothing more than holding her in his arms. Suddenly, he pulls out a small pouch that looks like it was tucked inside her blanket.

“Is she yours?” Stork asks as we stop near the FT.

He meets our gaze. “Found her right there.” He nods to the ground beside the wall. “Just looking to see if she has anything of value on her.” He smiles and shakes the pouch.

“Thief,” I growl.

He frowns and pockets the pouch. “Heya, it’s mine. I found it first.” He looks between us, fear flitting in his eyes like he thinks we might steal it from him. Three to one. The odds are in our favor. But then, as a diversion—he drops the baby and runs.

Zimmer is the fastest. He dives for her, and catches the baby in his outstretched arms. She cries harder and louder, and since we’re currently wanted by all of Saltare-1, roping attention onto us is the last thing we need.

But I can’t think about that right now.

We have a newborn, and this might seem like our saving grace, but we can’t be certain she’s the same baby from the book.

Zimmer cradles her, and she continues to wail. “She’s not happy,” he says.

I turn to Stork, who’s approaching the baby like she’s a small bomb. “She wasn’t in the orphanage like you said.” I’m haunted by that fact.

“She was outside the orphanage,” Stork refutes. “That’s close enough.”

Zimmer and I share a look.

Is it?

Stork pulls back the blanket, revealing a pale baby with bright green tufts of hair atop her head. Short, butgreen.“A Fast-Tracker dyed her hair,” I say. “She’s an FT’s child. A Saltarian.” She’s not of a different species. And more importantly, this baby could have parents in the city who just set her down for a minute.

“You’re jumping to conclusions, dove.”

“Her eyebrows arebrown,” I counter angrily.

“The book said she’s of a new species,” Stork says. “She was probably born with green hair.”