Edda nudged him and he fell against a stack of cratescovered in a battered tarp. A corner dug into Vex’s side, and Edda jutted her chin. Zey was frowning at him for smiling like a damn fool, like they weren’t sailing into enemy territory, like there wasn’t a war going on.
Vex shifted, trying to dislodge the crate from his hip.
Zey’s frown deepened. Vex shrugged.
Their little craft gave a throaty rumble as it took another turn onto a wider, more populated river. In this area of the city, the utilitarian buildings took over—government houses and barracks and infirmaries. The sad, unadorned structures were silent now, wrapped up tight in the evening stillness. Violet and orange dying light set the boats on this river glowing, chugging sleepily for the residential areas, workers heading home.
“There are a lot of boats around us,” Ben noted, a half question.
Zey, whose only joy in life seemed to come from scowling, glared at him. But his eyes lifted. He assessed the river, and that pause grabbed everyone else.
Around them, a dozen boats chugged in the same direction: toward Fort Chastity, at the end of this river. The crews varied from families to smudged-faced workers. No soldiers.
“Is that normal for this time of day?” Ben whispered.
Zey’s scowl deepened, thick lines forming between his brows and around his lips. “No.”
Ben’s face showed the unease everyone felt. “They heardabout tonight’s gathering.”
“They’re innocents,” Vex said. Like when they’d been in the Port Camden prison. Families, normal citizens—not people who should’ve been caught up in a war.
Zey stormed into the pilothouse and started talking quick and low with Mani.
Ahead, the river broke in an oblong pool with a handful of moss-covered docks jutting out from the road. Stone walls rimmed either side, racing up the shore to encompass a wide stone plaza, great flat steps—and the forbidding black-gray stone of Fort Chastity.
“This was supposed to be for information, right?” Vex asked.
Edda grunted a confirmation next to him, her eyes on the growing thickness of the boats around them. “No attacking. No fighting. We get in without causing any trouble.”
“I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”
She glanced at him, then followed his gaping stare to the fort’s plaza.
Dozens of people crowded the stones. Hundreds, maybe. All shuffling in from side streets, or disembarking from boats, or seemingly crawling out of the road itself.
Everyone Vex could see was a normal citizen of Port Mesi-Teab. Families, mothers and fathers herding dark-haired children for the towering—and open—main doors. Elderly people shuffled on canes, their tunics fluttering in the evening breeze.
Defensors weren’t forcing these people into the fort. Elazar wasn’t standing over them, threatening everyone to enter or else. Why were they all here?
Mani docked the boat in one of the remaining spaces. Zey leaped off to tie them.
“What,” Edda started, her voice low and angry, “in thehell.”
Mani stomped out of the pilothouse and joined Zey on the dock.
Nausea surged into Vex’s stomach, ripe and bitter. “Let’s get in there,” he said. “Now.”
Ben stood, pulling the cloak tighter around his body. Even with the sun going down, the air was still humid and hot. The cloaks were for disguise, not warmth.
Gunnar followed him up, Edda too. The same shock and worry linked them—they’d expected to infiltrate a secret gathering at Fort Chastity with stealth, sneak in once it got dark, and maneuver through an almost empty fortress. Not...walk inwith an eager crowd.
Vex wobbled upright, his legs creaking from sitting for so long. Lu had refused to talk to him since the meeting—which he couldn’t linger on, not now, goddamn it—but Nayeli’d passed on some cure Lu had made and a potion to help him remember other plants the Church had given him. Nothing had come to mind, though, and he’d taken the cure, but he didn’t feel any better. He wasn’t shaking less, and his legs still ached.
Too late.The words played in his head on repeat.Too late, too late—
Behind him, the tarp-covered crates shifted with a startling thud. Mani whipped back and gave Vex a look that told him,Don’t draw attention to us, you dumbass.
Vex spun to catch the teetering crates, wincing at a pain in his ankle—
