But he faltered, limbs quivering.
When it exploded, it didn’t harmlessly puncture the sky. It struck a nearby tenement, blowing a hole through the top two floors of apartments with a percussiveBOOM!
Screams ruptured from the sanctuary, from the building. Ben stared at the destruction, his heart gone still and brittle, hands over his mouth as, somewhere distant, Fatemah wailed.
“Murderers! You bring destruction here—you did this! Arrest them, lock them away—”
Rough hands grabbed Ben. He didn’t fight, even when Tuncian raiders yanked Gunnar off the refugee man, who scrambled away, tears streaking down his face. Raiders grabbed Vex, too, as Edda hauled Nayeli away.
“Stand down, we’re outnumbered—Nayeli,stand down—”
Nate and Pierce were gone. Rosalia huddled next to one of her raiders on the side of the road. Kari shouted orders, sending people into the building to help any survivors.
Survivors.Ben went limp in the hands of the Tuncian raiders.
The only person not moving in the bedlam was Lu. She stared up at the tenement, tears glistening in her eyes as she lowered her gaze to Vex, being dragged away.
“Fatemah!” Lu shouted. “You’re just as much to blame as anyone!”
The declaration filled Ben’s chest. Their war. What did it even mean?This?Fighting Elazar, the raider syndicates, the people of this island? Who were they fighting for, who was on their side,what was the point?
Lu’s face was murderous with the unbreakable determination of someone who didn’t care about the answers to those questions. Ben couldn’t process the horror of Teo being gone, but he had enough control of his mind to see beyond it. Lu was like Fatemah, Nate, Pierce, Rosalia—she would fight for blood. She would fight for revenge.
“This is our war!” Lu screamed. “Our war!”
19
THE TUNCIANS HADconverted the ground floor of a tenement into cells, replacing the hall-facing walls with floor-to-ceiling iron bars. They shoved Vex into one with Jakes; Ben and Gunnar got their own across the way. Fatemah had enough grip on her sanity to realize that Jakes could be useful—one raider chucked a satchel of healing plants at Vex’s feet before he left.
Vex stared at it. On the floor, Jakes moaned, unconscious and dying, and Vex had—almost—agreed with Gunnar’s desire to leave him for dead at the steps of Fort Chastity. But when they’d gone back to search for Teo, fighting off defensors and nearly getting killed themselves, Jakes had become their only option for answers.
Vex riffled through the satchel. A bundle of Healica—he’d have to grind it up for it to be useful at healing the gash in Jakes’s side. Beneath it rested a small vial of liquid.By the orange hue and the fact that the Tuncians wouldn’t have given prisoners anything dangerous, Vex assumed it was liquefied Healica, for drinking and healing internal wounds. Good enough.
“How do we fix this?” Ben asked in low, brittle Argridian.
The Healica sloshed into Jakes’s mouth, a bit trickling down his face and wetting the floor. But his throat swallowed and Vex dropped back onto the wood planks with a huff.
He had no response for Ben. He’d been asking himself that question since Teo’s hand had been ripped out of his.
A sob burned Vex’s throat. He beat it down, scrubbing his forehead. He didn’t deserve that release. He deserved the accusation in Lu’s eyes. The blame in her voice—“I thought the one thing I didn’t have to worry about anymore was your responsibility with Teo.”
Vex hadn’t processed what it’d mean to bring Teo into Fort Chastity. He hadn’tplanned, orprepared, or done anything but be the same useless fuckup he always was.
A noise in the hall made Vex look up. Edda and Nayeli appeared between the cells.
Vex held his breath. Lu wasn’t with them.
Edda kept her eyes on Vex. “The Variegated Holly hit mostly empty rooms.”
Vex didn’t move. “Mostly?”
“Two people have been found so far. They should recover.”
Ben moved to the back of his cell. Gunnar turned to him, whispering low and calm.
“You saw Cansu?” Nayeli asked.
Vex rocked forward, propping himself on his knees to brace against a painful, jarring shudder. He nodded, unable to look at Nayeli.
