Tessa stayed speechless, less for effect than from the fact that she truly hadn’t thought that far ahead. Her silence seemed to empower him.
“I know you’re not sure about joining the YCC, but I think you’d be an excellent addition. And I’ll be honest with you, if you really do want to apply for citizenship—something not easily or often given to outsiders—involvement in a mainstream political party will look excellent on your record.” He beckoned Acacia over. “I’ll tell you what.
Why don’t you start small. No one expects you to jump in and start chairing committees. In a couple of days, I’m having a fundraiser of my own at my house, and a few of the other YCC members are helping out—little things like running errands, bringing drinks. Just enough to meet the potential donors and show them our role with today’s youth. You could help out and see what you think.”
Tessa could already imagine the scene he was describing. It’d be a repeat of what she’d gone through tonight, with her answering prompts about how great the RUNA was and how grateful she was that it— especially under the leadership of the Citizens Party—was helping her find her way in this shining new country. Cassidy would reap as much benefit as she’d be getting. Part of Tessa balked at being used . . . yet, at the same time, she could already picture Daphne’s reaction to this opportunity. Tessa could have access to answers beneficial to Justin . . . and the country.
“Acacia can give you all the details,” Dr. Cassidy continued, when Tessa didn’t answer. “She’s helping organize it.”
“Okay,” said Tessa, beaming back at them both. “I’d love to.”
CHAPTER 14
Roleplaying
When Justin fell asleep later that night, Mae took out the dagger from his luggage and moved as far away from his bed as possible, hoping that whatever mixture of prescription sleep aids and Carl’s liquor he’d taken would keep him knocked out for a while. She didn’t know for sure how to activate the knife’s powers and could only make a best guess at it, based on the happenstance way things had transpired before.
After one last, anxious look at Justin’s sleeping form, she gripped the knife’s hilt in both hands and made a silent plea.
Whoever is master of this, please complete the vision you showed me before and help me to find my niece.
She had no idea if that was the right way to address a god. Justin had taught her a great deal about the academic aspects of religious studies but had little to say about practical worship. For all she knew, maybe the dagger’s deity couldn’t even hear her in Arcadia, where Nehitimar reigned supreme. Nothing happened, and she started to despair until a burst of inspiration hit. Opening her eyes, she drew the blade across the palm of her hand, watching as a line of red appeared . . .. . . and the world dissolved around her.
The walls of the guesthouse melted, and she stood outside, on the land of Carl’s now-dark compound. Then that shifted, and she stood in the middle of an empty road that looked vaguely familiar. Yes—it was the country highway that led into the city. She recognized it from the car ride this morning. Again, the world went fuzzy, and now she stood next to a nondescript rural building with no noticeable features—except a red velvet flag, its color barely discernible in the fading light. Thick trees stood around it, and she saw no other buildings or notable land marks. Then, in her periphery, she caught sight of a light that went away as quickly as it had come. The highway! She hurried in that direction, afraid the vision would fade. As she got closer, another car went by, its lights briefly illuminating a sign stating that Divinia was ten miles away.
Frantically, Mae tried to convert that to kilometers and then contrast that with what she knew about the distance from Carl’s place.
The intersection wasn’t that far from where she was staying. How was this possible? What crazy coincidence had landed her this close to the salon that might be holding her niece? As the vision materialized back into Justin’s room, Mae heard a female voice say, You’re too entrenched in mortal thinking if you think this is a coincidence. Don’t you know I’m looking out for you?
Mae’s heart was racing as she stared around the darkened bedroom. Her hand was smooth and uncut. The moon visible through the outside window hadn’t shifted far, so she hadn’t lost as much time as before. It wasn’t even midnight yet. Based on what she’d seen in the vision, it might take her . . . what, an hour to walk to the salon? If she could get out. Hannah’s desperate words came back to her: There’s an underground exit in your bathroom that I could sneak in through tonight.
Was there? Mae quietly slipped out of the bedroom and out to the common area. There were three bathrooms adjacent to it, and a search of the second one found what she needed: a small door in the back of a linen closet. The door was unlocked, revealing a cramped tunnel, low enough that Mae had to duck when she entered it. At least she didn’t have to crawl. The walls and floor were packed dirt, and she had no lights to guide her, only touch. She followed it to its end, discovering an earthen wall with ladder rungs that led up to a trap door. Cautiously, she climbed up and lifted the door to get a peek. It opened up outside, underneath some dried brush someone had packed on top for concealment, in what appeared to be the back of Carl’s property. After a few more moments to get her bearings, Mae slipped back down and returned to Justin’s bedroom.
He still slept deeply, allowing her to sort through his clothes and put on pants and a three-quarter length coat. It was too big for her but clearly masculine, which was what she needed. She pulled her hair up into a tight knot and added a wide-brimmed Arcadian style hat Carl had gifted each of the Gemman men with. No one would mistake her for a man up close, but she hoped, in the dark, that the illusion would hold.
Her last task before leaving was to scrawl on the notepad she’d used at the temple. It was a quick note, in Mandarin, one she hoped would calm Justin if he woke up but not alert anyone else: Wait for me. With that, she set out.
The back of Carl’s property was flanked by an electric fence, and in the distance, she saw a man patrolling with a dog. Whether it was a son or hired help she couldn’t say, but she thanked her luck that they were too far away to notice her. An overhanging tree gave her the opportunity to climb up and drop down on the other side of the fence, which would have been a jarring fall for anyone else. Her ramped up implant let her handle it easily, and she soon got her bearings and headed for the country highway that led into the city.
She kept to the side of the road as much as possible, again hoping any passing cars who noticed her would think she was male. Her calculations proved correct, and after an hour of brisk walking, she saw the sign from her vision and the small road that branched off from the highway. Down it, she spotted a building identical to the one in her vision, save for one thing: no red velvet flag. Justin’s words came back to her: When they’ve got some girls ‘for sale’ that have reached puberty, they hang a red velvet flag outside their door. The vision had shown the salon for what it was, but in the real world, the girls must still be of an age where they were safe—if anyone was in one of those places. She left the road and traveled through the woods, approaching the back of the salon. The proprietors had opted for slightly less sophisticated security than Carl’s: a thick perimeter of nasty barbed wire. They’d also had the foresight to trim away any overhanging trees.
Mae had no tools to cut the fence and instead had to take the unpleasant but inevitable approach: climbing it by hand.
The upside to that too-big coat was that it provided fabric to protect her hands, and the thick-soled shoes kept her feet safe. The trick was patience, and she finally managed to land on the other side with only minor discomfort. Unlike Carl’s, there didn’t appear to be any dogs, which was a blessing, but she soon found another obstacle to entry. Aside from the front door, there were no other points of entry.
Was that to keep the girls in or intruders out? It was hard to say, but Mae hoped they never had a fire.
She crept up to the front door, which was actually open. A second screen door kept insects out while allowing air in. Peering inside, she immediately realized these people lived in a much different demographic than Carl’s family. The walls were rough wood, the floors concrete. Aside from basic electricity, the house lacked even Carl’s basic nods to technology. At a knotty pine table, she saw two men playing cards, with an arsenal of weapons lying within arm’s reach around them. The sight of the guns was a jolt until she reminded herself that Arcadia didn’t have nearly the weapons laws her homeland had.
The guns the men had lying out were older, but her hand still itched for the feel of a trigger. It would solve a lot of her problems.
No. No violence. I just need data.
But how could she, with those men in her way? She needed access to the rest of the house. As she was puzzling this out, one of them gave a harsh shout, and a young woman entered through one of two doorways. Mae winced, more from surprise than anything else. The girl—who looked to be in her late teens or maybe early twenties—was dressed in a ragged dress and had some of the heaviest Cain scarring Mae had seen in Arcadia so far or ever, really. Cain rarely ran that strongly in the RUNA anymore, and in the rare cases it did, corrective surgeries were readily available to help tone down the worst of the defects. That, of course, wasn’t acceptable here.
The man who’d shouted for the girl set down his gun and approached her, coming to stand provocatively close. She kept her gaze fixed downward as he touched her cheek and said something Mae couldn’t hear that made the other man snicker. The standing man took the girl’s hand and led her from the room. Once they were gone, the remaining man peered back at the doorway they’d used for several moments and then, satisfied he was alone, pulled a flask from his pocket. He took a couple of long swigs and then fixed his attention on a newspaper. It was a paper one—a novelty to Mae—and he used both hands to hold it, forcing him to disarm.
If a distracted guard was the best she could hope for, Mae would make do. He was angled slightly away from the door, and after a quick analysis of the distance between him and her, Mae headed back outside to find a rock. She returned with one the size of her palm, paused for a moment to collect herself, and then struck. The man never saw her coming. She opened the door with almost no noise and moved faster than he could turn around. The rock slammed into the back of his head, with precisely enough force to incapacitate but not kill. She even managed to do it without drawing blood, though he’d certainly have a lump on his head later. Carefully, she eased him down so that his head rested on the table, the flask sitting beside him. It’d be lucky for her if his companion thought he’d passed out from drinking, but she wasn’t counting on it. Fortunately, she planned on leaving no other sign of her passing tonight. Maybe they’d figure out there’d been an intruder, but they’d have no other indications of her identity or that she’d disturbed the house’s women or contents.
With one exception. The array of weapons called to her, and after a heartbeat of hesitation, Mae scooped up a handgun. It was an older model, with only six shots, but it was fully loaded and would be effective if her attempts at subterfuge didn’t go so well tonight. Feeling more secure with a weapon in her hand, she strode toward the two doorways, only to hesitate once more.
One door led to what looked like a primitive kitchen, and here Mae found the other guard. His back was to her, and all his energy was going into the marked woman who stood bent over the counter with her long skirts hiked up. Mae’s lips curled in disgust, and the gun was heavy in her hand, the urge to aim at him overwhelming. Once again, she had to remind herself she was only here to observe, not take action.
At least the girl looked like she was of consenting age, though “consent” was probably a dubious term. Whether the girl was a lawful concubine or a ward being taken advantage of, Mae doubted she’d ever admit to doing something she didn’t want. It made Mae’s stomach curl.
This is the room she came from when called, Mae tried to tell herself. And she’s older than girls usually are in these salons. Most likely she is a concubine or a servant being used. There’s no reason to think those animals do this to all the girls here. They prize virgins in this country. Surely the others are left unmolested. That didn’t change Mae’s desire to save this girl, and it took a cold, logical voice in her head warning that she needed to use this distraction to finally move again.
The other doorway led to a narrow stairwell, and she tread lightly, trying to avoid squeaks. The stairs opened up to a hallway with five doors, three of which were closed. The two open ones turned out to be a bathroom and an office. Based on the outer dimensions of the house, she assumed the other three doors led to bedrooms, which—she realized belatedly—might be locked. It seemed like the kind of sadistic thing these guys might do.
But the first knob opened easily and quietly, and she stepped inside, pleased to find a nightlight dimly illuminating the space—probably so this salon’s keepers could do night checks. Four girls ranging from what looked like ages six to twelve slept soundly in narrow beds with threadbare covers. Despite their gaunt faces, the girls didn’t look like Arcadians. Mae saw no sign of Cain on any of them.
Their features were regular and healthy. She also recognized the telltale signs of mixed heritage that characterized so many of her countrymen but wasn’t very common here.
These are Gemman girls, she realized. Stolen Gemman girls.
The second bedroom revealed more of the same, though one of the girls had a slightly darker complexion than the rest and fragile-looking hair indicative of mild Cain. Stolen from a province, Mae guessed. The third room held what looked like another provincial girl and two more Gemmans . . .. . . one of whom was Mae’s niece.