We have search grids for times like these, with a level of organization that would surprise the soldiers. We know the places the swamps can channel a boat, and we know where they send you if you’re lost. What I wish I knew is how long a head start Jubilee has, and whether she is lost.
All around me the Fianna are pairing off and climbing down into currachs, the first wave of searchers already gone. The shouts that set off bursts of pain behind my eyes are urgent, but disciplined—there’s anger, but no panic. I press two fingers gently to the side of my head, finding the lump there as the O’Leary brothers cast off, their boat vanishing into the dark of the night. Damn her.
“Well?” I look up and find the last wave of searchers standing over me, lanterns in hands. It’s Connor Tran speaking. “Do you remember anything yet, Cormac?” There’s a frustration in his tone echoed in all their faces, and I’m pinned to the wall by half a dozen pairs of eyes. “You must have seen something. You must remember some part of getting up here.”
I start to shake my head, then think better of it when the room starts to spin. “I don’t know what happened,” I murmur. I know it sounds weak, but the truth would be worse.
“He knows nothing.” McBride pushes his way through the crowd to look down at me. His voice is calm, cutting through the others with an easy authority, but his gaze is for me and holds nothing but contempt. “It’s not his fault. He’s young; no one could expect him to defend himself against a trained fighter. What matters now is whether she makes it back to her base and, if she does, whether she’s got our location.”
And just like that, I’m sidelined from the discussion.
“We’re trying to get an update from someone at the base,” Tran replies as all eyes swing toward McBride. “We radioed Riley, but he doesn’t have a shift on the base for another two days. They’ll look at him too closely if he tries to get in before then.”
“Who else, then? Forget the janitors, maybe someone who does deliveries.”
“Davin Quinn.” That’s Mike Doyle at the back. “He’s got a new job in the warehouse on base.”
Davin’s weathered, grinning face flashes up before my eyes. He has a daughter not much younger than me, and he wants nothing to do with our fight. I refuse to drag more innocents into this. I brace myself against the wall as I ease up to my feet, raising my voice before McBride can approve Doyle’s suggestion. “Quinn’s too old to move fast enough for us. Speak to Matt Daly. He sells his poitín to the trodairí. They’ll let him onto the base if it means more of his moonshine. There’s a chance she was too injured to keep track of where she was. She might not know anything.”
There’s a quick murmur of agreement from the group. I start to straighten, and Tran’s hand comes out to steady my shoulder as the concussion threatens to send me staggering.
When I turn my head, McBride’s gaze is waiting for me again, still burning. But the idea’s a good one, and it’s not the right time to speak against it—against me. “Try him,” he agrees, and like that, they scatter. Back to work.
And hours pass. Search teams report in with no luck, and I can’t escape the thought of Jubilee, broken ribs and all, lost in Avon’s ever-shifting waterways. The thought shouldn’t stay with me the way it does—I shouldn’t care whether we’re empty-handed because she drowned or made it back to base. Her words are still echoing in my ears. There are never just two sides to anything.
We all work through the night. My concussion proves minor, and as my eyesight starts to clear, I focus on the maps, handing out new coordinates to tired teams. As each reports back, I dread hearing they found her, and I dread hearing they didn’t. On my breaks I help load currachs for those evacuating, afraid she’ll lead the trodairí to our door.
If she hasn’t found her way back to the base by now, then she’s probably dead. Avon’s waters are treacherous, and if she ran out of gas and ditched the currach she stole, then the bog most likely swallowed her. And yet, every time I hear the sputtering of an engine returning to the harbor, I have to swallow the bitter fear that it’s her, and that she’s brought an army with her.
She knows my face now, too. Nobody says it, but it’s in their glances, their pauses. She knows my face, and if they catch me in town after she reports back with my identity, I’ll be lucky to spend the rest of my life locked up.
McBride’s out with the search parties most of the night—if he’s the one to find her, it will cement his leadership for good, and he can’t miss that opportunity. But he returns now and then, ostensibly to refuel. I see him mingling, moving among the people left behind, dropping the right words in the right ears. Talking, reassuring, quietly fueling their anger under the guise of sharing their concerns. His tone’s always calm, but I can’t forget the contempt I saw in his gaze, the venom. He’s not finished with me. I wish I could guess at his next step—figure out what speech or trick he’ll use to win the rest of my people to his cause.
When he lays his hand on my shoulder, I lose my patience, shrugging him off and turning away from the table where I’m standing to stride away down a hallway. I can hear his voice behind me, but my head’s pounding, and the words I’m biting back will only make things worse. Letting him take a jab at my receding back is the lesser of two evils. I brought her here, I let her get away, and if I want a chance to be heard at all, I know it won’t be tonight.