Mara traveled through what remained of the day in a fog. She met Vauntner—a soft-spoken young man of unremarkable height, width, and features who looked like a child beside Quint but seemed, nonetheless, to rule the cabin and its goings on with quiet command.

  They were given a brief tour of the cabin—more spacious than it appeared from the outside—and she was shown to the small room where she and Nick would sleep. It was little more than a closet, the only furniture a twin-sized bed and a bench by the door. But it had a roof and the mattress was soft and Vauntner brought her a basket of extra blankets and a bucket of steaming water for cleaning up.

  The thick walls muffled the men’s voices to a dull murmur as she prepared first Nick and then herself for bed and tucked them in. By the time she laid her head down on the pillow, the hum of their voices had worked its way inside her skull and settled there, like a lullaby. Like she was a child again with her head on her father’s chest, dozing as her parents chatted away the quiet early hours of the night.

  She rode the gentle ebb and flow of those voices into sleep, the transition so seamless she didn’t realize where she was until she opened her eyes and found herself looking at the familiar window seat, a yellow bird sitting on a branch outside the window. As she watched, it turned toward her, chirped once, and flew away.

  Behind her, the rumble of voices continued, and she turned over to find herself alone in the bed, a dent still in the pillow where Davy had been sleeping. The voices came from beyond the door, and though distance stretched the sound out like overworked taffy and she couldn’t discern the words, she knew the voices. Davy’s.

  Eli’s.

  She’d never heard Eli in the dreams before. Climbing from the bed, she hurried toward the door and had just reached for the handle when it turned. The door swung open, revealing Davy. She peered over her shoulder, but the hall outside–featureless plaster walls–was empty.

  Davy’s eyebrow arched, lips turning up in a challenging smile.

  “Looking for someone?” he asked.

  She opened her mouth to answer and woke to darkness, back in the cabin, back in reality.

  She must not have slept long, because it was still dark and she could still hear voices on the far side of the wall. Fumbling for the pocket watch she’d hung on the bedpost, she flipped it open and held it close to her face, squinting to make out the face.

  What were they still doing up at two in the morning? Eli must have been as exhausted as she was, so whatever they were still discussing must be important. Curiosity sparked a wobbly flame amid the damp, dank landscape of her sadness. She lay, listening to the muffled voices, and cupped her hands around the flame, blowing gently until warmth radiated outward and questions sprouted to life within her. Curiosity had always been a driving force in her life. Curiosity about magic, about plants, about the world, about what kind of life was possible in a society where opportunity was a currency tightly controlled and hoarded by those in power. About what kind of life was possible if a person managed to escape.

  That curiosity had largely lain dormant inside her as long as they’d been on the run, striking rare sparks that invariably fell back into darkness at the first hint of hardship or reminder of Davy’s death. But she couldn’t afford to let it sleep any longer. They were so close. So perilously close to whatever came next. The last grains of sand were racing through the hourglass, and Depths…she had so many questions.

  Nick still snored beside her, tucked into a ball against the wall, his head having somehow found its way underneath the pillow instead of atop it.

  With eyes half-closed, she rearranged her son’s body so he lay more comfortably and then slipped out of the bed, pulling the blankets over top of him.

  Eli was sensitive to her energy, she knew, so she kept her eyes closed, her mind loose and drowsy, as she tiptoed to the wall that separated her room from the kitchen. The voices tumbled along, uninterrupted, and she pressed her ear cautiously against the rough wood of the wall.

  “--won’t be a warm welcome. You know that.” Quint’s voice, low with warning.

  “I know.” Eli. Calm.

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  “Then why come back?” Urgency laced through the words. Quiet, repressed desperation. “I thought Prosco was the–”

  “Quint.” Still calm, but not calm like a river, the way she was used to. Calm as cold stone. “Stop.”

  “I’m just saying that–”

  “I don’t want to hear it right now. Please.”

  A pause ensued. Short but heavy. “Fine. But I’ll remind you, again, that you have our support. We’re on your side in this.”

  “I’ll remind you again, there are no sides in this. There can’t be. Fracturing the rebellion would be suicide.”

  Fracturing the rebellion? Mara fought to keep her own energy calm, reaching out on instinct and snatching up a tendril of Eli’s steadiness, lashing it around her own straining heart. She’d known since Cinder that there was discontent within the rebellion’s ranks, but she’d never imagined that discontent could have flourished to the level of an uprising. Davy had always told her the rebellion was strong.

  Would he have told you if it wasn’t, Mara?

  “It wouldn’t fracture,” Quint said quietly, but the words held no hope. Just resignation. “That’s what I’m trying to–”

  “Please, Quint. Stop.” The plea was almost pained, and Quint must have heard it too. He sighed, so heavy it was audible even through the wall.

  “Fine. But I’m only letting you off because you’ll be hearing it from Bri, too.”

  “I know. And I’ll tell Bri the same thing. The rebellion won’t succeed in pieces, and Elise and Rorick are our leaders. They know what they’re doing. They have a plan.”

  “The question isn’t whether they have a plan, it’s whether it’s a good one.”

  “I’ll fix it. Just trust me, Quint.”

  “I do, man. You know I do. Just look out for yourself, alright? We can’t lose you too.”

  “You won’t.”

  “Alright,” Quint said, and Mara heard the clatter of ceramic, the scrape of chair legs over the wood floor. “There’s a bed in the loft. Vauntner took your bag up before he turned in. Go get some sleep. If I see you before noon tomorrow, I’ll knock you out myself.”

  “You’ll see me at dawn. I plan to be on the road after breakfast.”

  “Eli, brother…the pass is a hard journey, and the kid is the only one who looks fit enough to survive it. Give yourself and that poor woman a few days to rest. Get some meat back on your bones before you move on.”

  A long, tense pause followed, which Mara spent silently pleading with Eli to listen to his friend’s guidance.

  “We can stay for two nights at the most.”

  “You need at least three.”

  “You either want me to get up there and fix things or not. Two nights.”

  “You can’t fix anything if that bag of bones you’re calling a body gives out before you reach the Enclave. Three nights.”

  “Two.”

  “Three.

  “Two.”

  “Four.”

  “That’s not how bartering works.”

  “Five.”

  “Two.”

  “Six.”

  “You’re an insufferable oaf. Three nights.”

  “That is how bartering works. The loft. Sleep. Now.”

  An annoyed sigh accompanied another scrape of chair legs, and then all she could hear was the clatter of silverware and the creak of the floor beneath unshod feet. Mara crept back to her own bed and slipped beneath the covers, simultaneously warm with relief and tingling with unease.

  She’d have to find a way to thank Quint for bullying Eli into a longer stay. She’d imagined–perhaps because she knew Eli–that this would only be a one night stay. Now she had three. Three nights of a full belly and sound sleep and Davy in her dreams with the Enclave and all its emotional and logistical complexities rendered static on the horizon.

  But the rest of the conversation…

  She’d already guessed that Eli was more to the rebellion than a foot soldier sent to protect Davy. He was too powerful for that. But she’d not thought further than assigning him a higher rank which, in retrospect, was foolish. What was it he had told her when she asked him what role he would fill when they reached the Enclave? That his effect on Elise and Rorick tended more toward incendiary than quelling? She hadn’t thought much of the comment at the time. She’d assumed it had to do with Davy’s death, but now that she actually thought about it, how could that make sense? He hadn’t interacted with the Linharts at all since going on the run. Whatever friction existed between them must predate Davy’s death.

  Mind whirling in dizzy circles, she turned onto her side and tucked an arm around Nick, pulling him into her chest. She expected to be awake for hours, processing all the new information, but sleep came for her almost immediately. She dropped into the dream with Davy now beside her in the four poster. He lay at her back, his arm looped around her waist, his breath warm and slow against the nape of her neck. His presence quieted her mind, and she fell further, deeper, into a dream within a dream. And there, she dreamt of fractured loyalties.