Barrow all but shoves me. I think he looks relieved, but that can’t be right. Especially when a dog howls not a hundred yards away. And the trees above us seem to bow, their branches reaching like cloying fingers. Greenwardens. Animosi. Swifts. The Silvers will catch us both.
“Farley.” Suddenly both his hands are on my jaw, forcing me to look at a shockingly calm face. There’s fear, of course, flickering in his golden eyes. But not nearly enough for the situation. Not like me. I am terrified. “You have to promise not to scream.”
“Wha—?”
“Promise.”
I see the first dog. A hound the size of a pony, its jowls dripping. And next to it, a gray blur like the wind made flesh. Swift.
Again, I feel the squeeze of Shade’s body against mine, and then something less pleasant. The tightening of the world, the spin, the tipping forward through empty air. All of it compounds and contracts, and I think I see green stars. Or maybe trees. I feel a familiar wave of nausea first. This time I land in a streambed instead of on concrete.
I sputter, spitting water and bile, fighting the urge to scream or be sick or both.
Barrow crouches over me, one hand raised.
“Ah, don’t scream.”
Sick it is.
“I suppose that’s preferable at the moment,” he mutters, kindly looking anywhere but my green face. “Sorry, I guess I need more practice. Or maybe you’re just sensitive.”
The gurgling stream cleans up what I can’t, and the cold water does more for me than a mug of black coffee. I snap to attention, looking around at the trees bowing over us. Willows, not oaks like where we were just seconds ago. They’re not moving, I realized with a swell of relief. No greenwardens here. No dogs either. But then—where are we?
“How?” I whisper, my voice ragged. “Don’t say pipes.”
The practiced shield of Shade Barrow drops a little. He takes a few steps back from me so he can sit on a stone above the stream, perching like a gargoyle. “I don’t quite have an explanation,” he says as if he’s admitting a crime. “The best—the best I can do is show you. And, again, you have to promise not to scream.”
Dully, I nod. My head swims, still off balance. I can barely sit up in the stream, let alone shout.
He heaves a breath, his fingers gripping the stone until his knuckles turn white. “Okay.”
And then he’s gone. Not—not from running away or hiding or even falling off the rock. He just simply isn’t. I blink, not believing what I see.
“Here.”
My head turns so quickly I’m almost sick again.
There he is, standing on the opposite bank. Then he does it again, returning to the stone, taking a slow seat once more. He forces a tentative smile without any joy behind it. And his eyes are wide, so wide. If I was afraid a few minutes ago, he is completely petrified. And he should be.
Because Shade Barrow is Silver.
Muscle memory lets me draw my gun and cock the hammer without blinking.
“I might not be able to scream, but I can shoot you.”
He flushes, somehow his face and neck turning red. An illusion, a trick. His blood is not that color.
“There’s a few reasons why that won’t work,” he says, daring to look away from my pistol. “For one thing, your barrel’s full of water. Two, in case you haven’t noticed—”
Suddenly he’s by my ear, crouching next to me in the stream. The shock of it raises a shriek, or at least it would if he didn’t clamp a hand over my mouth. “—I’m pretty fast.”
I’m dreaming. This isn’t real.
He hauls my dazed body up, forcing me to stand. I try to shove him off but even that makes me dizzy.
“And three, the dogs might not be able to smell us anymore, but they can certainly hear a gunshot.” His hands don’t leave my shoulders, gripping each tightly. “So, are you going to rethink your little strategy, Captain?”
“You’re Silver?” I breathe, turning in his grasp. This time I right myself before I fall. As in Corvium, the nausea is wearing off quickly. A side effect of his ability. His Silver ability. He’s done this to me before and I didn’t even know it. The thought burns through my brain. “All this time?”
“No, no. I’m Red as that dawn thing you keep going on about.”
“Don’t lie to me.” I still have the gun in hand. “This has all been a trick so you could catch us. I bet you led those hunters right to my team—!”
“I said no screaming.” His mouth hangs open, drawing ragged breath past his teeth. He’s so close I can see the blood vessels spindling through the whites of his eyes. They’re red. An illusion, a trick, rings again. But memories of him come with the warning. How many times did he meet me alone? How many weeks has he worked with us, passing information, relaying with the blood-Red Corporal Eastree? How many times did he have the opportunity to spring a trap?
I can’t. I can’t make sense of this.
“And no one followed me. Obviously no one can follow me. They found out about you on their own. Something about spies in Rocasta, didn’t quite catch it all.”
“So you’re still safe in Corvium, still working for them? As one of them?”
His patience snaps like a twig. “I told you, I’m not Silver!” he growls, an animal in that quaking second. I want to take a step backward, but force myself to stand firm, unmoving, unafraid of him. Though I have every right to be.
Then he shoves his arm out, drawing back the sleeve with shaking fingers. “Cut me.” He nods, answering my question before I can ask. “Cut. Me.”
To my surprise, my fingers shake just as badly as his when I draw the knife from my boot. He flinches when I press it to his skin. At least he feels pain.
My heart skips a beat when blood swells beneath the blade. Red as the dawn.
“How is this possible?”
I look up to find him staring at my face, looking for something. By the way his eyes flash, I think he finds it.
“I honestly don’t know. I don’t know what this is or what I am. I only know I’m not one of them. I’m one of yours.”
For a blistering moment, I forget my team, the woods, my mission, and even Shade standing in front of me. Again, the world tips, but not from anything he can do. This is something more. A shifting. A change. And a weapon to be used. No, a weapon I’ve already wielded many times. To get information, to infiltrate Corvium. With Shade Barrow, the Scarlet Guard can go anywhere. Everywhere.
You’d think, with all my breaches in protocol, I’d try to steer away from breaking any more rules. But at the same time, what’s one more going to do?
Slowly, I close my fingers around his wrist. He still bleeds, but I don’t mind. It’s fitting.
“Will you oath yourself to the Scarlet Guard?”
I expect him to smile. Instead his face turns to stone.
“On one condition.”
My eyebrows raise so high they might disappear into my hairline. “The Guard does not bargain.”
“This isn’t a request to the Guard, but to you,” he replies. For a man who can move faster than the blink of an eye, somehow he manages to take the world’s slowest step forward. We stand eye to eye, blue meeting gold.