side as Asa slashed at her left arm, drawing blood. They were shot for shot now, and we all watched—the oddly dressed girl from earlier had joined us now—with bated breath.
Olivia was breathing hard now, her shoulders heaving as she furiously scanned the cloud of dust and speed, looking for the right moment to strike. Then it came. As the cloud of dust rose around her, we had one final glimpse of Olivia as she pivoted and struck, her blade aimed upward and out. Then, silence. None of us moved. And as the dust cleared, we saw them. They were standing an arm’s length apart, spattered with blood, and just as Olivia held her knife to Asa’s throat, Asa had a blade to hers—or was it a long, black, infernal claw? Neither moved.
“Like I said,” Asa was saying. “You’ve got me all wrong.”
“What the hell are you?” she said, her eyes wide with fear and anger.
“That’s one of the things you didn’t let me explain,” Asa said. “Will you let me now?”
Olivia stared at him, her expression unreadable. Then, together, without blinking, they lowered their blades from each other’s throats.
“All right,” she said to him. “Explain.”
“Olivia!” came a high, desperate voice. “Olivia!”
We turned to see a filthy little white girl no older than ten standing in the door of the nearest train car.
“Mowse!” said Olivia. “Get back inside!”
“She’s getting worse!” the little girl sobbed. “I put her to sleep, but I think she might…” Her lip trembled and a line of snot slid down her raw, freckled face. “Please come see her!”
Olivia took another look at Asa, then at me. Then she followed the little girl inside.
I turned to Asa. I wanted to tell him how glad I was that he’d held his own and to ask why the hell he had had a picture of the Rosales sisters in his pocket the whole time. But Asa’s eyes were on the door Olivia had passed through. He looked oddly intrigued.
CHAPTER 15
The other girls exchanged worried glances after the door slid closed behind her. I felt a cold, almost accusatory silence fall over those of us outside the car.
“What’s going on?” Asa asked.
“Like you don’t know,” said Judith, with her hands on her hips. “You’re the ones who set the trap.”
“Judith, go fetch some water,” said Zo. Judith grumbled, then handed Zo my spell components belt and disappeared into a nearby train car.
“I’m going to go check on Susanah,” said the strangely dressed girl, Cassie, I assumed. “To see if I can ease the pain a little…” And she too disappeared into the train car.
The air felt electric with tension. But no one could hurt us, not after Asa had won our lives, so we stood there, wondering what to do, where to go.
“If we’ve done something wrong, please let us know,” said Asa. “Because we really have no idea, and the last thing we want to do is make enemies out here.”
Zo looked at me incredulously, and I guess I looked blank and confused enough, because she sighed and said, “Remember Mourning Night? The robbery? One of the girls, our mechanic, Susanah Mihecoby, was the one to actually break into the Sacrifice building. She got out with a lot of stuff, but not before she’d already stepped into the spell circle on the floor.”
Mother Morevna’s trapdoor spell, I thought. The one that would kill anyone who set it off.
“She didn’t know it had got her until later, after we ate some of the food we stole. She’s been sick ever since and getting worse every day. The other times we broke into Elysium, we were trying to find some medicine for her, to ease the pain. But thanks to you two and your little trap, we weren’t successful. And now Mowse has to watch the only family she’s ever known die before her eyes.”
“We didn’t set that trapdoor spell, Mother Morevna did,” I said, indignation flaring in my chest. “We set the trap, yeah, but if you hadn’t stolen from the Sacrifice, none of this would have happened. I’m sorry for your friend, but you can’t blame us for something that happened because all of you chose to steal.”
Zo looked at me for a moment, her expression unreadable.
“You don’t understand what it’s like to be out here yet,” she said. “But you will. And then you won’t be so self-righteous when you see that out here there’s no black and white. There’s just gray. Just kill or be killed, steal