“Ramson!” Jonah shouted, and with a final tug, Ramson was on his feet and they were running in the opposite direction, back to the escape tunnel—
Light blazed before them as a patrol rounded the corner; he gave a shout, and a second patrol followed him. At the sight of Ramson and Jonah, he strung an arrow onto his bow and aimed. “Halt!”
Ramson was shaking so hard that his knees knocked together.
“Hands up!”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jonah comply. “Please, we’re recruits from the Blue Fort,” Jonah said. “We got lost—”
“And ended up in a secure facility?” A voice sounded behind them, one that raised the hairs on Ramson’s neck. With dreadful premonition, he turned.
Roran Farrald stood behind them, dressed in a plain gray tunic. His face was as placid as the surface of a still lake. But Ramson had never seen such fury in his father’s eyes—dark, the color of storm clouds and midnight waters. They seemed to tremble as they settled on Ramson.
“Admiral Farrald.” The patrols bowed their heads in respect, but the archer kept his arrow trained on Ramson and Jonah.
“What in the devil do you think you’re doing?” Roran Farrald’s voice cracked over Ramson like a whip.
Before Ramson could reply, steps sounded; four to five men rounded the corner, and Ramson recognized all of them as high-ranking officers in the Navy. Among them, he spotted Commander Dallon.
“What the hell’s going on here?” a silver-haired officer asked.
Roran Farrald’s eyes blazed as he took a step forward. He looked between Ramson and Jonah, and finally, his gaze settled on his son. “You are guilty of trespassing in a top secret government facility. You are aware this is punishable by death?”
Ramson thought he would throw up. Death. He’d studied Bregonian law, but he hadn’t thought the laws would apply to them. Surely they applied to ordinary citizens, yes, but…not to recruits at the Blue Fort Academy.
His father’s coal-black gaze was still focused on him. “Was this your idea, boy?”
Ramson tried to speak, but fear had sewn his throat shut. He opened and closed his mouth several times, but nothing came out. More footsteps sounded; more patrols had arrived, and more Naval officers in nightclothes. The bells continued to scream.
“It was mine.”
Ramson’s head snapped to the boy beside him. Jonah stood in the frame of the half-open door, his shadow stretching long and thin behind him. His face was pale, but his raven-black eyes glimmered in the torchlight.
“I wanted to steal the medicine,” Jonah continued. Words—the truth—pushed against Ramson’s chest, needing to be said. But another warring instinct—fear—pushed back, paralyzing him to the spot.
“For what reason?” asked the silver-haired officer.
Jonah gave only the slightest pause, indiscernible to anyone but Ramson. “I’m trading it in town. People pay good mint for that kind of stuff. I asked Ramson to come along for fun. He’d make a decent partner.”
There was an uproar from the officers. “This is organized crime!” Silver Hair cried. “This young man cannot be permitted to walk free tonight!”
Yet as the officers continued to yell, only one person was silent. A strange expression had crept onto Roran Farrald’s face, one that resembled…triumph.
“Enough,” he boomed. “Guards, nock!”
“No!” The cry tore from Ramson, small and feeble and lost in the fray. He flung out a hand, pushing Jonah back, meaning to protect him.
“Let go of my son,” Roran shouted, but Ramson’s knees had given out and he held on to Jonah, gasps racking his chest. The bells shrieked in his ears, drilling into his head.
“Father,” he cried. “Please—”
“Let go of my son!” Roran roared again.
“I’m not touching him!” Jonah yelled.
“Guards,” bellowed Roran.
It happened so fast. Ramson saw the archer nock, the bowstring grow taut. And then the head of the arrow shimmered as it released, cutting through the torchlight, sleeker than a whisper.
Years later, Ramson still couldn’t tell why he did it. He wanted to be brave, he wanted to be selfless, like Jonah—but in the end, in his very flesh and bone, he was made of cowardice and selfishness.
Ramson ducked.
There was a soft wet sound, like a knife slicing through an apple. Jonah made a small noise—it might have been a gasp—and slowly, quietly, like the last leaf on an alder tree, fell.
Ramson barely remembered what happened next—someone was screaming, but all he knew was that he’d dropped to his knees and scrambled to Jonah’s side, shaking his shoulders, convinced that he would wake up and laugh at having