Of Dreams and Rust - Sarah Fine Page 0,54

eye focuses on me. “Hello, Wen. I’ve come to take you home.”

Chapter

Thirteen

THE MEN GIVE Melik anxious sidelong glances as they aim their rifles at Bo. At this range I don’t see how bullets wouldn’t penetrate his armor. Sinan is staring at Bo with his mouth hanging open. Melik turns to me, betrayal etched into his furrowed brow. “You didn’t tell me he survived.”

“He is a secret I am used to keeping,” I murmur.

Something flares in his eyes. “I need to give the men an explanation, or they will shoot him out of sheer terror.”

“Tell them he will not hurt them.” I look at Bo’s face as I say this.

Bo’s lip curls. “Unless they come closer.” His shoulders are covered in a row of metal bumps, and each of those bumps has eight eyes—dormant, fanged spiders, ready to attack. He is wearing the frames he’s been working on for the past year, and they cover both legs, his remaining arm, and his torso. They envelop him, making him wider than and nearly as tall as most of the Noor. There is sheet metal contoured over his limbs, covering the inner workings of his artificial body. His fingers are spindly, too long for his hands, with too many joints. His head is covered in a helmet, with that one side that swings open to reveal his actual face. I have no idea how many terrors he’s tucked into the arms and legs and belly of this suit, but I think he could kill half this village if he wanted to.

And he looks like he wants to.

“You have traveled a long way,” I say.

He lets out a hard laugh. “So have you. Guiren is distraught, Wen. He thinks you’re dead.”

I cover my mouth with my hand, my eyes stinging. “In the train?” I force out.

He nods. “But I was not willing to let it end there.”

Melik’s eyes narrow. “You were in Kegu, weren’t you?”

Bo tilts his head, his suit letting out an eerie hum. “I was told that’s where she would be.” He looks back to me. “Your bag was found in a demolished dining car along with over a dozen dead Itanyai soldiers. Guiren was scared to hope.” He focuses his gaze on the ground. “But I was scared not to.” His joints whir as he stands straighter. “I came through the canyon.”

“And you met five Itanyai soldiers who had escaped the vicious Noor rebels, but with only nine fingers each,” says Melik as he gently nudges aside the barrel of a rifle aimed at Bo’s face, then puts his hand on the back of the young man wielding it and gives him a reassuring nod.

“Correct, Red,” says Bo. “They described the girl who cared for their wounds and cut them free. They also told me of the Red One, who sliced off their fingers to save her life. They said the girl was being taken to Kegu.”

“But we were at Kegu only three days after I left the Ring,” I say. “It takes at least a week to hike the canyon.”

Bo rolls his eye. “Wen, I have warned you about underestimating me.”

“So you ran through the canyon, all the way to Kegu, in less than four days.” Melik glances at Baris, whose forehead is crinkled as he listens to a conversation in a language he doesn’t understand. “And then you blew up the municipal complex. How many did you kill?”

Bo shrugs, the metal spiders on his shoulders shifting under the moonlight. “I have no idea, and I truly don’t care. I needed everyone completely occupied so I could get out with Wen.” He bares his teeth at Melik. “But she was gone.”

“Are you sorry I rescued her?” Melik asks in a hard voice. “She was going to be executed at dawn.”

“She didn’t need you,” Bo snarls. “She had me.”

“She doesn’t need you,” says Sinan. “She has my brother.”

I put my hand on Sinan’s arm. Once again he is too open, too frank, too willing to say exactly what he’s thinking. “Sinan . . .”

“Wen, your father needs to see you,” says Bo, stepping forward. The Noor men raise their rifles again, and they keep glancing back at Melik, waiting for any signal. But Bo does not seem the slightest bit concerned with them. “It is time for you to come with me.”

“I’m not going to—” I begin, but Bo raises his arms, glaring at me.

“You are,” he says. “We’re wasting time. The first war machines were already assembling at the eastern