said Zoe. “There are footsteps by the lookout spot. At least four or five people. Fresh prints—since yesterday’s rain. Based on how the grass was flattened, I’d say they’d been watching the gate for most of the night.”
“Could it’ve been Violet and her scouts, coming to our side of town for some reason?”
“Not in identical boots,” she said. “The prints are all the same. They’re Council soldiers, in regulation boots.”
“Why would they be sneaking around at night, watching their own guard posts?”
None of us had any answers.
“The tracks head away from the town,” she said. “But I lost the trail when they reached the grasslands. And there’s not much cover out that far—I couldn’t spend too long looking.”
We returned to camp before nightfall so that we wouldn’t have to navigate the intricate swamps in the dark. We reported in detail to Simon all that we’d seen, including the signs that somebody else had been watching the town.
“Have Violet’s scouts to the north seen any signs of others?” Piper said.
Simon shook his head. “No. But Crispin did. He and Anna saw something when they were hunting to the west. In the gully with the lone spruce at the crest—two uniformed sentries on duty, and a few soldiers coming and going throughout the night. They seemed to be monitoring New Hobart.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Zoe said. “Why would the Council be watching New Hobart, when they’re the ones holding the town?”
“There isn’t any single ‘Council’ though,” I said. I was remembering what the Ringmaster had said: You really think we’re one big happy family? A Councilor’s greatest enemies are those closest to him. I remembered, too, the last time we’d caught glimpses of hidden watchers, the night before the Ringmaster had sprung on us. I could feel him, as if his arm was once more around my neck.
“It’s the Ringmaster,” I said. “He’s here.”
“You can’t know that,” Simon said.
I turned on him. “Can’t? If you weren’t so busy telling me what I can’t do, you could use my visions to help us. I found the island. I found my way out of the Keeping Rooms. I found the Confessor’s machine.”
“Why would he be watching New Hobart?” Simon said impatiently.
“For the same reason we are,” I said, thinking of the disgust in the Ringmaster’s face when he’d spoken of the machines. “He doesn’t trust the General or Zach. He wants to know what they’re up to, what they’re looking for in the town.”
“Discord in the Council is good news for us, in the long term,” said Piper. “But even if it’s the Ringmaster out there, it makes no difference to us now.” He turned to Simon. “Warn the guards on the camp perimeter, and station sentries by the northern edge of the forest, so we’ll know if they head this way.”
I noticed how he threw out the orders, as instinctively as he would throw his daggers. I noted, too, how Simon nodded and obeyed.
chapter 15
From dawn until dark, our camp crawled with the preparations. Near where I stood by Simon’s tent, two men without legs were lashing together a ladder. I watched the precision of their hands, binding the struts to the spars. At the camp’s edge, under a lopsided tree, a squadron was practicing with grappling hooks. They hurled the hooks again and again, climbing the knotted ropes when they gained a purchase. If the attack was to succeed, we needed to penetrate the wall—otherwise we would die in front of it.
Each day more troops arrived, and each day we were disappointed that more had not come. They came on foot, in small groups, or sometimes alone. Some knew how to fight but had no weapons. Others brought what they could: rusted swords; blunted axes, made for chopping wood, not fighting. They’d come hurriedly, when the messengers had spread the word, but they also bore tales of those who would not come. Too worried, with their families to provide for, and winter upon us. Too scared, after the attack on the island, and with the safe houses being raided. I couldn’t blame them.
Some of those who had come were well-trained fighters—those who had survived from the island, and those who worked for the resistance on the mainland. But they were a shadow army, not a standing force. Their experience wasn’t in battles. It was in skirmishes with Council patrols, and raids on Alpha villages to snatch Omega babies before they’d been branded. They were used to evading Council soldiers, stealing horses, and