them?”
“They refused to surrender,” Piper said. “Most of them were killed.”
I didn’t realize that I’d winced, until Zoe rolled her eyes. “Don’t act precious about it,” said Zoe. “You were out there yourself, swinging a sword around. You knew what it meant, when we decided to free the town.”
As if I could forget. I could still feel the sensation of killing that man. The feeling of blade wedged into bone. The double scream of him and his twin, in different octaves of terror.
Piper went on. “Some fled north. We didn’t pursue them. A few gave themselves up, at the end. We still haven’t decided what to do with them.”
“You say that as though it’s up to us,” Zoe said. “The Ringmaster’s soldiers are guarding them. You really think he’s going to ask for our opinion?”
“We did it, though,” I said. “We freed New Hobart.”
“It’s under the rule of a different Councilor, at least,” said Zoe.
I closed my eyes again. Or, rather, they closed themselves. Unconsciousness was claiming me again.
“Find Elsa,” I tried to say, but my lips wouldn’t obey me, and I slipped into silence.
Ω
I was thirsty, and stuck amid dreams of flame. Somewhere nearby, I heard the Ringmaster’s voice.
“But she’s going to live?” he said.
“If you let her rest,” Zoe snapped. Somebody wiped my face with a cloth, and I turned to press my skin against its coolness.
“Why’s she so pale?” the Ringmaster asked.
The flames rose again, and I heard nothing more.
When I woke there was no sign of him, or Piper. Only Zoe, asleep on the floor by my mattress. I didn’t know how long I’d been asleep for, but the blood that had been scarlet on her bandaged leg was now dried and black.
She woke when Piper came in. When he’d strapped my broken arm into a sling, made of torn sheets, I managed to eat a little of the bread that he’d brought with him. Standing was difficult, and my whole body moved awkwardly around the pivot of pain that was my bound arm. I had to lean on Piper’s shoulder as I followed him and Zoe into the next room. Beyond the stack of smashed chairs, the room opened up into a large hall. A circle of intact chairs was laid out in the center, where the Ringmaster was waiting, with Sally, Xander, Simon, and an older woman. I’d not met her before, but I recognized her short hair and the hump on her back. It was she who’d unfurled the makeshift flag from the eastern tower, toward the end of the battle.
“This is June,” said Piper. “She led the uprising inside the town.”
She glanced at my arm, the splint protruding from the bandage at my elbow. “I won’t shake your hand, then,” she said.
“And of course you remember the Ringmaster,” said Zoe. Her words were sharpened.
“You’d all be dead, or tanked, by now, if she hadn’t gone to him,” Sally said.
“You lied to us,” Zoe said.
“If I’d told you I was meeting him that night, you wouldn’t have let me go. We wouldn’t have been able to free the town.”
“Is it free?” said Zoe. “I still see Council soldiers patrolling the gates.”
“I’ve told you,” said the Ringmaster. “They work for me, not the Council. And if it weren’t for them, the Council could retake this city anytime they wanted.”
He sat apart from the others. There was a cut on his cheek, already healing. Simon, opposite me, had his left arm in a sling, and a bruise at the corner of his mouth.
“What is this place?” I asked, looking around. It was big—too big to be a house. This room alone was bigger than the children’s dormitory in Elsa’s holding house.
“It’s the tithe collector’s office,” the Ringmaster said.
“It doesn’t help with the morale in the town,” June said. “You setting yourselves up here, where the Council used to make us queue to deliver our tithes. That and taking down the flag.”
“This place was empty,” the Ringmaster said. “What would they prefer? That we turn someone out of their home and base ourselves there? As for the flag, you can’t expect my troops to be happy about working night and day under an Omega flag, when it was them who freed the town.”
“We freed it together,” I said. “If we hadn’t attacked, you and your soldiers would have done nothing to free New Hobart.” I turned to June. “When we left the warnings for you, we never hoped that you’d manage to do so much. How