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"No," she repeated. "My father was the one who liked to play games with letters and songs," she said.

His eyebrows lifted again. "So is it possible your father made this ribbon?"

The idea intrigued her, and she shifted her gaze to his. "That makes sense," she said slowly. "He was a tailor. He did all the sewing for our family." She realized now it was possible, even likely, that her mother had told her father about the babies, and her father had recorded the information with the silk thread in the ribbon. He was the true record keeper.

Mabrother Iris leaned back against the picture table and relaxed one leg over the other. "That is a shame," he said dryly. He'd apparently come to the same conclusion she had.

She narrowed her eyes. "Because you killed him," she said.

The man was rubbing his chin again.

"Why?" she asked. "He was the most gentle man who ever lived."

He turned his gaze slowly in her direction. "He killed two guards."

"Trying to escape? I don 't believe you."

"Trying to get to your mother."

The ache in Gaia s heart tightened a little more, and for a moment she closed her eyes and imagined her father wrestling with guards, trying to get to her mother. That made sense to her. That was her father. She glared resentfully at the gray-haired little man. The canary made another skittering noise in its seeds and let out a note of birdsong.

Mabrother Iris set down his teacup and walked over to a little cabinet, opened a drawer, and pulled out a small bottle. He strolled by the windows and stopped there to hold it to the light, gazing at it. Gaia inhaled quickly, recognizing her ink bottle.

"Let me tell you a little about this ink," he said. "It's ocher,

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mixed with clay, alcohol, and an antibiotic." He twisted it idly in the light, inspecting the opaque, brown color. "It's crude enough, but functional," he said. "It's the addition of the antibiotic that's unusual, especially given that antibiotics are illegal outside the wall. Did your mother make this ink?"

She thought fast. He must know at least as much as Leon had known before they talked in the garden, she realized. Did he already know about the freckle pattern because of what shed told Leon the day before? If Leon had relayed this information to Mabrother Iris, this could be a test for her, one she had to pass. On the other hand, if Leon had kept her information secret, she would be revealing it needlessly to her enemy.

"Gaia?" the man said. He came nearer to her and slowly untwisted the lid. "Don 't waste my time, Gaia," he said ominously. He dipped the tip of his pinky finger into the ink and held it up before his eyes.

"It's for the freckles," she said.

He gave a satisfied smile. "Now we're getting somewhere," he said. "Explain."

Briefly she explained the custom her mother had of giving tea to the mother, and the four quick pricks of ink in the baby's ankle. She watched him closely as she spoke, but she could not tell if she was revealing something he'd never known before. She was afraid. The freckle pattern was the last secret she knew. There was nothing left to tell. If they wanted her to reveal any thing else, she would not be able to help them, and then what? They might kill her. Would they torture her first, or would they harm the innocent people she cared about?

There was a silence in the room when Gaia finished, and she could hear only a faint buzz from the picture table, and a muted clanging noise from out in the square.

"Can I see my mother now?" Gaia asked, afraid.

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Mabrother Iris turned away with a brief, humorless laugh. "What's the hurry, my dear? We've just begun."

He put the cap back on the ink bottle and dropped it urgently in the little drawer of the cabinet. He brought out a sheet of paper and a pencil. He set them on the table beside her, and then he glanced at her arms and frowned. He touched another button on the picture table.

"Send a guard up." In the interval while they waited for a guard, Gaia sat stiffly on her chair, growing increasingly uneasy. Mabrother Iris picked up his teacup and went to stand gazing out of the window. Something about his casual unconcern for her chilled her deeply, and when she glanced over at his narrow, white dad shoulders, his prim little shaded glasses, she felt a degree of loathing that surpassed any she'd felt before. Her dislike of him made her even more afraid, until her cold fingers were trembling.

She remembered what Myrna had told her and tried to hold on to it: survive. That was the goal. So far, she was surviving, but only at the cost of giving up her parents' secrets. What would her mother think of that?

A light knocking noise sounded on the door behind her, and Mabrother Iris told the guard to untie Gaia. Her arms and shoulders prickled and ached when at last her wrists were free, and she rubbed her cold, stiff hands together until they tingled.

"The room is ready, Mabrother," the guard said.

Gaia started at the familiar voice, and turned slightly to see Sgt. Bartlett, his fair hair carefully combed and his expression neutral. She instantly looked away, not wanting to reveal by her manner that she recognized him. It was possible, just possible, that Leon had arranged to have his friend there, but she had no evidence that Sgt. Bartlett would be at all inclined to help her.

"Good," Mabrother Iris said. "Remain by the door."

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Gaia heard him retreat behind her, and then Mabrother Iris turned his attention back to Gaia. "I want you to draw the freckle pattern," he said, handing her the pencil.

She hid her surprise. It would be simple to show him the pattern on her own ankle, but he apparently he didn't know about it, which could only mean Leon hadn't told him. Gaia took the pencil in her cold, clumsy fingers, and forced them to grasp it. Aware that the guard behind her was also watching, she carefully drew the familiar pattern:

"That's it?" Mabrother Iris sounded surprised. He spun the paper toward himself. "So simple," he added in a different voice, as if that made sense to him. "What does it mean?" he asked.

Gaia shrugged a shoulder. "I don't now. It's like part of a square."

Mabrother Iris was still looking at the paper, or she was sure he would have known she was lying. She thought the hint of the Orion constellation was a connection to her mother s maiden name, Orion, but if he didn't recognize the pattern, she wasn't going to fill him in.

"So every baby your mother advanced to the Enclave, every

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baby from Western Sector Three, has these freckles," Mabrother Iris said. "These same freckles?"

"Yes. She sometimes helped deliver babies in other sectors if she was needed, but they would be comparatively few."

"But those babies, too, would be in your mothers code," Mabrother Iris said.

Gaia couldn't be certain. "I expect so," she said. "I don't know." It made her feel acutely uncomfortable, cooperating with him. Honesty, even partial honesty, had never felt so wrong to her. Her gaze shifted longingly toward the windows. The fog had lifted now, and she could see sunlight on the pale stone of the obelisk.

"What makes you think the ribbon code is about the quota babies?" she asked.

"Come. Look at this," Mabrother Iris said. He was standing beside the screen desk again, and he guided Gaia closer. On the top layer was an image of her mother's ribbon, but now it was increased in size so that a section of it was wider than her hand, the silk markings easy to see.

She gripped the pencil tight in her fingers, willing the little lines to resolve themselves into a pattern she could identify, but the symbols looked more like doodles than any letters she'd ever known. She sensed that Mabrother Iris was watching her face closely, and she tried to concentrate. Her effort only made her more confused and anxious.

Beside her, the man sighed.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I'm trying."

"There's no question that we'll eventually decipher it," he said. "We can see that it's a record of births." He pointed to one group of symbols. "These, clearly, are numbers. They repeat, with variations." He pointed to another group, and then another, but she couldn't see how any of them were related. "The other figures are the names of the parents. Combined

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with the Nursery's birth date records from when the advanced babies first arrived inside the wall, we can figure out the birth parents of our children from outside the wall. At least from Western Sector Three. So far, your mother is the only midwife we can find who kept records."

"Have you asked the others?"

"Obviously."

Gaia wondered if her mother had heard about these investigations, and if that was why she had given her ribbon to Old Meg a few weeks before she was arrested. Gaia frowned, and Mabrother Iris tilted his face, watching her.

"You have another question?" he asked dryly.

"Why didn't you keep track of the birth parents before?" she asked. It seemed an obvious thing to do.

He lifted an eyebrow, leaning back slightly. "Why, indeed. There was a misguided idea of equality and fairness-- all babies from outside the wall were equally worthy, so there was no need to track their heritage, theoretically. They were true members of their Enclave families, with all the rights of blood. No ties to the outside. That was the principle decades ago, when the Enclave first rescued babies from abusive parents on the out' side. Furthermore, the anonymity was supposed to elevate everyone's sense of responsibility: there was a community obligation to raise all the children, to create an Enclave that was best for everyone. Absurd, of course. Parenting doesn't work on a massive scale. By its very nature, it's individualistic. Yet even the Protectorat's family believed in the anonymity once."

Gaia thought of Leon, adopted by the Protectorat and his first wife. No one knew who his biological parents were.

"There were practical reasons, as well," Mabrother Iris continued. "Some of the more shortsighted parents outside the wall objected to advancing their children. They wanted to trace the adoptions and reclaim their offspring. In one case, a

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grandfather actually broke into the wall and tried to take a two year old he thought was his grandson. The parents inside the wall wanted to be sure that could never happen, and so we had to promise there were no records. No records connecting specific babies to specific birth parents outside."

Mabrother Iris faced her directly, and his gaze grew somber.

"Your mother's code-- or your father's, I should say-- is vitally important now."

She couldn't hide her frustrated confusion. "I still don't see why," she said. "What good does it do to know who the parents are? If you just care about the genes, wouldn't it be simpler and more precise to test each person's DNA?"

He looked at her curiously. Then he ran a finger along the edge of the picture desk, frowning in thought. "You're turning out to be quite an interesting mix of ignorance and information," he said, with an odd note in his voice. "Do you know what DNA is, exactly?"

She hedged, trying to recall what her mother and father had taught her, back in the evenings when they had walked together by the unlake. "I know it's a person's genetic code, and each person's code is unique, like a fingerprint."

Mabrother Iris frowned. "True, for a start. We've taken the DNA of many families within the wall. People we're worried about. Now we're linking traits for health problems with the genes. Some of the simpler ones, like recessive hemophilia, we've known about for a long time. Others, like infertility, are far more complicated."

"So can't you just take the DNA of all the people outside the wall, too?" she asked. "That wouldn't be too invasive, would it? Can't you tell, then, how people are related?"

He shook his head. "That would be like adding more hay to the haystack when we're looking for one needle. The DNA alone without the family relationships is far less valuable when

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we want to identify a specific, significant gene. But that's beside the point. From you, we need to know the birth parents of the advanced babies from Western Sector Three," he said. "That's our top priority. Your code is the key to that in-formation."

"But-- " Gaia was still confused.

"Trust me," he said ironically, nudging his glasses. "Do your bit. Decipher the code." He pushed a button, and a long piece of paper began to roll out of a side slot of the picture desk, then another. He pulled them out and handed them to her. "This is the first half of one side, enlarged. If you find you need more, let me know."

Gaia took the enlarged copy of the ribbon; every silk thread was clearly visible and impenetrably obscure. Mabrother Iris made a gesture toward Sgt. Bartlett, who started forward.

"You've undoubtedly asked my mother to do this same thing," she said. "Why do you think I can solve it when my mother can 't?"

His smile didn't reach his eyes. "Because you re smarter." He took off his glasses and polished the lenses with his hand' kerchief, and when he looked up, his strange, dilated eyes seemed to look right through her. "You have twenty-four hours to prove you can help us on this. It's not a game."

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Chapter 17 The Baby Code

Sgt. BARTLETT ESCORTED Gaia to a small, clean room with pale yellow walls and a large window. A wooden desk and chair lined one wall, and a simple cot, made up with sheets, pale gray blankets, and a pillow, lined the other. A nap row door led to a compact bathroom, and Gaia could see folded white towels on a shelf beside the sink. A clean gray dress hung on a hook over a pair of tidy black shoes.

She stepped to the window, which also overlooked the square, but from even higher up. It was open a hand's width at the bottom and rigged to open no further. She could see the white roofs of the prison and other buildings, and in one yard, a quiet place where the sun didn't touch yet, a woman in red was hanging laundry on a line. What she wouldn't give to trade places with that woman right now.

Sgt. Bartlett cleared his throat from the doorway, and she turned sharply. She hadn't even realized he was still there.

"The clean clothes are for you after your shower. Do you need anything else?" he asked.

She searched his brown eyes, and for the first time, she saw

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a yielding in them. He was young, too, she realized. Maybe a bit older than Leon. His lips were fuller, with more color, and his features were even and tanned. He was taller than Leon and broader through the shoulders. Where Leon was pale, grave, and intense, Sgt. Bartlett had a confident, natural insouciance, despite his serious work.

"Does Leon know I'm here?" she asked.

His eyes flickered before his expression became politely neutral again. 'I'll inform him."

"May I have something to eat?" she asked. "Some water?"

"Of course," he said.

She slumped into the chair. At least they didn't mean to starve her. In her fingers, she clutched the printout Mabrother Iris had given her. She'd never been much of a reader-- there had been few books outside the wall-- and the task of deciphering the code seemed insurmountable.

"I need something to write with," she said. "And clean paper."

"They're in the drawer," Sgt. Bartlett said, gesturing toward the desk.

"Ah," she said. She glanced up again at the blond guard, and it seemed to her that he was lingering needlessly. His fingers clenched against the side of his leg, causing the fabric to twitch suddenly. The mannerism struck her as familiar, though she couldn't see why it should.

"Is there something else?" she asked finally.

She saw him hesitate, and then he stepped fully into the room and closed the door behind him.

"Is it true the freckles mean a person was born in Western Sector Three?" he asked.

Startled, Gaia tried to remember precisely where she'd been in her conversation with Mabrother Iris when Sgt. Bartlett

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entered the room. He had untied her just before she drew the freckle pattern, she recalled. She nodded slowly. "Yes."

He closed his eyes briefly, and Gaia knew it was more than simply an idle question.

"If I have the freckles-- I'm not saying I do-- but if I do, I'd want to know who my parents are," he said now, his voice urgent. "If you could help me, I'd be grateful."

She half expected him to pull up his trouser leg and take off his boot right then to check for the freckles. "I don't know the code," she said helplessly.

He looked confused, disappointed. "But you must know something," he said. "Didn't your father tell you anything?"

She stepped to the desk and smoothed the papers on its surface, inspecting the first line closely:

[Symbols Removed]

The symbols didn't look like any alphabet she'd ever seen. She rubbed her forehead, fighting back the despair and fear.

"Think," Sgt. Bartlett said gently. "Think of everything your father ever taught you. It must be there in your mind some' how. Was he an educated man? Did he speak other languages?"

"He was just a tailor," she answered.

Her father had been an autodidactic tailor who had never needed a pattern for cutting out material. He'd been able to visualize in his mind how every scrap of fabric would need to be cut, even for the most complex garment, and he never made a mistake. But also, he'd loved games and tricks and codes and patterns. She remembered again the way he sang the alphabet song backward. He'd played the banjo for hours, inventing his own tunes.

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Pulling the chair near, she sat before the desk, frowning. She could do this. She must, somehow. She would think of her father and his sewing things and his capable, wide-knuckled hands. She would use every hint she had and try to read her fathers mind. As her gaze unfocused, she heard the rhythmic sound of his foot working the treadle of the sewing machine, half humming, half clicking. But then sorrow, like an under' ground stream, seeped into her mind, slowing her thoughts. In so many ways, she wished he were there with her.

"If only he were alive," she muttered.

"He is. In you. Somehow," Sgt. Bartlett said. When he smiled encouragingly, a faint glimmer lit his brown eyes. "I need to go." He hurried to the door. "I'll be back later with food. If you need anything else, a dictionary or anything, I'm supposed to get it for you."

She swallowed, nodding, her eyes already scanning over the symbols, looking for anything that might be familiar, that might be a clue. He shut the door softly as he went out, and Gaia sank her chin into the palm of her cool, smooth hand.

Forget the running clock, she told herself. Forget that Mother s life depends on my cooperation. Thin\ only of Dad. She closed her eyes and heard the treadle sound again. She summoned a mental image of him sitting near the window at his machine, hunched over to peer at the fabric as it passed under the speeding needle. He always stopped when she came near, sitting back and stretching his arms over his head. His brown eyes were kindly, warm, and his voice overflowed with laughter. Then he would lean close and pull one of her braids with a little, teasing jerk she could still feel. "Hey, squirt."

It hurt to think of him, even the happy memories, but she tried to summon what she knew. Because of his reverse alphabet song, which she'd remembered when her mother sent her the note about Danni O, it was likely he'd done some reverse of

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letters. On inspiration, she pulled the mirror out of her pocket, and tried looking at the symbols through that:

[Symbols Removed]

"This is impossible," she muttered. It looked just as indecipherable this way.

Another hour passed, and the only thing she gained was a neck crick from tension. She flexed her arms in a stretch and leaned back. She'd found several symbols that repeated, but not in any way that made sense to her. She was getting nowhere.

She was hungry, too. Standing, she went to the yellow door and tried the knob. It was locked. She knocked on it, wondering how she was supposed to ask Sgt. Bartlett for something if he wasn't there. There was no reply.

At least she could drink from the sink. As soon as she entered the little bathroom, she decided to clean up. The shower water was hot and delicious on her skin, strangely comforting when her mind was in turmoil. She opened her mouth to the warm spray, drinking. Soon she was dressed in clean clothes, and she found a ball of socks in the pocket of her new dress. She pondered the socks, remembering her fathers lemon-shaped pincush' ion, and wondering again how that boy could have gotten it. The same thing could happen, she realized, with any information she gave Mabrother Iris. Once it was out of her hands, she had no control over where it might end up or how it could be used.

Then again, it wasn't like she had a choice at this point. Until she deciphered the code, she had nothing to bargain with. She needed to at least appear to be cooperating if she was ever going to see her mother. She had to keep trying.

As she stepped back into the little yellow room, softly rubbing her short wet hair with the damp towel, she noticed

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the top paper with the code had blown to the floor. Her eyes, unfocused for a moment, simplified the code to a pattern of blurry lines, and for an instant, she thought she saw some thing. She blinked rapidly and leaned nearer. As she reached down for the paper, it was gone, whatever it was, and the dazzling confusion of symbols was as baffling as ever.

"What did I see?" she asked herself.

She dropped the paper to the floor again and walked back into the bathroom, determined to retrace her steps.

"I must be going mad," she muttered.

She stood in the bathroom doorway, looking over at the code on the floor, and squinted. From here, the code looked like lines of color against a background of brown. Due to the angle and the distance, the background emerged conspicuously as narrow bands of brown, regular stripes.

"Read between the lines," she whispered, letting her eyes focus normally again.

This time, when she set the paper on the table, she tried looking at it not for each individual symbol, but for the space between the lines.

[Symbols Removed]

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There was a knock on her door, and she backed toward the window, trying to smooth her wet hair with the towel.

Leon opened the door, carrying a tray. Her lips opened in unspoken surprise. Her mind scrambled back over memories of their last conversation, and the bread he'd bought her, and Myrna's awful pronouncement of his crimes against the state.

"Take this ," he said, thrusting the tray toward her. She tucked the towel under her arm and took the tray while he looked quickly down the hall and then carefully shut the door.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"I came to see if I could help," he said. "Are you making any progress?"

Her heart constricted with doubt. "Did Mabrother Iris send you?" she asked, setting the tray on the desk. "Do you know anything about my mother?"

He gave her a peculiar, pulled look. "I came myself," he said. "As soon as Bartlett told me you were here. I haven't heard anything about your mother." He straightened slowly, his expression grave.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly, holding her damp towel in both hands. "It's just-- " She was afraid of being manipulated, and the truth was, Leon did something to her. She might as well admit it to herself. Even now, she felt better just having him there. Strangely charged, too. He was still watching her with his pensive, guarded expression, and she finally threw up a hand. What if he was a tool of the Enclave? It wasn't like she had anything to lose.

"I thought I saw something," she admitted. "A sort of optical illusion. But I wasn't sure."

"What was it?" he asked.

She reached over the bowl of soup and picked up the roll of black bread, casting her gaze over the code again. "I don't know. It was there when my eyes were unfocused, I think." She took

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a nibble of the bread, and as if that triggered her hunger, she was suddenly ravenously hungry. She bit off a huge bite.

"Careful you don't choke," he said. He took off his hat and set it beside the tray, watching her with a frown. "I'm glad to see this situation hasn't affected your appetite," he added dryly.

She had a perverse desire to laugh. Or cry. Or both. She finished chewing and swallowed.

"Good bread?" he asked.

She nodded. If he said anything nice to her, anything gentle, she was going to burst out sobbing.

He nodded, too. "Let's see this mysterious code."

She swallowed thickly. As he leaned over the desk to inspect the papers, she stepped nearer to him. He braced a hand on the table, flipping the top sheet over and twisting it in different directions. She consumed the last bite of her bread. His shoulders were broad, and she could smell the clean fabric of his black coat, as if sunshine still clung to him.

Somehow that, too, confused and troubled her. She wanted sunshine of her own.

Get a hold of yourself, she thought sternly. She turned to step into the bathroom and hang up her towel, and as she did, she took a furtive look at herself in the mirror. A hint of moisture on the glass softened the harsh clarity of the image, and for once she forced herself to look directly at her face. This is the face of a girl who may die soon, she thought. Beauty was irrelevant. Her right cheek was faintly flushed from her shower, and her brown, short hair lay in damp, untidy waves around her brown eyes. The left side of her face was scarred a blotchy red-brown from her earlobe to the tip of her chin and up across her cheek to her eyebrow. The tender skin looked as if someone had taken a wrinkled page of tissue, soaked it in colored glue, and stuck it madly across her face. A mask, she thought, not

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for the first time. It looked like she wore a hideous, permanent mask. Anyone who said anything to her about it not being that bad was clearly lying.

Cold, sobering reality steadied her nerves once more. She needed to solve the code. Nothing else mattered.

"Gaia." Leons voice came in an undertone from the door' way. "What's the mirror for?"

She jumped self consciously, then realized he meant the little hand mirror shed left on the desk.

"Just an idea," she said. "It didn't help. My dad liked reversing things, like we had a funny backward alphabet song."

"Maybe you need a bigger mirror," he said. He held out the code and gestured toward the mirror over the sink.

She considered, then took the paper from his fingers. Holding up the page before the mirror, she was about to wipe the glass dry when again she caught a glimpse of something, just a hint of recognizable letters. Puzzled, she looked more closely, but the shapes shifted, and again it was a jumble of enigmatic symbols. She let out a grumble of frustration.

"What is it?" Leon asked. He was standing just behind her shoulder.

"I keep thinking I see something," she said. "But then it's gone."

He leaned nearer to her, so that his arm nearly brushed her shoulder, and she instinctively shrank from him, keeping her gaze on his eyes in the mirror.

"May I?" he asked politely, and then he used the towel to wipe the last vestiges of steam from the mirror. Gaia felt strangely crowded in the little space, even when he withdrew his hand again, and her lungs grew tight with the strain of breathing beside him.

She focused intently on the mirror, her eyes scanning the

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spaces between the lines, and then all of a sudden she saw some thing. She held her breath. Peering nearer, she was suddenly sure. She had been looking at the symbols, trying to find a pat' tern in them. But the pattern was between the symbols, in the negative space.

"Look!" she said, pointing.

Leon looked as baffled as ever.

"Here," she said, turning with the paper and pointing to a gap between two symbols. "It's going backward now, but there are letters between the symbols. Oh, look!"

"I don't see it," Leon said.

She was flushed with excitement, and she impulsively grabbed his arm. "Here, I'll show you," she said, and pulled him back to the room with the desk. She laid the paper flat on the table, and picked up two of the pencils. Laying them along the horizontal lines between the symbols, she created a border above and below a line of characters.

[Symbols Removed]

"Look between the symbols," she said, pointing. "There are backward block letters in the spaces. Going backward." She

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started on the right and moved left, bit by bit. G, L, M, V, T, L, M, M, R, V, L, I, R.

Watching his face, she saw the exact moment when under-standing came to him. His smile spread warmly, and his blue eyes lit up with excitement.

"What's it say?" he asked. "May I?" He took the paper again and went back into the bathroom to hold it before the mirror. She knew what he would see, and she was already thinking ahead to the next step. She took out more fresh paper from the desk and quickly jotted with her pencil.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNQRSTUVWXYZ

zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba

"Oh, Daddy," she muttered, torn between sadness and satisfaction. "If this is it, you re too amazing." She was impatient now, and she practically snatched the paper out of Leon s hand when he brought it back.

"What are you doing now?" he asked.

But she didn't answer. She transcribed the letters from the top line of the code onto a clean sheet of paper, and used her reverse-alphabet to change the letters into their opposites. Puzzled, discouraged, she added the next line. She was halfway through the second line before she realized she was spelling names she knew. The names went right to left, like the backward letters, and something was still wrong -with the dates, but there they were:

-REPS AJ-RSXY-XW

IRO-EINNOB-ENOTS

OL-LLIW-RSXY-WT-NO

QZ-ELOOP-YMA-OCRUT

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Her parents. Jasper Stone and Bonnie Orion. The backs of her ears tingled oddly, as if feathers there were invoking a message from beyond the grave. Gaia covered her face with her hands and dropped her head upon the table.

"Gaia," Leon said softly. "What is it?"

He was crouched beside her at the table, his face on a level with her own, and when she looked at him, her eyes were brimming with tears.

"It's my parents," she said. "They started the record when they advanced their first child to the Enclave. My oldest brother. It lists my fathers name first, and then my mothers." She scanned the next set of symbols. "Each word is separated by one of these little circles or squares," she said, pointing. "This part, this repeating R S X Y part, must be a date. Mabrother Iris figured that much out. I don't know how the numbers work yet, but I know this designates my brothers birth."

"Is his name there?"

"No. Babies don 't keep their names when they're advanced. Only their birthdays. My father must have been thinking of that. It's not so much about the babies. It's really more ..." she struggled for the right words.

"What?" he asked.

She ran her hand slowly down the code, knowing now that she could decipher every name, and that she would find the names of many parents she knew back home. "It's a record of loss. A record of parents' loss, baby after baby."

An abyss was sucking her inward and down. She was stunned to find that her own parents' names commenced the list, and yet it all made sense. Gaia had always known that her parents had given away her brothers, but having it spelled out before her in painstaking stitches of silk brought the loss home on a completely different emotional scale. The candles were lit

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every night. The freckles were tattooed on each baby her mother delivered, as if each one was another son or daughter that Gaia s mother couldn't keep. The list went on and on, she realized, for hundreds of names. Her mother alone had turned in two or more every month, and that was just from Western Sector Three. All those babies. All those losses.

"What have I done?" she muttered, stricken. She had continued it. She, Gaia Stone, in her duty to meet her monthly quota, had personally turned over six children to the Enclave.

"Gaia," Leon said. "Take it easy. You re all right."

"No," she said, clenching her hands into fists and hugging her arms around herself. Only now did she understand. She had sent those innocent babies away from simple, loving parents to become citizens of the Enclave like the ones who had filled the Square of the Bastion when the pregnant woman was executed, people who condoned the imprisonment of their doctors, people who allowed the suffering of children outside the wall, the pre longed imprisonment of her mother, the death of her father. "What have I done?" she repeated, her voice breaking.

"Shhh," Leon said.

She thought her heart would burst in her chest, and then Leon pulled her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her.

"No, Gaia," he said into her ear. "You can 't blame yourself. You did what you thought was right."

She was too appalled to cry. "That doesn't mean I'm not responsible. I took those babies from their mothers. I gave them to this-- to this insane society." Her voice became shrill. "And what about right now? I'm helping them right now with this code!"

She tore free of his arms and grabbed the code, ripping it in half. "I'm as bad as you are!" she said. "As any of you!" She crumpled the papers and threw them away.

Leon stood with his hands open, and his eyebrows lifted in

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shock, giving his face a raw, hurt expression. She burned inside with the knowledge she'd somehow betrayed herself. If she could have clawed the truth out of her own chest, she would have. Her crime went deeper than following or breaking any laws. She had advanced those babies to a life that undermined anything in them that might be decent or humane. Advanced! The word itself mocked her.

"We're not all bad," Leon said. His voice resonated with quiet conviction, as if, despite everything that had happened, he'd just discovered this to be true.

"No? Then why are we still talking here?" she asked. "Why haven't you opened that door and helped me escape?"

The time to cooperate was over.

Until he realized that cooperation meant complicity, Leon was as guilty of supporting the Enclave as Mabrother Iris himself.

A clanking noise came through the window from the square below.

Leon turned to look out.

"What is it?" she asked.

Gaia stepped beside him to gaze below. A group of red clad girls was being led across the square toward the Bastion. Through the gap at the bottom of the window, Gaia could hear the girls crying out in alarm and confusion, even as several guards tried to hush them.

"What's happening?" Gaia repeated.

"I don't know," Leon answered, his voice low. When she looked up, his eyes were intense and troubled. "I'm going to find out." He collected his hat and strode toward the door.

"You're not leaving me here," Gaia said.

Leon had a key he was fitting into the lock. "I must," he said. "I can't get you out now. It's complicated. You have to

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remember, your mothers well-being is tied to your own. Keep working on the code. See if you can find out who my-- " He paused, and his eyes flashed darkly before he looked away from her. He picked up the crumpled pieces of code she had thrown and set them side by side on the top of the desk.

Gaia's heart slowed to a cold, hard rhythm. It all made sense now. He wanted to know his parents. That was why he had come to help her. He was like Sgt. Bartlett. Or Mabrother Iris. She had been used, just as Myrna had warned she would be.

She quietly reached for a pencil and slid it toward her across the desk. "Fine. You want to know your parents?"

"Wait, Gaia," he said. "It's not like that."

Her heart was a bitter stone in her chest. She could use information herself. She didn't know how yet, but she would find a way. There were all kinds of weapons. "What's your birth date again?" she asked coldly.

She watched a hint of color redden his cheeks and lips, and the color made his blue eyes all the more vivid. She couldn't tell if he was anxious or ashamed or both. She didn't care. She steeled herself against his physical appeal and picked up the pencil, waiting. A banging noise came again from the square below.

"It's April fourteenth, twenty-three ninety," he said.

She bowed her head briefly and jotted it down. She didn't know how the system worked for dates yet, but she would figure it out. She smoothed the two ripped pieces of the code and lined them up together at the seam. "I'll see what I can do," she said numbly.

"I'll come back for you," he said. "As soon as I can."

She doubted it. She turned her back to him, already taking her seat again at the desk. Now that he knew how the code depended on reading the negative space, he could tell Mabrother

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Iris, and together they could unravel the entire ribbon. They didn't need her anymore, not even for the dates. She was completely and utterly expendable. She heard him open the door, but she didn't turn to see him go.

"Please, Gaia. You're safe here for now. Have a little faith in me," he said, his voice hardly more than a whisper. The next moment, he was gone.

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Chapter 18

One Chance

ONCE GAIA REALIZED the first two names were her parents', and that the record must correspond with her oldest brothers birth dates, figuring out the numbers was a tedious but fairly straightforward matter. Her oldest brother had been born on February 12, 2389, and the symbols before her father s name were:

[Symbols Removed]

She had mistakenly first translated "I H C B - C D" into "R S X Y - X W" using the letter reversal system, but when she worked backward from the numbers of his date, and threw in the mirror effect, she discovered which letters her father had used for numbers. B C H I had to match 2389. From there, it was a simple substitution system: A = 1, B = 2, C = 3, and so on until J = 0. Similarly, D C became 43. She was stumped until she realized February twelfth was the forty-third day of the year. Instead of using months, her father had assigned a

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number for each of the 365 days in the year, so that her oldest brothers birth, Arthurs birth, on February 12, 2389, was simply listed as 43-2389.

Gaia should have felt pleased that shed worked out the code, but instead she felt flat inside, defeated. She couldn't escape the guilt that had seared into her once she'd realized how inherently wrong the baby quota was.

She was deeply puzzled about her parents, and she wished she could go back and listen more carefully to conversations she had had with her father about her brothers. Obviously, he had omitted telling her about the ribbon, but he had talked about the freckles. Her parents must have been far more conflicted about advancing their sons than they had ever revealed to Gaia. Either that, or they had truly believed they were doing the right thing, the best thing for their children, even though they missed them terribly and continued to love them long after they were gone. Gould the two opposite things both be true?

She scanned further down the code, to where the year changed to 2390, and then she found the parents who matched Leon s birth date: Derek Vlatir and Mary Walsh. She closed her eyes and leaned back, stretching the kinks out of her neck as she tried to absorb that Leon was Derek's son. The Vlatirs probably had lived in Western Sector Three back when Leon was born. If Leon hadn't been advanced, he would have grown up as a bakers son outside the wall. Leon might have become a completely different person: maybe even trustworthy.

It was dark by the time Gaia worked out the code, her soup long gone, but a single spiral bulb in the ceiling had come on automatically as the sun set. The light went off if she was very still for a length of time, concentrating. If she waved an arm, it came on again. A tiny white box with a red pinpoint of light was positioned in an upper corner of the room, and that, she guessed, was the motion detector.

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She stood before the window, gazing down at the quiet city while her tired gaze followed the streetlamps that descended in slow curves away from the Bastion. No one was out. The girls in red had not reappeared. The stillness smelled like the stones of the square down below.

Leon had not returned.

]\[o surprise there, she thought.

She touched her hand to the smooth pane of glass, wondering what Leon would give to know his father was Derek Vlatir. She wondered, also, if she would live to see Derek again and tell him his son had become . .. had grown to be ...

Gaia closed her eyes and tilted her face against the cool glass. She didn't know what to think about Leon, but whenever she did think of him, an odd, tight feeling constricted in her chest. She wasn't just angry at him. She was disappointed, too. Deeply. It didn't matter that he was just doing his job, like any good soldier. She had thought she could trust him. Worse than that: she'd been stupid.

She slumped back on the bed, looking at her mess of notes on the desk. I should rip everything up and throw it all down the toilet, she thought. That would be proof she wasn't cooperating anymore. Yet the gesture wouldn't do her any good with no one there to see it.

She pressed her face into her hands, rubbing her eyes.

When there was a quiet rap on the door, she sat up suddenly and the light went on. She must have fallen asleep. The door was opening, and her heart leaped with anticipation. When she saw it was Sgt. Bartlett with another tray, she was crushed. Stupid again! she thought. Leon wasn't coming. As she reached for the tray, the sergeant's gaze went first to the desk, and then flew to Gaia's face.

"Did you figure it out?" he asked.

"Maybe. It's hard to be sure," she prevaricated, taking a bite of

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the bread. The stale, dry taste was heavy in her mouth, but she was hungry. Food came at strange times here. "How late is it?"

"Around midnight. Can you tell me who my parents are?" he asked.

She stopped chewing as an idea came to her. She swallowed. "Do you know anything about my mother?"

He looked confused. "No. Is she here? In the Bastion?"

"I believe so. I'm trying to find her," she said. "How badly do you want to know about your own parents? Enough to let me out?"

The sergeant leaned his broad shoulders back against the door and crossed his arms. Muscles bulged under the black fabric. "It would be too dangerous," he said.

She let out a dry laugh. "For you or for me?"

He seemed to consider, and then he dug his fingers back through his blond hair in a way that struck her as very young. "Both," he said. "It isn't possible. Believe me. Anybody who helped you would have to be willing to leave the Enclave forever. Don't even ask."

Leon obviously felt the same way, she realized bitterly. "Then don't even ask me who your parents are," she said. "You can wait like everyone else until it pleases Mabrother Iris to share the information."

He gave her a long, scrutinizing look, and then he picked up the empty glass from the tray and stepped into the bathroom.

Jerk, she thought. She took a nibble of the white cheese while she heard the water running, and when Sgt. Bartlett came back, she thought he looked pale beneath his tan. When she reached for the glass of water, he held it back a moment longer than was natural, and she saw he was watching her keenly. With an infinitesimal nod, he indicated the glass.

Suddenly on alert, she reached for it again, and she saw a message written on the palm of his hand:

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CAMERA

Her gaze shot to his. His lips were closed in a grim line, and he was watching her closely. "You must be thirsty," he said in a normal voice.

Afraid to turn, afraid to look, Gaia lifted the glass with trembling fingers to her lips. Oh, no, she thought. They'd been watching her the whole time. What she'd thought was a motion detector had to be also a camera. They'd seen her with Leon, and they'd seen him leave. Her mind raced. They were watching her with Sgt. Bartlett right now. Could they hear what she was saying, too?

It was all she could do not to scream in frustration. She took another bite of her cheese, chewing slowly, and Sgt. Bartlett went back to lean against the door in his former position. She saw he had his hand fisted tightly in his pocket. In fact, a faint tremor of tension was visible all through him, now that she was watching for it. She hoped it wouldn't show to whomever was watching.

"What happened to those girls?" she asked, trying to make it sound like she was beginning an idle conversation.

"What girls?"

"I saw them earlier in the square," she said. "It looked like they were being rounded up and brought to the Bastion."

He shook his head, puzzled. "I don't know who you saw," he said.

She grew impatient. "Before. When Leon was here. Haven't you talked to him?"

Sgt. Bartlett glanced away from her in a way that instantly put her on alert. He seemed to be choosing what to say, and she realized he, too, was caught in the problem of needing to appear as if he had not told her they were being watched. Why had he warned her about the camera? He

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seemed to make a decision, and his brown eyes were serious as he gazed at her.

"He was taken to meet with the Protectant," he said. "Shortly after he left this room earlier today. No one's seen him since."

"Well," she said dryly. "Let's hope he and his father are having a nice chat."

He turned toward the door. "If you 11 excuse me," he said. "I'll be back for the tray in ten minutes," he said. "Help your' self to more water if you want it." He nodded toward the bathroom.

Water? She wanted to scream. What she needed was to get out of here. She gripped her fists together and turned away.

The door closed softly behind him, and she let out a whoosh of pent-up air. What was she supposed to do now? A camera was aimed at her every move. She was afraid to look up at the little white device in the corner of the ceiling, but she was certain now that that's where the camera lens was hidden.

A burst of realisation hit her: the camera didn't reach the bathroom. And that was where Sgt. Bartlett had gone. Trying to look unconcerned, she walked first to the window, then to her tray to take the last morsel of bread, and then, with her glass, she headed into the bathroom. She stepped around the corner, closed the door, and stared at what she saw on the mirror glass:

1 Chance

October 24, 2390

Sgt. Bartlett had written the message with the wedge of blue soap that lay by the faucet of the sink. Her heart pounding, she dampened a corner of towel and rubbed frantically at the soap on the mirror. October 24, 2390, she thought, repeating the date in her head to memorize it.

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Her hand went still on the glass.

She already knew that date. That was her brother Odin s birth date. She instinctively drew her fist to her lips.

"I can't believe this," she whispered. "He's my brother."

Could she be sure? What if there were other advanced babies born on the same date? The answer "would be right in the code.

Checking the mirror one last time to be sure it was clean of any evidence, Gaia walked back into the yellow room. With a soft clink, she set the glass on the tray, and then stepped before the code. It took her several minutes to look up his birth date, but it was clear that only her parents' names were listed by that date. Sgt. Bartlett was her brother Odin. Unquestionably. Her mind was racing.

Sgt. Bartlett's blond hair and fair complexion made no sense to her because she and her parents were all dark. But it was possible, she supposed. Not all children looked like their parents. He was going to be astounded by the news.

When he returned, she must be ready for anything. She put the little mirror in her pocket. Doubtless Mabrother Iris, or whoever had been watching, already knew what she had discovered-- she'd been quite open with Leon while she was unraveling it, but she'd do all she could not to reveal anything more on her own. She ordered all her notes in a pile so they'd be ready for her to grab.

There was a soft rap on the door and Sgt. Bartlett opened it. Expectant, she took one look at his face and knew he had a plan, but more extraordinarily, she saw an echo of her father in his brown eyes. Now that she knew to look for it, the faint resemblance was unmistakable. She was struck with pleasure, and then fear.

"We have seventeen seconds to get out," he said quietly.

Gaia grabbed her papers and flew after him down the hall.

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He led her down a narrow staircase, up another, through several doors, and around half a dozen corners. At a closet, he pulled out a red cape with a hood.

"Go through the school courtyard," he said. "Move slowly, straight through the school, and go out the opposite door. You'll be in the street. From there you'll have to find your own way."

"Where are you going?" she asked. She hadn't expected to split up from him so soon.

"That's my business." He was putting on a brown shirt and a dark hat. "Quick," he said. "Who are my parents?"

She gripped his hands tightly. "Bonnie and Jasper Stone from Western Sector Three," she said. "You're my brother."

His cheeks went pale as incredulity and amazement made him frown. He stared intently at her face, as if memorizing and testing every feature.

"How is that possible?" he said.

"It's true." She knew it in her bones, in the deepest fiber of her being. "You're Odin Stone. You have an older brother, too, who was also advanced to the Enclave. I don't know who he is here. Our father's dead. Our mother's imprisoned, but I don't know where."

There was a noise from above and shouting. Terrified, she reached for him, and he crushed her to him for an instant.

"My sister," he said, his voice cracking. "It's worth it, then." He pushed her away. "Go! Now!"

There was another shout and loud footsteps on the staircase above, and then she gripped the knob of the door and pulled. She heard more shouts behind her, but didn't dare to look back. She could only hope Sgt. Bartlett was getting away. She pulled her cloak carefully around her face and walked across an open courtyard, shadowed and hollow sounding with night. It was painful to keep her stride normal when every instinct urged

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her to run. Glancing up, she saw a woman closing a window, but the woman paid no attention to Gaia below.

When Gaia reached the door, the knob opened smoothly in her fingers. She had to push with her shoulder to make the heavy wooden door open, and her fear increased again. What if the next door was locked and Sgt. Bartlett had sent her to a dead end? A light flickered on in the hallway and illuminated cream-colored walls. To her right, the hallway opened on a lit' tie room with a fireplace that glowed with coals.

An elderly woman in white glanced up from beside the fireplace. "Good evening, Masister," the woman said in a sleepy voice.

Hardly daring to breathe, Gaia said, "I serve the Enclave."

"And I," she murmured, turning back to the fire.

Feeling like an imposter who could be exposed at any moment, Gaia walked purposefully down the hallway, passing closed doors and a tall, old-fashioned grandfather clock that ticked quietly in the stillness. At the end of the hall, the passage opened in two directions, and on impulse Gaia turned left, the darker direction. She had progressed only a dozen paces when she realized she'd made a mistake. She was in a kind of dormitory, with two rows of beds. Her arrival caused a light to go on automatically above her, and the blanketed shape on the closest bed turned in her direction.

"Where've you been?" a girl's voice whispered, sounding annoyed and curious.

Gaia backed up a step. The person sat up further, and Gaia could see she was a teenage girl in a white nightgown, close to Gaia's own age. Brown curls framed an oval, open face with a straight nose and a generous mouth. Her eyes were growing rounder, and she instinctively pulled the blanket up toward her chest.

"Who are you?" the girl said, her voice still quiet.

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"My mistake," Gaia said, backing up another step.

If the girl let out an alarm, Gaia would be caught. Gaia pulled the hood of her cloak nearer the left side of her face, but the movement was another mistake. The girl gasped.

"You re that girl with the scar!" the girl squeaked.

"Shh!" Gaia said. "Please!"

Gaia turned and fled as quickly as she could, retracing her steps and continuing in the other direction. Around another corner, she found a large wooden door that matched the first one she'd come in, and she opened it firmly. Soldiers were running down the street, and she backed up, waiting until they passed.

She slipped through the doorway and into the street, heading away from the direction the soldiers were going. Her heart lurched with every step, and she couldn't get her bearings. She wanted to go downhill, but whenever she tried to, she saw more soldiers, so she was forced to head uphill. Finally she came to a street she recognized. A cafe was brightly lit, and men were laughing loudly in a group by the bar. If she headed uphill, she would come to the garden where she and Leon had talked once. If she circled back, she might be able to reach the bakery with the black oven, but that was close to the Square of the Bastion again, where there would certainly be more soldiers. She didn't know what to do.

At that moment, the men in the cafe burst into laughter, and two of them came out, calling good-byes. They headed toward the left, and on impulse Gaia turned back, west, toward the square.

She hurried now, losing her nerve. It seemed she could hear footsteps and voices all around her. Walls boxed her in on the right, and lights bolted on above whenever she came to a streetlamp with a motion detector. Cameras, she feared, could be anywhere. She turned a corner, and saw a group of soldiers

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approaching from the other direction. Her heart sank into her black shoes, but there was nothing to do but keep walking toward them, hood up, shoulders square.

She was about to enter the ring of light from a streetlamp when she heard a sharp, low voice from her right.

"Stone!"

A thick-bodied, short man beckoned to her from a dark doorway, and she almost wept with relief. Ahead, the soldiers were picking up their pace, on line to intersect with her.

"Quickly!" the man said again, but Gaia was already speeding toward him.

He pulled her in with a strong hand and shut the door behind them. Gaia was in a narrow passage with a low ceiling. The air smelled of garbage and urine, but as she hurried behind the man, she could see a warm, yellow light ahead of her. He pulled her through another door and closed it tightly, sliding a bolt across it.

Gaia had never been so happy in her whole life. Before her, warm and massive, stood the hearth of the black ovened bakery.

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Chapter 19 Jacksons' Bakery

THE BRICK OVEN WITH its massive chimney bisected the bakery into the front shop area where Leon had only the day before bought her a small black loaf, and the back work area, where now Gaia stood catching her breath. The warm smell of bread welcomed her like an embrace. A great wooden table stood in the center of the room with a lamp above casting a circle of light upon it. The white string for the lamp had a small measuring spoon tied to the end as a pull tab, and the metal gleamed from use. A teenage boy and a no-nonsense woman stood quietly before the oven, their sleeves rolled up and their hands flecked with flour and bits of dough. Just then, the back door opened again, and a young girl of nine or ten with bright pink cheeks hurried in. The girl threw back the green hood of her cloak, grinning.

"You found her!" the girl said.

The baker ruffled her light brown hair in a loving, proud gesture that reminded Gaia of her own father. "Didn't I tell you she'd come?"

"How did you know?" Gaia said.

The woman wiped her hands in her copious apron. "We've

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been watching for you nonstop since we heard you were moved to the Bastion. If ever you had a chance to get free of the guards, it would be now or never. Mace was hoping you d try to come to us."

"I was looking, too," the girl said excitedly. "I was supposed to call 'Stone!' to you, and if you showed me your scar face, I would take you in."

Gaia slowly pushed her hood back and watched the curiosity on the girl's face as she inspected Gaia's scar.

"Exactly," the girl said, sounding satisfied.

Gaia smiled, but she knew she wouldn't be safe there long. "I was seen coming in with you," she said, turning to the baker. "You can't keep me here or you'll be in trouble."

"I don't think so. That was a sauna parlor, there, where I found you," the baker said. "They'll just think you were working the late shift."

Gaia was baffled. "A sauna parlor?"

She saw the baker and his wife hesitate.

The girl clarified in her open, childish voice. "He means it's a brothel."

The baker clapped a hand to his forehead.

"What?" the girl said. "It's a very discreet, high-class brothel. Tell them, Oliver."

"Real nice, Yvonne. Thanks," the teenager said, blushing. His mother looked murderous. "Hey, Ma. It's not like I go there. I just told her-- "

"Enough," her mother said. "Why don't you go up on the roof and keep an eye out? Tell us if any guards start up our street."

The teenager ducked his head and vanished up a narrow flight of stairs.

The baker cleared his throat. "Ah. Well. Here's a nice introduction to our family. My precocious daughter there is Yvonne,"

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he said, nodding at the girl. "I'm Mace Jackson, and this is my wife Pearl. That was Oliver."

Pearl came over and gave Gaia a big hug.

"What you've been through I can't begin to think," she said in a gruff voice. She gave Gaia a roll of warm, buttery bread, swirled with cinnamon and sugar, and pushed her gently onto a stool. Her kindness should have made Gaia relax, but she could feel anxious jitters in her veins as she sat down, and though her mouth watered, she couldn't take a bite of the cinnamon roll.

"What's our plan?" Gaia said to Mace.

"It depends on what you want to do," he said.

She took a deep breath, holding the roll between dainty fingers. "What are my choices?"

"I could get you out of the city at daybreak," he said. "Oliver and my apprentice, Jet, often go out for wood, and they could take you with them in the bike cart. It would be risky, but I think it could be done."

Gaia remembered the carts drawn by bikes that occasion' ally came out of the wall. She pictured herself hiding in one, maybe under some sacks. She'd be in danger of discovery every time the cart lurched over a bump or a guard poked the sacks.

"Is there any other choice?" Gaia asked.

"You could stay with us," little Yvonne said. "We have an extra bed in my room."

Gaia glanced from the girl to her mother as Pearl shifted backward slightly. Though Pearl's expression remained concerned and kindly, there was sorrow in her gray eyes that Gaia didn't miss.

"Thank you, Yvonne," Gaia said gently.

The girl took a step nearer and tilted her face in a bashful smile. "It was my sister's bed," she said. "I know she'd want you to use it."

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Pearl cleared her throat in the silence.

"But not for long," Gaia said. "It wouldn't be safe for you."

"Were safe enough, as long as you stay inside," Pearl said. She hesitated, and then touched her chin with her knuckles in a thoughtful manner. "My other daughter, my Lila-- she died last year from complications of hemophilia. We decided then, all of us, that if we could do something to help the people out' side the wall, then we would. We didn't guess that a girl would show up on our doorstep, let alone the one who saved that convict's baby, but here you are."

Gaia lowered her gaze for a moment, doubting she was worthy of their kindness. "Do you think the people outside the wall could have helped save your daughter? Is that why?" she asked quietly.

Pearl shook her head, her eyes dry and lost looking for a moment. "No. Nothing that simple. We just don't want any other family to go through what we've gone through."

Mace was rolling up his sleeves. "We're thinking a generation ahead, if you get my meaning. For the whole Enclave, the way we're supposed to. My family carries the recessive gene that leads to hemophilia, and so, well-- " He stopped himself. "That's neither here nor there."

"No, please. I want to know."

She saw Mace and Pearl exchange a glance. Then Pearl leaned her knuckles on the edge of the table as she sat on a stool.

"There's too many of us now carrying the hemophilia," she said. "There's children like Lila all over the Enclave, and their families are all grieving. I don't know if we need to advance a ton more children or just open the gates permanently, but it's time to start working with the people outside the wall. They're the ones who are going to save us in the end."

As Gaia pondered Pearl's altruistic explanation, it changed

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how she saw the people of the Enclave. This family's loss was being played out all around the city, everywhere a child died. The problems of inbreeding, she realized, had already affected real families.

Mabrother Iris was trying to solve that problem on a massive scale. And yet, she didn't see how identifying the parents of advanced babies from Western Sector Three would help. There must be more to it, something Mabrother Iris had not told her.

"You understand it's dangerous for us to say this," Mace said. He looked at Yvonne. "This can't go any farther than this room."

"I know, Daddy. I didn't say anything."

"Have you heard some girls were arrested today?" Gaia asked.

"They weren't arrested. They were taken to a special school," Pearl said. "Some boys were taken, too."

"And why were they chosen?"

"They all had a certain freckle pattern on their ankles," Pearl said.

"Oh, no," Gaia groaned. She closed her eyes and bent her face into her hand. "It's started," she whispered. The Enclave had already made a move based on what she'd told them. It was her fault! She looked up again, blinking. "They're going to control more and more," she said. "Who gets taken without notice. Who you marry. Who gets to keep their babies. Can't you see? We have to stop them."

Mace let out a laugh. "You're taking this way out of proportion," he said.

"No," she disagreed, stepping nearer to the table. "We have to stop them before it gets out of control." Her mind leaped ahead. "We have to get rid of the wall."

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Mace lifted his hand. "Nobody's ripping down any wall," he said calmly.

"I don't understand," Yvonne said. "What do the freckles have to do with getting married?"

Gaia leaned closer to Yvonne so she could speak to her at eye level. She forced her voice to stay calm. "The freckles show that an advanced person was born in my neighborhood outside the wall. That's all. But for some reason, the Protectorat cares especially about those people, enough to take them tonight."

"And you think he'll experiment on them or something?" Yvonne asked, her eyes widening.

Gaia didn't know what to tell her. She glanced up at Pearl.

"No," Pearl said soothingly, putting her hands on the girl's shoulders. "He wouldn't do that. Gaia just got a little excited, but she's just guessing at things, aren't you, Gaia?"

Gaia glanced at the girl with her large, solemn eyes. The truth was, she didn't know what the Protectorat's plan was, but she was certain he had one, and that she was missing an important piece of the puzzle. "I think," said Gaia, making a decision. "That you'd better help me get outside the wall. As soon as possible. I don't want to get you all into trouble."

"No," said Pearl. "I don't believe in this tear-down-the-wall agenda, but you need to stay here, with us. You'll be safe here, and you can think through your plans rationally. There's no immediate hurry. Whatever help you need, we'll give. Isn't that right, Mace?"

His dark eyebrows were set in a line, and he nodded.

Gaia took a deep breath, and finally took a little bite of the bread in her fingers. It was so good, so moist and buttery and rich, that she made an involuntary crooning noise in the back of her throat.

Yvonne laughed. "See, Mom? I'm not the only one who

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makes that noise. Don't we make the most incredible cinnamon rolls?"

Gaia swallowed, smiling. Something about Yvonne re' minded Gaia of Emily when she was little, and she couldn't help liking her. "Yes. They're spectacular."

"Would you look at the time?" Mace said. "We've got some work to do. Yvonne, go and get Oliver back down here. Then see if you can't catch some sleep before school. Take Gaia up with you. She's not leaving today, in any case."

Pearl was already dumping a huge pile of dough onto a floured board, and she punched it powerfully with her fist before she broke it in quarters and started kneading.

Gaia slid out of the way.

Yvonne pulled her hand and grabbed an extra cinnamon roll on the sly. "Come on," she said, and scampered up the narrow wooden staircase, her feet making a quick, merry clatter. It took Gaia a moment to realise why the noise surprised her so much: it was a sound of happiness, and she hadn't been around laughter or happiness for a long, long time. She took a deep breath, deliberately forced the tension to ease out of her shoulders, and climbed up after the girl.

Gaia awoke to the noise of a door closing downstairs. The room she shared with Yvonne was in the back of the apartment over the bakery, and for the three nights she'd been there, she'd been smelling the bread in the ovens all through her dreams: warm, buttery dreams that soothed her heart and gave her hope that everything might still work out all right. She missed her parents, and for some maddening reason, she missed Leon, too. She had despised him as the worst sort of betrayer when he left her in the Bastion, but based on what Sgt. Bartlett had said, he had been detained by his father. It seemed likely to her that he was enjoying a nice cup of tea with

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his father and Mabrother Iris right now, happy to finally be back in their good graces. But maybe, just maybe, he was trapped in the Protectorate web as much as she was.

She wished she could have gotten more information out of Sgt. Bartlett-- Odin. She pondered her brother. Did he have any memory at all of his life before he was advanced, she wondered. Did his old name register in any deep part of his mind? She knew so little about him, but he'd done a brave thing, helping her. He had done it without even knowing yet that she was his sister, too. She hoped he was okay.

Late morning light dropped in at the window, barely touching the white curtain that covered the lower half of the glass and swayed gently. Just outside, the leaves of an aspen flickered. A bee flew against the window with a faint thud, failed to find the opening several inches below, and flew away again.

Much as she felt safe with Mace's family, Gaia knew she couldn't stay. It was too dangerous for them, and she had to resume her life somehow, somewhere. There must be a way to find her mother still, now that she was out of prison. Tempting as it was, she couldn't destroy the Enclave single handedly, so she needed a realistic plan.

She considered all her options, even the bad ones. If she left the Enclave and Wharfton, she had no idea where to find the Dead Forest. If it even existed. Mabrother Iris had been so certain it was a myth. As far as she knew, her grandmother, Danni Orion, had been dead for years, but now she wondered if her parents had used the terms interchangeably: dead and Dead Forest. She shook her head. She had been very young when her grandmother disappeared. All Gaia could remember of her was a gilt-edged monocle she had worn on a beaded chain around her neck, for she had been intrigued by the way it caught the sunlight. And then, gradually, Gaia had understood

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one thing clearly: her grandmother was gone and was never returning. She had been as good as dead.

Gaia circled back to the cipher of Old Meg. The Dead Forest must exist. Everything else Old Meg had said had turned out to be true. How could Gaia find her mother, rescue her, and take her to a place she couldn't locate?

Another cinnamon bun might help.

Gaia sat up and slipped on the soft tan dress that Pearl had given her. There was a row of small white buttons down the front, and the waistline nipped in before the skirt filled out again with no concern for conserving fabric. She couldn't help flipping back the hem to inspect the workmanship of the seams. They were no finer than what her father might have sewn outside the wall, but the cut of the dress was distinctly different from the outside style. More feminine.

Footsteps beat a hollow rhythm on the stairs. She was reaching for her shoes with her toes when Mace's hand braced on the doorjamb, and he hauled himself up the last step and into the room.

"Hello," he said, smiling his sweet, broad smile. He was panting from exertion. "You re up, then."

She gave him a little smile, and smoothed back her brown hair. It was getting a bit longer by now, long enough to get in her eyes but not long enough to stay behind her ears. He sat opposite her on Yvonne's rumpled bed. The girl was long gone with her brother to school. At least that much of what Gaia had believed about the Enclave was true: the children all went to school during the day. Yvonne had told Gaia that she was learning about adding glucose from the honey farm to the mycoprotein vats, and Oliver was studying solar panel technology.

For a few short days, even though they were in danger every minute that she stayed with them, they had absorbed her

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into their family. Their loss of Lila shifted like an empty shadow about the rooms, strangely familiar to Gaia. Yet, unlike her family's loss of Arthur and Odin, the Jacksons' loss was raw. They evinced no mitigating belief that Lila was alive and better off someplace else, and in that way, the Jacksons' loss seemed worse.

Gaia fingered the ruffle of a little pillow on Lila's bed. Mace leaned forward and gently slid it out of her hands to hold it himself. "She was younger than you," he said. "Not yet thirteen."

'Tm sorry," she said softly. She noticed a sizable bruise on Mace's arm and wondered if he had a mild version of hemephilia himself. "Wasn't there anything they could do to treat your daughter's illness?"

Mace shook his head. "One doctor was trying to. She tried injecting patients with a blood-clotting protein, but many of them developed antibodies and died anyway. The Protectorat shut down her research and put her in jail. He accused her of starting a hospital."

"Myrna," Gaia said.

He tilted his face, interested. "Myrna Silk, yes," he said. "I accept the Protectorat's decision. It's not about curing one child. It's about solving the problem on a larger scale, maybe with a genetic breakthrough, for all of us." He turned the pillow over, and she watched him trace his strong finger over two initials embroidered in purple thread: L. J. "But still. I miss my girl."

Gaia leaned across the space between the beds to rest her hand on his. She didn't know what to say, so she simply stayed quiet with him. After a long moment, he put the pillow back on Lila's bed.

"Tell me something," he asked gently. "Are you sure your mother's still alive?"

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She pushed the hair back from her forehead. "I saw her sleeping in a round cell. On Mabrother Iris's screen desk. He has a camera on her and two other women. That was four mornings ago. She was still alive then."

"A round cell?" He sounded surprised.

Well, the walls were curved. I saw a curtain move in the wind, so it has a window. I don't know if the window has bars." She stood to pace, wrapping her arms around her waist, but she could only take a couple of steps in the little room before she had to turn again.

Mace was pulling absently at his ear. "I may know where your mother is," he said.

Gaia inhaled sharply. "Where? What do you know?"

He spoke thoughtfully. 'I've heard there are three women in the southeast tower of the Bastion. The room you're describing sounds like the place. It's a special cell they keep for important people. A pregnant political prisoner there has a midwife and another attendant with her all the time, so she can't do any thing to herself or her baby."

"And you think the midwife is my mother?"

"It's possible," he said. "The prisoner was moved there around the same time your mother was taken out of the prison."

"How do you know all this?" Gaia asked.

"There's a woman at the Nursery who's friends with my wife. They go way back, and they still get together for coffee every couple of weeks. She's the one who told us about the political prisoner."

"Masister Khol?" Gaia asked.

His eyes flashed. "You know her?"

Gaia's heart lifted with another burst of hope. "She gave me a message from my mother once. I think she might help us. Do you really think that's where my mother is?"

Mace crossed his massive arms over his chest. "I'm almost

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positive. Your mother would be kind to a pregnant prisoner, wouldn't she? Even if your mother was a prisoner herself?"

Gaia laughed and pushed her bangs out of her face again. "My mother would be kind to the Protectorat himself if he were pregnant. That's what she does." Her mind was leaping ahead, trying to figure out how soon she might be able to get to her, and how she would get her free. A tower sounded bad, but not as hopeless as Q cell. Her excitement slowed.

"The camera," she said. She slid her hands into the pockets of her dress. "There's a camera aimed at the women in the tower."

"Ah," Mace said. "That's another problem, then."

They couldn't just cover up the camera, she realized. She didn't even know how she'd get back into the Bastion, let alone into a tower prison cell. She sat on the bed again. If only she had Leon to help her.

Wrong, she thought. Leon couldn't help her. Even if he weren't off passing tea cakes to the Protectorat, he would probably keep telling her to cooperate. And where had that led her?

"What do you know about the Dead Forest?" she asked. "Mabrother Iris said it didn't exist, that it was only something out of a fairy tale. But a friend of mine said she was going there."

Mace's eyebrows jogged up and down, and he pushed out his lips in contemplation. "I don't really know about it," Mace said. He eyed her warily. "If it exists, it must be way out in the wasteland, or past it. You're not thinking of going there?"

"Where else is there to go?" she asked. "We can't stay here. If they catch us again, I know they'll kill us. It's amazing they haven't already. As long as I was cooperating, there was a chance they would let me go, but I ran."

"You don't know they'd kill you," he said.

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"Why not? They hang people all the time for less. Why not kill me, when I really am a traitor?"

He leaned back, resting his weight on one hand. "It depends on your perspective," he said. "Think from the Enclave's point of view. It's true you saved that convict's baby. Very high pre file maneuver, that. And, you broke out of the Bastion. On the other hand, you have valuable skills as a midwife. You also have a lot of potential, genetically speaking."

Gaia eyed him curiously. "You mean, they would keep me alive because I could become pregnant?"

Mace lifted a hand. "Why not?"

She flushed with indignation. "I'm not some cow they can use for breeding. And there's nothing extraordinary about my genes just because I'm from outside the wall."

He shrugged. "Perhaps not. But you are from Western Sector Three. There are many ways to be a criminal or a hero. Don't forget that."

Gaia leaned against the doorframe and idly rubbed a little dent mark in the blue wood.

"You know that soldier you said you escaped with?" Mace said.

"Sgt. Bartlett," she said. She hadn't told them he was her brother.

"I found out today that he's disappeared. I don't mean arrested. He was seen outside the wall, asking questions about your parents, and now he's gone."

Gaia felt relief for her brother, and then a stirring of hope. There might be other ways out of the wall, and maybe Sgt. Bartlett had gone to the Dead Forest.

She turned again to Mace. "I need to know everything I can about the Dead Forest. How far away it is, who goes there, how to find it. Is that where you get your wood?"

Mace shook his head, his expression puzzled. "There are

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some windfalls east of here, left over from a blight a few years back. That's where we get our wood."

She came near and sat beside him on the bed. "I need to know what's out there," she said softly, but with growing conviction. "I'm going to find my mother somehow, and when I do, I'm taking her to the Dead Forest." As she said it, she realized this had been her plan all along, no matter how crazy it sounded.

She studied his heavy profile, with his large nose and ruddy cheeks. Then he clasped his warm hand upon hers. "I can't say I know anything about the Dead Forest, but don't worry," he said. "We'll think it all through carefully. I'll talk it over with Pearl, and we'll find a way."

Her gaze fell again on Lila's small embroidered pillow, a tangible reminder of loss. And courage. Her mother was still out there, alive and needing her, and Gaia wasn't going to give up.

"I'm all she has," Gaia said. "If I can't free her, nobody will."

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Chapter 20 Forty-Six Chrome Spoons

IT WAS YVONNE'S IDEA to make the mask. She first suggested that they just cover Gala's scar with flour and cinnamon, but since the uneven surface of Gaia's left cheek would still be conspicuous, Yvonne suggested a true mask.

"I don't see the point," Oliver said. "All of the Enclave is on the lookout for her now. She's been on the TV broadcast for the last three nights. She'll never even get close to the southeast tower. As soon as anyone stops her and looks closely at her face, they'll see her mask and know it's the girl with the scar."

"Not if it's a good mask," Yvonne argued.

"And not if she's a boy," Pearl added.

It was night, and they'd pulled shades over the windows of the bakery. Licks of firelight were visible in the cracks around the iron door of the brick oven, and within, trays of bread were baking. The redolent, yeasty smell made the kitchen warm, and the lamp above the table made the shadows withdraw to the corners. A pot of leftover soup from dinner was cooling on the hearth. Gaia gazed around at the wooden paddles, the wheeled racks with tray after tray of dark, baked loaves, and pale, white loaves that still needed their time in the oven. She didn't know

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when Mace and his family ever slept, and now, at nearly mid' night, they were still up and working on a plan to help her get to her mother. Mace had left to try to talk to Masister Khol.

Gaia looked doubtfully at Pearl. "I may be ugly, but I'm no boy."

Pearl sat beside her at the table and took Gaia's slender fingers in her warm hands. "Maces apprentice isn't much bigger than you," Pearl said. "We have extra clothes for him here, and if we pad you a bit in the right places, we can disguise your figure."

As Gaia realized they were in earnest, she could feel nerves jangling in her belly. She pulled her fingers free from Pearl's. "But will a mask really work?"

Pearl took Gaia's chin in her fingers and tilted her face to the light. Gaia submitted to the inspection and kept her gaze on Pearl's eyes. She knew what Pearl saw.

"How did this happen, child?" Pearl asked gently.

It was such an old story that Gaia should have been inured to telling it again, but somehow, because these were her friends, it bothered her more to tell it. "When I was a baby learning to get around, I walked into a hot vat of beeswax. Not into the liquid wax, you understand, although some had dripped out. I walked up against the vat itself."

Pearl frowned, and traced her thumb gently along Gaia's sensitive jaw line. Her wide, no-nonsense face was hard for Gaia to read. Then she reached for Gaia s hands again and inspected her palms, one by one, turning them upward as a fortune teller might.

"It doesn't fit," Pearl mused aloud. "Why aren't your hands burned, then?"

Gaia curled her fingers closed, confused.

"When a baby's falling, she tries to catch herself with her hands," Pearl explained. "You would have burned your hands first."

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Gaia shook her head. "That would depend on the height of the vat and the angle I was falling. I don't actually remember it, but that's what I've been told."

Pearl tilted Gaia's face toward the overhead light once more before she released her. "I know burns, Gaia," Pearl said. She pushed up the sleeves of her dress and showed her own muscular arms, the pale skin flecked with little streaks of brown, a myriad of new and older, fading scars. "When you work with hot trays and ovens all day long, you naturally get your share of nick burns, and worse from time to time. A burn such as yours-- well. I wondered if someone did it to you on purpose."

Gaia drew back from the woman. The only people who could have hurt her like that were her parents.

"It was an accident," Gaia said quietly.

"What does it matter now?" Oliver asked. "Can you cover it up?"

Pearl settled her sturdy body back on her stool, and slowly nodded. Gaia dropped her gaze to her hands in her lap, wishing she could erase what Pearl had said.

Yvonne clapped her hands together. "I knew it! Mom once made the most amazing mask for me for school. I was supposed to be this ghost girl, and nobody even recognized me. Tell her, Mom. You do it with a crepe, right? And flour mixed with spices to make just the right color powder. Right?"

As a silence stretched out, Gaia felt Pearl's eyes on her even when she wouldn't look up. Her wrists had healed from when she had been tied several days before, but the skin was still tender when she tentatively pressed on the marks. She couldn't bear to think that her own parents might have burned her, but she couldn't forget it, either.

"I'm sorry," Pearl said gently.

Gaia sniffed once. "I just know you're wrong," she said.

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Pearl gave her shoulder a quick squeeze. "Then I'm wrong," Pearl said. "Come. Let's figure out this mask."

There was a light tap on the door. Everyone froze. Gaia's gaze flew to Pearl, whose rigid expression told Gaia it was not Mace outside. Silently, Pearl pointed Gaia toward the stairs, and Gaia flew up them as noiselessly as she could, stopping near the top where she could crouch to peer back down. Her heart thudded in her chest as Pearl turned out the light, and then Gaia heard the big door open.

"Please," came a whisper. "Let me in."

Gaia clenched her hand on the banister.

"Were closed," Pearl said sternly. "Come back in the morning."

"Wait!" the voice came again, more clearly. "Derek Vlatir sent me."

Gaia's heart leaped in recognition and then fear. Leon! Why had he come? She couldn't see anything down below except a faint beam of moonlight falling on the floor. Pearl opened the door to let him in. The moonbeam widened, then vanished as Pearl clicked the lock closed.

"Oliver. A candle," Pearl said.

There was a scratching noise and a match flared. Leon stood just inside the door, his back to the wall.

Pearl had a knife pointed at his heart.

"You'd best explain yourself, son," Pearl said.

Oliver lit a candle and placed it on a brick that protruded from the oven. He held a cleaver in his other hand. In the faint light, Gaia could see Leon's face and disheveled clothes. His jacket and hat were gone. From her angle, she couldn't see his eyes under his messy bangs, but wariness was visible in his motionless form and the tight line of his unshaven jaw.

"What do you want with us?" Pearl said quietly.

"Mace Jackson knows my father."

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Pearl was standing very straight. "We do not have the honor of being acquainted with the Protectorat," she said.

Leon kept his hands against the wall behind him. "My real father is Derek Vlatir. He sent me to you."

Pearl slowly withdrew the knife. Gaia, gripping the banister, came down a step and saw Leon s face open with surprise when he glanced up. She almost believed he was happy to see her, and then his expression dimmed.

"You re here," he said quietly.

Pearl glanced sharply at Gaia. Gaia came down the rest of the stairs and went to stand beside Yvonne, who slid her arms around her waist. Confused emotions kept Gaia silent, but her breath came quickly, and she peered intently at his lean, disheveled appearance. The single candle flame cast a weak light over his skin and the black of his shirt while he held himself motionless.

Leon turned back to Pearl. "Derek Vlatir was questioned tonight because the Protectorat believed I would go to him for help. He was right, and the guards nearly caught me. But Derek sent me back through the wall, and now-- " He stopped. He shot another look to Gaia. "He thought Mace would help me."

Gaia thought rapidly. If what he was saying was true, then in the last four days, Leon had unraveled the rest of the code, gone all the way outside the Enclave, found his birth father, and then returned.

"Why didn't you return to the Bastion?" Gaia asked.

"I can t."

"Why didn't you leave for the wasteland?" she asked.

"I couldn't," he said, his voice low. "I didn't know where you were."

A strange, slow flip moved in her gut. She swallowed hard. She didn't know what to say.

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Pearl put her knife up on the rack and pulled the little hanging measuring spoon to turn on the light again.

"Clearly, you two know each other," she said. "Put back your cleaver, Oliver."

"But he's the Protectorates son," Oliver said. "We're harboring a fugitive. He could get us all killed."

"You heard the boy. He's not exactly waving the Enclave banner tonight, is he?"

Oliver put away his cleaver, and Yvonne slipped away from Gaia, stepping toward the table.

"Are you a fugitive, too?" Yvonne asked.

Leon shifted his gaze to the girl, and his voice softened. "Apparently."

The girl nodded, and Gaia breathed more easily. Pearl moved to the oven and opened the door to stir up the coals. She moved the pot of soup that had cooled on the hearth back into the embers.

"Have a seat," Pearl said. "Let's hear what news you have."

Leon hesitated, as if waiting for a cue from Gaia, and with a nod she beckoned him forward. He accepted a chair and brought it up to the table. Gaia uneasily took a place opposite him. In the brighter light, she could see his black shirt was of a rougher quality, like ones men wore outside the -wall. Though he smiled slightly at Yvonne when she drew up a stool near him, Gaia could see the edginess in him.

"I know where your mother is," he said. "She's alive and in fair health."

"In the southeast tower," Gaia said.

He tapped a slow finger on the table. "How did you find out?"

"Mace told me."

He nodded, his gaze sliding toward the oven. "I also found out where your father's buried," he said.

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Gaia waited, tense, and Pearl came to put a hand on her shoulder.

"He's in the potter's field, outside the wall," Leon said. "Where they bury paupers."

Gaia closed her eyes as sorrow, for a long moment, silenced everything inside her. It hurt to think of her father, and there was something terribly final about knowing where his body reposed. It should have been some small comfort to know he was outside the wall, but she only felt the hard stone of her grief melting inside her, which was even worse.

"There now," Pearl said. "He's at peace, honey. You just remember that."

Gaia opened her eyes and turned to Leon. "Why did they arrest my parents in the first place?"

Leon rolled his black sleeves to the elbows before resting his forearms along the wooden tabletop, and still he didn't speak.

"Did my parents actually do something wrong?" Gaia asked.

"I don't think so. No."

"Then why-- "

"They kept a record. That was why they were arrested."

"But keeping records isn't illegal," Gaia said. "How did the Enclave even know about it?"

"We heard a rumor that one or more of the midwives were keeping records, and then, when we questioned your parents, they were obviously hiding something. Once your parents refused to cooperate with us, they technically became traitors."

She realized that he was evading her gaze, and that he had been since he'd come in. Something had happened to him in the last four days. A quickness was missing from him. She felt a barrier between them, too, one that caused a quiet coolness to settle within her.

She dropped her voice. "What's really going on with my mother's code?"

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"I'm trying to figure out how to explain," he said. "It's intricate."

Oliver leaned back into one of the darker corners, idle and watchful, while Pearl brought Leon a bowl of soup.

"Thank you, Masister," Leon said.

"You might as well eat something while you answer Gaia's questions," Pearl said. "Just start from the beginning, and we'll try to keep up."

Gaia could feel him gating past her shoulder, sorting through memories or information that was invisible to her, and then he lifted the spoon from his bowl of soup. Little Yvonne held up a finger. "Don't drip," she said.

"Imagine," he said to Yvonne, "that your mother gave you twenty three spoons for your birthday." He slid the spoon between his lips.

Yvonne's eyes lit up. "That's a crazy gift."

He set the spoon back on the rim of his bowl. Gaia pulled her sweater more securely around her and leaned back, watching him answer the girl.

"Yes," he said to Yvonne, his voice warming. "But they were very interesting spoons, all made out of chrome, and each one was a little different from the others so you could tell them apart. And then, to your surprise, you opened your father's birthday gift, and it was twenty three more chrome spoons. When you looked at them closely, you could match up your father's spoons with your mother's spoons into pairs."

Yvonne scrambled off her stool and came back with a couple of spoons. "Like this," she said, setting them on the table under the light.

Leon nodded. "Yes. But remember, there are forty-six all together, half from each parent."

"Chromosomes," Oliver said, coming reluctantly forward from his corner. "We learned about this in school. The chrome

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spoons are chromosomes, and we have them in every cell of our bodies."

"Go on," Pearl said.

Leon held his soupspoon up toward the light so that its edges gleamed. "Each spoon has dents all along its length, so many you can hardly see them all, each right against the next, some longer and some small. The dents are genes. How a dent on one spoon interacts with its matching dent on its matching spoon determines what traits you have, like brown eyes, or connected earlobes."

"Or blood that clots properly," Pearl said softly.

Gaia looked over to see her watching Leon closely.

"Yes," he said.

Gaia expected Pearl to mention Lila, but she said no more. Yvonne fidgeted restlessly beside her, and Gaia patted her knee reassuringly.

"Are we getting to my parents?" Gaia asked.

"I said it was complicated," he said.

Her pulse jumped at the slight edge in his tone. That was more like Leon.

"We 11 get there, Gaia," Yvonne said. "What's DNA? That's what I want to know."

"It's the chrome of the spoon," Leon said, running his finger-tip along the whole length of the spoon. "It's what makes up every dent, the basic material of every gene, from one end to the other. I'm not saying everything about you is determined by your genes, but they matter a lot."

That fit with what she knew, Gaia realized, with her eyes fixed on his spoon. She had never quite understood what DNA was, but with the chrome in all the variety of those spoons and dents, she could easily see that each person's DNA was unique.

"Okay, go on," Yvonne said.

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Leon frowned briefly. "There's another part of the story. They've found an Enclave boy, a toddler named Nolan. He has the genes that say he should have hemophilia, but he doesn't have it. His blood is fine."

Pearl gasped. "How can that be? Did they cure him?"

"No," Leon said. "His parents brought him to Mabrother Iris's lab when his older brother's hemophilia became apparent. His was mild, but they worried Nolan's would be bad. Instead, the lab determined that Nolan was born with some beneficial suppressor gene that's counteracting the hemophilia." He paused. "It's like there's a dent on some other spoon, far from the hemophilia dent, that cancels out the hemophilia."

Gaia frowned. "Is that possible?"

"Yes. And that's why Mabrother Iris is so excited." His voice darkened. "Nolan's mother is from the outside. And she has a freckle tattoo on her ankle."

Gaia exhaled an enormous breath and leaned back in her chair. "Oh, no," she whispered. Focus on the freckle tattoos would bring more attention to Western Sector Three, which could only make things worse for people there.

"I still don't understand," Yvonne said. "Why does that matter?"

Leon brushed back the hair over his ear, and turned toward the girl. "There are really three steps for what happens next. First, the Enclave has to identify more kids like Nolan who don't have hemophilia even though their genes say they should. Second, they want to identify the suppressor gene," he said. "They can find it one of two ways: breed Nolan with other kids like him, or track back through their family trees to narrow in on the gene by a process of elimination. Of those two options, the second one is far more humane and faster, too. Once they identify the suppressor gene, they're ready for the third step: they can test everyone to see who has the suppressor gene, and

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those people can be selected to marry hemophilia carriers to eliminate hemophilia in their children."

Gaia watched him stir his spoon once through his soup, as if he were losing his appetite.

"My head's spinning," Pearl confessed. "What does this really mean for us? For all of our friends inside the wall right now?"

Leon set the bowl aside. "They're taking the freckle-tattooed girls and boys to test them to see if they're like Nolan, carrying the suppressor gene. It won't be very invasive. They'll just take some blood and a swab sample from inside their cheeks. When they identify a few more people like Nolan, then they'll locate their parents."

"From outside the wall?" Pearl asked.

"Yes. From outside the wall. And they'll work back from those parents to study the family trees."

"But the freckles aren't a guarantee of anything," Gaia objected. "There's no connection between the tattoos and the genes."

"I know," Leon said. "And Mabrother Iris and the Protectorat know that. But the people with freckle tattoos are the only ones we can work with, the only ones with known birth parents."

"Because of my mother's code," Gaia said.

He nodded. "It was the key," Leon said. "They were watching us through a camera. I should have known. Bartlett should have told me. They've deciphered it all by now."

"They were using you, too?" she said.

He nodded once. "When they saw me go into your room, all on my own, they couldn't believe their luck."

"Did Sergeant Bartlett set you up?"

"I don't know for sure. It wouldn't be like him. Not on purpose. He just knew I was interested in you."

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Her heart gave another little kick. What, she wondered, did Leon say to Sgt. Bartlett about me?

"What will they do once they identify the suppressor gene and find the people who carry it?" Gaia asked.

Leon templed his fingers together, and they cast a sharp shadow on the tabletop. "They're thinking long term. Once they can identify the suppressor gene, they'll test all the babies outside the wall and take the ones who have it. They're patient," he said.

The dawning horror made Gaia momentarily speechless. "All of them?"

"They'll be the most desired, most precious advanced children ever," he said flatly. "The mothers of those children will be encouraged to have as many babies as possible, all for advancing. And when those babies grow up, they'll have their pick of the elite families to marry into."

Pearl cleared Leon's soup bowl away. "It all sounds awfully farfetched," she said.

"Accept it. It's fact," Leon said.

Gaia leaned forward and gripped her hands together upon the table. "What happened to you, after you left me?" she asked.

A muscle clenched in his jaw. "I went to my fa-- to the Protectorat and Mabrother Iris. Mabrother Iris congratulated me on my progress with you and explained the promise of the suppressor gene." His voice dropped to a low, mocking frequency. "He told me who my parents are. Always a reward with Mabrother Iris. And then he wanted to know if I could find the baby you saved, the one from the executed couple."

"You're kidding," Gaia said.

Leon passed a hand before his eyes, and when he lowered it, he still wasn't looking at her directly. "That baby could be another one like Nolan. They want you back, Gaia. They want to hold you up as a hero for saving him."

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"No," Pearl muttered.

Gaia s breath caught.

Leon shook his head. "I told them the baby was dead," Leon said.

Pearl was leaning against the sink. "Is it?" she asked.

Leon turned to her and spoke quietly. "I don't really know. There's no trail in the black market for babies, unless Masister Khol keeps some record. And she'd be a fool to do so." He shifted back toward Gaia's direction. "That's why you have to leave. You re not safe anywhere here, not in the Enclave, not in Wharfton. If they find you, they'll use you. You won't have any choice."

Gaia sat in silence among the others, her mind reeling with the new information. The Enclave wanted to use her for political purposes. That was worse than them wanting her dead, but she was even more concerned for what would happen to the families in Western Sector Three. They stood to lose even more babies.

"They must be stopped," she said.

"How?" Oliver asked.

"I don't know. But there has to be a way."

Leon shook his head. "You can't do it, Gaia. They're too powerful. And they'll persuade people this is for the best. They always do." He closed his eyes briefly and rubbed his forehead, as if he were deeply weary. "And maybe it is for the best, in the long run."

"You can't believe that," she said.

His voice dropped low. "I don't know what I believe. I don't trust them, but I can, actually, see how finding the suppressor gene could help."

"You're saying reproductive slavery would be all right?" she demanded. "You're saying taking more babies from their mothers would be fine?"

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He finally, reluctantly, lifted his gaze to meet Gaia's. If she had ever thought there was something dead inside Leon, it was nothing compared to the bleak, unfeeling emptiness she saw in his eyes now.

"What happened to you?" Gaia said.

His gaze dropped and his hands went still on the table.

Pearl put a hand on her shoulder. "Be easy, Gaia," she said. "It's a lot to take in. I have to tell you, if I heard there was some little boy growing up outside the wall right now who could marry Yvonne some day and they could have healthy children, it would open doors, not shut them. A lot of us trust the Enclave to do the right thing in the long run. They always have."

"If that's true, why are you helping me right now?" Gaia demanded. "Don't you realise you have to take a side?"

Pearl folded her strong arms across her chest in a way that implied she could not be budged. "I have to live here," Pearl said quietly. "My life is here. It's not perfect, but it's the best we have. I'm helping you because my heart tells me it's the right thing to do and because I can. That's enough for me."

Gaia struggled with her confusion and forced herself to think ahead. "We still have to get my mother out," she said. "That's our first priority. Agreed?"

A sigh of relief went through Yvonne and Oliver, and Pearl hitched up another stool with a shuffling noise. "Here," she said, producing a roll of wide paper.

"What's this?" Leon asked.

"A map," Oliver said. "We were looking at it earlier."

For the first time, the old Leon seemed to stir. "What's your plan, precisely?" he asked, pivoting the map to face him.

Gaia tilted her face to try to see it at his angle. The parchment was tattered at the edges, and some of the lines were smudged and reworked from repeated updates, but it -was a

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complete map of the Enclave and Wharfton, with streets and sectors carefully marked. Gaia found it odd to see her world set out in two dimensions, without the elevation that was so much a part of rising from the unlake to the gate, or entering the Enclave and climbing gradually toward the Bastion. Still, it gave a clear perspective on how near and far things were. She traced her finger gently over the little line of Sally Row, where her home stood in Western Sector Three. Her father, she knew, would have loved this map.

"Mace has gone to ask Masister Khol to take me up to my mom," Gaia said. "I'm going to be disguised as one of the boys, carrying a bag for her. We'll take a cutting tool in case there's a lock or chains we need to deal with, and then we'll throw a rope out the window for me and my mother to climb down."

Leon looked skeptical.

"What?" Gaia demanded, crossing her arms over her chest. "Do you have a better idea?"

He cleared his throat, and to Gaia's annoyance, he couldn't quite hide a smile. "The part with Masister Khol isn't half bad," he said. "But you'll never get down a rope. Not unless you have some mountain-climbing experience I don't know about."

Oliver laughed. Gaia sat stiffly on her chair, and Pearl nudged her elbow. "We did have our doubts about them climbing down the rope," Pearl admitted.

Leon held out an upturned hand as if to say, see?

"You're not the only one with strong arms," Gaia said.

"I'm sure yours are quite burly," Leon said. "But how are your mom's?"

Gaia tugged the map back in her direction. "Are you going to help or not? The Bastion and the prison are here, and the southeast tower here." She pointed. "After we get my mother, we can exit either through the main south gate if there's some

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distraction, or here, where there's a concealed passage by the garbage pit." She looked up to see that Leon had come around to her side of the table and was looking at it over Yvonne's head.

"Why not the north gate?" he asked.

"We have friends in Wharfton. I thought they could help us hide and get supplies before we go farther on. How did you get inside the wall from Derek's?" Gaia asked.

Leon lightly touched the line of the wall in another place. "Here, by the solar grid plant," he said. He hesitated, and then pointed to first a street and then a honey farm on the map. "There's also a tunnel here, and here, that leads into the wine cellar of the Bastion, here." He pointed again.

Gaia shook her head. "That's too far from the tower to help us." She studied the map and the ominous way the roads all ended at the interior edge of the wall. "Mace offered to smuggle me out in a bicycle cart when the boys go out for wood."

Leon slowly shook his head. "We can't smuggle out all three of us. It will have to be this passage, here." He pointed to the spot by the solar grid plant, on the southeastern edge of the Enclave.

All three? she thought. Was Leon planning on going outside the wall with them? "I suppose," she agreed.

"Then what will you do?" he asked. "Have you thought about surviving in the wasteland at all?"

She traced her finger north to where the map ended. "The Dead Forest is north of here. That's where we're going. To the community there."

Leon leaned back slightly. Yvonne hitched her stool nearer and leaned far over the map, inspecting it. Oliver and Pearl exchanged a glance.

Finally Leon spoke. "There's nothing north of here but wasteland, Gaia," he said quietly. "The Dead Forest is a myth."

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Gaia glanced at Pearl and the others, waiting for them to contradict him, but they remained silent.

"I thought so, too, once," she said. "But it's real." In the face of their doubt, she tried to remember how she knew it was real. "Outside the wall we know this," she said. "People go there."

"Because they die," Oliver said.

"No," she said. "I have this friend, Old Meg, who said she was going there." She stopped, looking at Leon and remembering how he had asked her about Old Meg the night she left Wharfton.

"And does anyone ever come back from the Dead Forest?" Leon asked pointedly.

She knew what the truth was, even if she had no proof. "No," she said.

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Chapter 21 Happiness

LITTLE YVONNE LEANED closer to Gaia and put her slim arm around her shoulders. "I believe in the Dead Forest," she said sweetly.

Pearl let out a low laugh. "Come on, pumpkin. You're nearly asleep on your stool. I think we should all try to get some rest, frankly. Yvonne and Oliver, go on to bed now."

Yvonne complained briefly, but Pearl was firm, and soon the brother and sister said their good-nights and left. Gaia didn't see how she could sleep with her plans still so inchoate, and she drew the map nearer again. When Pearl braced a hand on the doorway and turned once more toward the kitchen, Gaia glanced up. Leon was on his feet, looking respectfully in Pearl's direction.

"We don't have another bed," Pearl said. "But you could sleep on the floor in Oliver's room. I'll have him leave you a blanket. I'm sorry. It's the best I can do."

"Don't worry about me, please," Leon said.

It occurred to Gaia that Leon had risen deliberately, according to Pearl the deference a gentleman routinely showed a lady. Now Pearl straightened and cast a last look in Gaia's direction.

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"Get some sleep, Gaia," she said. "Tomorrow's going to be a long day."

"I will."

"Do you mind turning the light out? You can open the door of the oven for some light. Just bank the coals and close the door before you go to bed. I expect Mace back in another hour or so, but keep the door locked."

"Of course," Gaia said.

In another moment, there came the quiet, hollow sound of a door being closed down the hall, and Gaia knew she and Leon were alone. He flicked off the overhead light, and she waited for him to open the door of the oven before she blew out the last candle. The warm, golden light from the oven spilled out onto the floor and brought little reflections to light on the rims of pans and cooking utensils hanging on the walls. She became aware of dough rising on a rack of trays behind her, as if it were gently alive with its yeasty scent.

He sat slowly again, and pressed his face into his hands so that his dark hair spiked through his fingers. She loosened her grip on her sweater and fingered one of the little buttons of her dress. He'd hardly looked at her the entire time they'd been talking with Pearl's family, and she wondered if that would change now that they were alone.

After a moment, he slouched sideways, leaning his stubbly cheek in one palm, his gaze toward the map. He ran a finger along the lines of Sally Row like she had earlier. "Were you happy growing up outside the wall?" he asked.

The question was so unexpected she found herself letting down her guard a bit. "Why do you ask?"

"I can't help wondering if I would have been better off out there, growing up in Derek's family."

She smiled. "That's ridiculous. You've had every advantage."

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"Have I?"

"How can you even ask that? You've had decent food from the minute you were advanced. And warm clothes and an education. Not to mention rich, powerful parents. I saw your glamorous life on the Tvaltar whenever there was a Protectorat Family Special, so don't tell me your life wasn't perfect."

She reached out to trace a black burn mark on the tabletop. Her eyes were slowly adjusting to the near-darkness, and as long as she avoided looking directly into the oven, her eyes stayed perceptive. She could see him well enough to realise he was back to avoiding her gaze.

"So what was it like for you, growing up?" he asked. "Really."

"Really," she echoed slowly, trying to figure out how to sum up an entire childhood. "It was pretty good when I was really little. We were poor, like everyone, but I didn't know that. Our house was at-- well, you know it's at the far edge of Western Sector Three, and I liked it there, with all that room to explore and grow." She nodded toward that part of the map. "My parents worked during the day and kept me near them, but in the evening I could always get one of them to go exploring with me. I loved that, especially going down into the unlake."

"And did you have friends?"

"I had two friends. Well, one really. Emily lived across the street from me. We liked to play dress-up with my dad's scraps of fabric."

"And are you still close?" he asked.

She glanced over at him, puzzled. "Why do you want to know all of this?"

His voice was quiet in the silent room. "I'm just trying to picture your life. I'm trying to figure out how you're so different from anyone else I've ever met."

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This surprised her. "I am?"

He shifted in his chair so that his profile was aimed toward the oven, and one of his boots extended toward the hearth. The door was propped open, and the red coals inside still pulsed with heat. The collar of his black shirt fell open slightly and slid away from the nape of his neck.

"What changed as you got older?" he asked.

Gaia tried to think what to tell him, and at the same time, she felt an odd urge to resist him, like he was pulling at some' thing fragile inside her. She stepped over to the sink and turned on the tap for a cup of water. "Do you want some water?" she asked.

"Please."

She poured another for herself and brought them over. "Do you have any idea how amazing it is to me that I can get water out of faucet in this kitchen?"

He raised the cup to his lips, but held it there without drinking. "Explain."

She pulled up her chair again and swallowed a sip. "To get water outside the wall, I used to take my yoke pole and two huge bottles to the spigot in the wall for our sector. Usually old Perry, the waterman, was there with his big buckets and funnels, and he'd help me load up. I'd give him some basil or eggs in return. But if he wasn't there, I'd have to sit at the spigot waiting slowly to fill each bottle. The spigots are really slow, you know. Sometimes there was a line. It could take ten minutes or more to fill my own bottles, and then I'd carry them back with my yoke."

"I thought water was delivered to your family. That was one of your payments for your mom being a midwife."

She laughed. "How much water do you think a family goes through? That payment never lasted out the week, and when my father was dying fabric, we needed bottles and bottles of water."

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She leaned her elbows on the table and took another sip from her cup.

"So you hauled water," he said. "What else?"

She shrugged. "I helped my mom with her herb garden and took care of the chickens. I'd run errands for my dad. I don't know. Gleaned. Hung laundry. Helped cook. All the kids I knew were always working."

"But were you happy?" he asked.

She didn't know how to answer him. Would he want to know that she'd had nightmares for months after one of the neighborhood boys died from a fever? Or that kids teased Gaia endlessly about her face? Those walks with the loads of water were the worst, when she couldn't run, couldn't use her hands to defend herself, and any pig of a boy who wanted to throw something at her could. She'd been starved for ideas and information, never able to sate her curiosity. There had been the slow, burning grudge against injustice, too, as she'd grown to realize people on the other side of the wall weren't struggling like they were in Wharfton.

Then again, she'd loved her parents deeply and joyfully.

Gaia set aside her cup, grateful when he didn't press for an answer. Good or bad, happy or not, that life was over for her now. She couldn't exactly go back and resume her duties as midwife of Western Sector Three.

Her hair was loose, her bangs falling irritatingly into her eyes. She reached up to plait some of the ends into a little braid, adding in just enough so that she could make some of the hair stay behind her right ear, at least until it all slipped free again. "I'm sure you were happier inside the wall than you would have been outside," she said. "You know, you could probably still work things out with your family. You haven't done anything too unforgivable, have you?"

"I needed to think and find my real father, so I left. Does

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that sound unforgivable? They sent soldiers to track me down." He shifted again to lean an arm on the table and drum his fingers once on its surface. "We should work out our plans for tomorrow."

She nodded. "I'll go up with Masister Khol to get my mother and try to come right back down the stairs with her. Then we'll bring her back here and at night we'll figure out how to get outside the wall."

"If you need to, you can go into the Bastion. There are interior doors to the tower." He pointed to indicate the direction on the map.

"That's good to know."

"If you don't come back out, I'll go in to find you. If you run out of options, try to work your way upward, toward the roof. They won't expect that. And I'll start looking for you from the top down."

It was there, unspoken between them. Why would he help her now when he hadn't helped her before? Sgt. Bartlett had found a way to help her out of the Bastion. Why couldn't Leon have done the same thing?

"I'm still taking the rope," she said.

"Go ahead. Just don't get your neck broken. I don't suppose you'd let me go in for you instead."

She shook her head. She wouldn't trust him to do it right.

"That's what I thought," he said. "Even if you do think I have strong arms."

Startled, she glanced up to find him watching her. "I didn't exactly say that as a compliment."

"No?"

A bit of ember shifted in the oven, making a brief flare of light, but otherwise the room was still. She didn't know what to make of him, or how to feel, but it was far more confusing

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when he was inspecting her with a curious, receptive expression.

"Are you teasing me?" she asked.

He started slowly to smile. "Should I?"

She was momentarily speechless. Then she frowned. "What do you know about Sergeant Bartlett?" she asked.

"Besides that he helped you out? That messed up every thing, you know."

"That depends on your perspective," she said.

"Are you friends with him?"

"Sort of," she said. "What's he like?"

Leon stood and took a knickknack off the mantel: a tiny eggbeater that looked more like a toy than a tool. He spun the little wheel. "Jack's like a lot of guys. Works hard. Not a bad shot. I guess he likes to sing. Why?"

Gaia wished she'd had a chance to know him.

Leon gave the wheel such a spin that one of the beaters broke off. He swore and reached for the little piece. "Forget it, Gaia. He's not your type."

"And how would you know what my type is?" she asked.

"It just isn't Jack."

"Why, because he's nice to me?"

He shoved the little pieces of the broken eggbeater at her. "Can you fix this?" he asked.

"He's my brother, all right? Jack Bartlett is my brother, Odin Stone."

Leon sat again, his expression puzzled. "Jack is? But he doesn't look anything like you."

"Thank you. Brilliant observation. Very useful."

"All right. No need to get touchy."

"Jack Bartlett got me out of the Bastion. Jack Bartlett didn't leave me there with no way to get out and no explanation."

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She reached for the little pieces and began to arrange them in a row on the table. Leon lifted his empty cup and turned it in his hands, and as the silence stretched out, she knew she had to know, even if she revealed how vulnerable she was.

"Why did you leave me?" she asked in a tight voice.

She watched him slowly turn the cup once more and loop his thumb in the handle. When he looked at her this time, his eyes were alive with regret. "I'm sorry," he said softly. "It was a mistake."

"But why did you do it?"

His fingers stilled. "I thought I could negotiate for you and your mother. When I saw the girls in the courtyard, I realized Mabrother Iris must already be acting on your information somehow, and I thought he would be grateful. I thought I could persuade my father and Mabrother Iris to let you go."

"But they wouldn't?"

He shook his head. "They refused. They wanted me to persuade you to return to them, like I said before, as their newest hero."

"And you said no."

His eyes flicked away. "Gaia," he began. "It was utterly hopeless. I felt like I'd betrayed you completely, like they completely manipulated me. And then they started explaining about the suppressor gene and how much your mothers records mean to them." He glanced back, his lips parted. His cheeks had taken on color with the warmth of the oven, and his blue eyes were dark and alive. "My fathers an incredibly persuasive man. I'd forgotten."

"And that's when he convinced you their plan is okay?" She could feel her anger percolating up again.

"I don't know," he said. "I don't know what I think. If your father told you something he was completely convinced of, wouldn't you listen to him?"

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"My fathers dead."

She shoved her chair back with a jerk. She was trying to understand Leon, but it was hard. It all seemed to come back to his relationship with his father. Much as he tried to deny it, the Protectorat really was his father. He was the one who had raised him, and he was the one who still had strings in him, even though they'd been estranged for years. That much was clear to her. It seemed terribly unfair to her that he still had his father, even as difficult as that relationship was, when her own father was lost to her.

"I'd like to hear about your family now," she said. That would only be fair.

"It's a boring story."

"Just any old thing," she said. "I told you about my child' hood."

"All right," he said slowly. "Maybe you'd like to know a secret about the Protectorat Family Specials."

She guessed from his tone that they weren't all they'd seemed to be. She could still picture the sunny scenes of the family in the Bastion gardens, the boys with their impeccably white shorts and clean knees, the twin sisters in matching yellow dresses. A particular apple picking scene came to mind. It had been her favorite, with the kids swinging from the low' hanging, apple-laden branches.

"We practiced them for weeks," he said. "There was not one unstaged, genuine moment in any single one."

"You're kidding."

"Believe me. We kids hated doing them, and finally, when Rafael was around seven, he flatly refused to do any more. It was the only time I was grateful he could throw a fit."

"What about your sisters? Did you play with them when you were a kid? Hide-and-seek in the Bastion?"

"Hide-and-seek," he said slowly, and she could hear the

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weight of complex emotions behind the simple words. She would have liked to see his eyes, but he turned toward the oven again.

"We did play hide-and-seek. And chess. And all sorts of games. They liked it when I lost." He touched the door of the oven with his boot. "It's Fiona and Evelyns birthday tomorrow," he said.

Gaia was surprised. "You mean, today?"

"Yes. I guess today. This is the first year they've celebrated since Fiona died," he went on. "Evelyn 's turning fourteen. The family's invited half of the wealthiest families to the Bastion for a party. There's supposed to be fireworks at the end."

"Are you supposed to go, too?" she asked.

He shrugged and gave half a laugh. "Evelyn invited me, but I was told quite clearly not to come."

She waited, hoping he would continue. "Tell me," she said softly. "I want to know more. What were you like when you were little?"

He smiled slightly. "I was the most uncoordinated kid imaginable. When I started playing soccer, I would fall every time I kicked the ball. I mean, actually fall down. But I stuck with it. Then it took me forever to learn how to read. I couldn't keep the letters straight. They thought I was stupid. Even Rafael learned to read before I did."

"I didn't know that."

Leon shrugged. "They didn't put that in the specials. I made up for it later, though, once I finally got the hang of it. I loved school."

She envied him that. One by one, she clicked together the pieces of the little toy eggbeater. "How much younger than you is Rafael?"

"Genevieve had Rafael when I was four, and the twins showed up the year after that." The golden light from the oven

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reflected along his nose and jaw. His gaze was pensive. "Genevieve is really the only mother I've ever known, and she was very kind to me when I was little. I'll give her that. But my father absolutely doted on his new family, and I was, well-- " He paused. "It was natural, I suppose, for the rest of them to be close."

It was curious to see Leon become more serious as he talked about his family. Gaia tried to remember the boy version of Leon in the Tvaltar specials, the dark-haired, older one, usually positioned in the back. She'd always been captivated by the little sisters with their bright curls and laughing faces, so it had been natural to overlook him. It wasn't hard to believe that Leon had been subtly excluded from his own family.

"So, Fiona?" she asked. "Do you miss her?"

Leon shook his head briefly. "I don't talk about her."

She remembered what the women of Q cell had said, and wondered if she could get to the truth behind the rumors. "And your aunt?" she asked.

He turned, his expression puzzled. "Aunt Maura? What about her?"

She swallowed thickly and wished she could take it back.

"What have you heard about my aunt?" he asked, his voice colder.

"Nothing."

"No. You've heard some rumor, haven't you? What have you heard?"

She looked miserably down at her hands and gave the toy a little spin. It worked perfectly. She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks.

He let out a sharp laugh. "I should have known," he said. "I'm telling you about my family, things I've never told anybody, and you just want to know if the rumors of incest are true."

"I didn't say that."

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"They're not. Okay? I haven't slept with anyone, related to me or not. I don't much care if you believe me, but there it is."

She wanted to sink down into a pool of black slime and evaporate. "I'm sorry."

Leon stood, took the miniature eggbeater to return it to the mantel, and moved to the sink. She heard him quietly cleaning out his cup, and the faint squeak of the faucet. Something about his controlled, quiet movements made her feel even worse. When he held out a hand for her own cup, she passed it to him wordlessly. He washed it, too, and turned it upside down on the rack.

"You don't have to help me tomorrow," Gaia said.

He turned, folded his arms, and leaned back against the counter. "You know what? You re pretty good at pushing people away from you. Did you know that? Maybe that's why you had only one friend growing up."

She shook her head. "That's mean."

He ran his hand back through his hair, gripping it above his forehead. He looked tired, and exasperated, and hurt. Gaia had no idea what to say or how to take them back to the comfort' able feeling they'd had before. She only knew she didn't want him mad at her. And that made her feel weak and vulnerable, which she didn't like at all.

She stood and backed toward the stairs that led to the room she shared with Yvonne. "It's late," she said lamely.

"Fine. Go to bed, then."

"Are you going to sleep in Oliver's room?"

"No."

She glanced back at the table, chairs, and stools, and the totally utilitarian space of the kitchen, knowing there would be nowhere comfortable here for him to sleep. She was about to protest when she heard a soft click from the hallway and then quick footsteps. Pearl entered the kitchen doorway.

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"Is Mace here?" she asked in a worried voice. "I thought I heard him coming."

"No," Gaia said. But a moment later, a noise came at the door, a low, distinct pattern of knocking.

"Close the oven," Pearl whispered.

As soon as Leon did and the room was dark, Pearl unlocked and opened the door to the outside. Mace Jackson slipped inside, followed closely by a woman in a long white cloak. A fresh swirl of cool air spiraled through the kitchen as the door closed again, and then the dim room was very still. The fiery flickers around the edge of the oven door were the only light.

"Pearl?" Mace asked in the darkness.

"At last," she said.

When Gaia struck a match to light the little candle on the brick of the oven, Mace and Pearl were in each others arms. With Pearl's broad shoulders and Mace's powerful bulk, they were like two bears embracing. Gaia had to smile.

"Who's this?" Mace asked, his voice deep and low, his black eyes directed over Pearl's shoulder toward Leon.

"He's a friend of Gaia's," Pearl said quickly.

"He's Leon Quarry," Mace said severely, releasing Pearl. "Do you have any idea what would happen to us if they found him here?"

Gaia stepped slightly in front of Leon. "It's not like that," she said. "I'm sorry, Mace. I never meant to-- "

"Derek Vlatir sent me," Leon interrupted. "He's my father. He told me to come to you."

Mace peered at Leon closely, and then he picked up a knife. "I don't care what Derek said."

"Mace," Pearl said firmly, with a warning hand on his arm.

"Please," Gaia said. "He's with us now. With me. We just want to rescue my mother, and then we'll leave."

Mace's eyes flashed to Gaia, and he looked pained. "Not

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him, Gaia. He's worse than scum." His voice dropped in warning. "You don't know what he's like."

"Yes, I do," she said. "And I'm telling you to trust me."

She turned to Leon beside her and saw his eyes were tight with restrained anger. He said nothing to defend himself. Mace made a disgusted noise and jabbed the knife back in its block. Then the woman in white who had remained by the door moved forward into the candlelight. Gaia recognized Masister Khol. Her lips were turned down with disdain.

"Who would have guessed? Both of you here," Masister Khol said, looking first at Gaia and then Leon. "The whole city's looking for you."

Leon's voice was carefully neutral. "Have you come to help us or threaten us?"

Masister Khol stiffened into a more imposing figure. "I didn't know you were involved with the girl," she said to Leon.

"Wait. Please," Gaia said, stepping forward again. "We just need your help to get me to my mother. That's all. If you 11 just do that much, we'll be grateful."

"It's never just that much," Masister Khol said. "I passed you a note once from your mother, but did it end there?"

Gaia didn't know what to say. She turned to Pearl, and Pearl moved beside Masister Khol, speaking too softly for Gaia to understand her.

Gaia glanced at Leon, but his face was impassive. Mace tugged on the overhead light. Crowding past Leon and ignoping everything else, Mace washed his hands. Then he pulled a wide, flat board from a shelf, set it on the table and dusted it with flour from a sack on the counter.

Gaia stood helplessly, watching Pearl and Masister Khol, until finally they turned.

Masister Khol spoke to Mace as if he were the only person in the room. "Sometime this morning, I'll be crossing the

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Square of the Bastion with a heavy basket. If I see a boy there to carry it for me, I'll take him with me into the southeast tower. Nothing more. He can stay for five minutes. I have important work to do for the Enclave and no time for this nonsense. I refuse to be implicated if a crime is committed."

Mace bowed his head briefly. Gaia had a million questions, but Mace gave her a hard look, and she remained silent.

"Thank you, Joyce," Pearl said. "I appreciate it. I really do."

Masister Khol turned to the door. With one hand on the latch, she paused and turned her face toward Pearl. "If I could lessen your real loss, Pearl," she said, "you know that I would. I wish you wouldn't deceive yourself that a stunt like this makes any difference." A moment later, she was gone.

Pearl dashed the back of her hand across her eyes and clapped her hands together once. "You heard Joyce," Pearl said. She reached for her apron. "We've got no time at all. She'll take you up, Gaia, but the rest is up to you. She'll have to be able to say she was tricked just like anyone else. Let's get Oliver and Yvonne."

Everyone jumped to action, moving as swiftly and quietly as possible. Oliver was sent to find some of Jet's apprentice clothes for Gaia, and some of his own for Leon. Yvonne was braiding lengths of laundry line into a sturdy rope. Mace worked the dough before him with silent, unhurried movements, and when the next trays of risen dough were in the oven, he started to load the cart to take to the market. Pearl wrapped a long swatch of brown cotton cloth around Gaia's torso, bulking up her waist and shoulders with padding. When Gaia slipped on the apprentice's blue shirt and pants, followed by a white baker s apron and a brown coat, Yvonne turned from her web of laundry line and giggled at her.

"You look like Jet on a bad day," Yvonne said. "Even the hair."

"Thanks," Gaia said.

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She took a couple of strides in the pants, getting used to the feel of them. Women in Wharfton wore pants occasion' ally, if their work called for it or the winter turned cold, but it wasn't common. Gaia hadn't worn leggings since she was a girl.

"You have to walk with your legs apart, like this," Yvonne said. She demonstrated, giggling.

Pearl had whipped together a quick, thin batter, and it hit the flat skillet with a hissing noise as she poured a super thin crepe.

"Hat," Pearl said curtly, and Yvonne sprinted upstairs, returning shortly with a boy s deep-brimmed brown hat.

Gaia twitched in her clothes, trying to get comfortable, and she watched Pearl lay two thin crepes to cool on a flat, clean towel. They were circular and light, with a flexibility and texture that were surprisingly like skin.

"They're too pale for her," Leon said, pausing as he passed through the kitchen with an armload of baguettes.

"What do you know? Get out of my way," Pearl said. "Go shave, why don't you?"

Leon shot Gaia a quick look, almost a smile, and then he and Oliver and Mace were busy with preparing the cart. They kept opening and closing the front door of the shop as they normally did when loading up on market day, and the cool air brought goose bumps to Gaia's arms and neck.

"Sit," Pearl said, pointing Gaia toward a stool directly in the light. She touched Gaia's chin, and Gaia obediently tipped her face upward, closing her eyes. She felt cool dabs of a pasty substance being applied to the scarred skin of her left cheek, and she was amazed by the firm tenderness of Pearl's touch. Next she felt a cool, damp, suffocating fabric cover her entire face, and she had to fight back an instinctive fear. An instant later, the right side was lifted away, and Gaia realized Pearl

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had laid one of the crepes on her face and bisected it down her nose. With her eyelids still closed, Gaia was intensely aware of Pearl working closely over her face. She could feel the woman's breath against her neck, and sometimes her ear, and she could hear a faint clicking noise Pearl made in the back of her throat as she concentrated.

Next there was a brush of powder that Gaia felt distinctly on her right cheek and forehead, but as only the faintest pres' sure on her left side. Pearl made a dissatisfied sound, and Gaia heard her turning back to her flour and spices. A moment later, Gaia felt more brushing, and Pearl blew sharply on her face so that Gaia winced.

"It's awful," Yvonne said, and Gaia's eyes shot open in alarm.

Yvonne was grinning at her, and Pearl, inches away, was frowning as she touched the mask like new skin on Gaia's left check.

"Well, it's obviously a speed job," Pearl said. "But it will do, if you keep a hat on and they don't look too closely." She sat back on the opposite stool, and Gaia cautiously sat upright. She kept expecting the crepe to fall off her skin, it was so lightly applied. Yvonne passed her a mirror, and with bright eyes, she watched Gaia over the rim of the glass.

Gaia looked at a young boy in the mirror, a tanned, round' faced boy with long lashes, pale lips, and a broad forehead. There was an awkwardness to his nose, as if he'd had it broken once, and there were faint shadows under his eyes, as if he hadn't been sleeping well. As she peered more closely, Gaia saw the seam edge of the crepe where it started on her chin, ran around the left perimeter of her lips, up her nose, under her left eye, and all across the top of her eyebrows to her right temple. Her own brown eyes peered out from between black lashes. She reached up gingerly, but Pearl stopped her hand.

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"It's fragile," she said. "Don't touch it. And don't try to smile or it will buckle around your mouth."

"It's amazing," Gaia said, and saw in the mirror that her left cheek looked odd when she spoke. She would have to avoid talking, too, as much as she could.

"Well," Pearl said with a modest cough. "I think making you a little darker was a good idea. Here. Put some on your hands, too. And settle your hat on. Yvonne, is that rope ready?"

Pearl made Gaia take her coat off again, and stuffed the rope and an extra cloak of Pearl's for Gaia's mother into the back of Gaia's shirt. When Gaia's brown coat was on again, she looked even more like a round young boy who had just started his growth spurt. Pearl shook her head. "Your hands are all wrong," she said. "Too slender."

Just then Mace yelled from the doorway to the shop. "Pearl!" he called. "We're going to set up at the market. Where's my apprentice?"

Gaia's heart froze with fear for one instant, and then Pearl gave her fingers a quick, hard squeeze. She drew her to the front doorway.

"We'll be waiting for you here," Pearl whispered. Yvonne came forward for a hug, but Pearl held her back. "No, don't mess her," Pearl said in warning. "Take these," she said to Gaia. She thrust three little white cubes into Gaia's palm.

"Sugar?" Gaia asked, puzzled, stepping out and holding them toward the moonlight on her open palm. They were smaller and denser than sugar cubes, and Gaia looked back at Pearl curiously.

"They're not sugar. They're for sleep and pain. They work fast and they're powerful, so be careful."

Gaia slid them into the right pocket of her trousers, her mind racing to anticipate how they might be useful. "What are they? Are they for the prisoner in the tower? For Masister Khol?"

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"Yes," she said. "Or for you, if-- Well, you can use your judgment."

Yvonne's young face was a pale blue in the shadowed door way. "They're all we have left over from Lila," she explained.

"Oh," Gaia said softly. She searched Pearl's face, unsure if she should take them.

"Go," Pearl urged her. "We don't need them." The older woman squinted toward where Mace and Leon, now dressed in Oliver's clothes, were waiting with a cart in the narrow lane. Oliver was out of sight.

Gaia spared one last glance for Pearl and Yvonne, who gave a little wave and a big smile, and then she hurried after the cart like a late, contrite apprentice.

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Chapter 22 The Women of the Southeast Tower

THE MONUMENT LOOMED over the Square of the Bastion, a heavy, black presence against the predawn violet of the sky. Gaia's ears were full of the rattle of the cart as its broad wheels traversed the damp cobblestones, and beside her Leon's breath came in a steady rhythm as he and Mace pulled the cart toward the southeast tower. That was their goal: to be the cart nearest the tower when Masister Khol chanced by and needed a boy, any convenient, trustworthy boy, to carry her load up the tower steps. Gaia palmed the crown of her hat to push it down more steadily on her head, glancing forward under the brim. In her pocket, her fingertips curled around the small cubes of white powder Pearl had given her.

In a corner of the square, two guards stood by the great wooden door to the southeast tower of the Bastion. Gaia tried not to look at them. On the opposite side of the square was the familiar arch to the prison, and she avoided looking at that, too, hoping she'd never enter there again.

There were a few other carts already in the square, and more were arriving for market day: a vegetable vendor, a poultry

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farmer with eggs and clucking chickens for sale, the clock-maker who occasionally brought his wares outside to Wharfton and now set up a small stand beside the base of the monument. Later the colors and smells would be vibrant, but now, in the gray light, even the copper bottoms of the pots were the soft, indistinct color of ash. Gaia kept her head down and helped Mace.

"When do you think Masister Khol will come?" she asked.

"I don't know. But were in a good place for when she does. Remember, bring your mother back down to us quietly," Mace said, reviewing the plan they'd finally agreed upon. "If you can walk out naturally, she can sit here in Pearl's cloak, under the sun shade, as if she were one of us. Then we'll leave all together in an unhurried way."

"What if the guards notice?" Gaia whispered. "Which way do we run?"

"That way," Mace said, nodding over his shoulder. "Through the market, and cut over to the arcade and through the candle shop. They have a back door. Is your mother a fast runner?"

Gaia remembered her mother's gentle, steady manner and her graceful, unhurried movements in her brown skirts and dresses. She was a thickset woman nearing forty, strong and fit, or at least, she had been before her arrest. "If she has to be. For a short distance," Gaia said tensely.

Mace smiled, passing her a pair of loaves to arrange. "Then let's hope the guards notice nothing unusual. Remember, there are other doors into the tower from inside the Bastion, which people use regularly, coming and going, so having an extra woman come out should be okay. Be ready."

The square gradually filled with more vendors. The sun topped the buildings to the east, and as the morning hours progressed, it slowly shrank the line of shadow until the entire square was in the full sunlight of noon and the scorching July

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heat. Mace had her help set up two awnings, one for customers in front of the cart and one for them behind. Cicadas started up their slow, whining song of heat. Several times people came out of the door at the base of the tower, passing the guards, but no one went in.

Gaia was afraid every moment that someone would come along and notice her or Leon, but they stayed at the back of the stand and Mace handled the steady stream of slow moving, heat soaked customers. Gaia grew almost sick with the alternating anticipation and disappointment every time she saw some' one who looked like Masister Khol.

"She wasn't lying, was she?" Gaia asked Leon. "It must be noon now, and she did say she'd come this morning, didn't she?"

He had shaved, and his blue shirt made his eyes seem lighter than she was used to, even in the shade of Oliver's borrowed hat. "She's a busy person, but she'll come. She has her own twisted kind of honor."

Mace wiped sweat from his forehead. "I'm almost out of bread anyway. If she doesn't come soon, we'll have to go back. This is already longer than I usually stay."

Finally, across the square, Masister Khol's white figure was visible, walking awkwardly as she carried a round, lidded basket. Gaia was so relieved she could have run to her with tears of gratitude. Masister Khol stopped a few feet from the door of the southeast tower, and set the basket down. With one hand poised at her back, she frowned toward the square. Gaia felt an itch in the back of neck, waiting by Mace's cart. The guards straightened to imposing posture.

"I'm here to check on the prisoner in the tower," Masister Khol said.

One of the guards stepped forward. "What do you have there in the basket?"

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Masister shoved it forward a pace. "A gun and a few knives," she said sarcastically.

The guard laughed, and lifted the lid. "Sunflower seeds and potatoes? What kind of diet is that?"

"It's not a whole diet," Masister Khol said disdainfully. "It's a supplement. She needs more vitamin B6."

He shook his head. "It's always something. When's the baby due?"

"Not for another month," Masister Khol said. "Listen. Do you want to carry this up for me?"

He shook his head, and so did the other guard. "Orders," the first one said apologetically.

Masister Khol put a hand on her hip and turned in irritation toward the square. Gaia had been listening avidly to the exchange, and now she nearly jumped out of her shoes when Masister Khol addressed her.

"You, there!" Masister Khol said.

Gaia looked up, and then, trying to look natural, she glanced at Mace. Around them, the normal hubbub of the market continued.

"Yes, you, boy," Masister said. "Come here and carry this basket for me."

Gaia set down a loaf of bread. Her fingertips tingled with nervousness.

"Leave your apron and hurry along," Mace said to her. "Don't make Masister wait for you."

Gaia untied her baker's apron, threw it to Leon, and made her strides longer as she went to pick up the basket. She had to lean her body away to balance the weight.

The guards laughed.

"That will put a bit of meat on you, boy," the guard said. "Along you go, then," he said, opening the door for Masister Khol. The guard bopped Gaia's hat brim down lower on her

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forehead as she went past, and laughed again. Gaia had a moment of terror, feeling the mask on her forehead press oddly, but then she tried to react as a boy might. She jerked the hat back up, and shot the guard an annoyed look.

"That's the way," the guard said, his voice teasing but not unfriendly.

Her disguise had worked. Secretly delighted, Gaia hurried after Masister Khol, hauling up the basket. The steps spiraled upward in a clockwise fashion, with walls of stone on each side and with oblong windows in the outer wall every dozen steps. She passed several landings with closed doors, as well. The basket grew heavier with each step, but Gaia hitched it up her arm and kept going until her heart was pounding. Her breath came in gasps. The thought that every step was bringing her closer to her mother drove her upward, even as her leg muscles burned. She kept her eyes on the back of Masister s white skirt and the heels of her scuffing, black-soled shoes as she ascended the steps right in front of her. Just when Gaia thought she could go no farther, they reached a triangular landing and Masister Khol stopped.

Masister Khol paused to catch her breath, saying nothing, and a moment later she slid aside a little panel on the door and spoke through the opening.

"It's Masister Khol,'" she said. "We're coming in."

Gaia watched her pull one heavy iron bolt to the left, and the door swung outward.

They were in the tower at last. Gaia's heart lifted with anticipation. My mother! Which one is my mother? She glanced first at a woman who sat in a rocking chair. Persephone Frank, with her distinctive moon-shaped face and brown hair, lowered her knitting and looked up casually at Gaia. Gaia was shocked to find her there. Weeks ago, Leon had told her that Sephie was free and back home, practicing medicine. Yet here she was.