Chapter 13
The Tearland

The Town had changed.

Katie could not adequately describe the change, even to herself. But she sensed it every time she walked through the commons. The streets were different than they had been in her youth, empty and cold. Neighbors had fenced themselves in, and dilapidation had begun to set in here and there among the houses, as those who could not maintain their own dwellings were left without aid. The Town had begun to smell of blight.

One night, forty families had simply up and left. By the time anyone realized they were gone, the group was already far out on the plain, working its way steadily south. Jonathan had wanted to go after them, but Katie had talked him out of it. None of these families were part of Row’s church, and at least half of them had reported grievances over the past year. Even if Jonathan convinced them to return, they would be met with the same persecution they had faced before: rocks thrown through windows and pets slaughtered in the dead of night. Two weeks ago, a mob had cornered Ms. Ziv and battered her with sticks, forcing her to close the library.

Katie might have chosen to leave town as well, had her responsibility not been so great. But since Jonathan was here, she wasn’t going anywhere. All the same, the loss of those forty families had taken a toll; among them had been two of the Town’s best carpenters, several dairy farmers, and—most painful to Katie—Mr. Lynn, who ran the sheep farm. Without him, the quality of the Town’s wool was sure to go down.

There was more than one culprit here—small-mindedness fed off religion just as surely as the other way around—but Katie couldn’t help turning her eyes north, toward the steeple of the little white church at the edge of town. In the year since Row had taken over the congregation, his sermons had steadily darkened, and the church had darkened as well. Row’s God was an avid policeman of personal behavior, and the idea that such policing was anathema to the very idea of the Town no longer seemed to disturb anyone but Katie and Jonathan. Those who weren’t working seemed to be constantly at the church, which rocked and rolled all day long, whether Row was speaking or not. Katie would have liked to blame religion itself, but even she could not deceive herself that fully. A church was only as good or bad as the philosophy that emanated from the pulpit. All of her rage now focused on the people who followed Row, people who should have known better. They must have known better once, or William Tear wouldn’t have brought them on the Crossing. He had chosen his people carefully; Mum always said so. But things had shifted now, so profoundly that Katie could not predict what anyone in the Town would do, except Jonathan and, oddly enough, Row.

She had begun to follow Row almost idly, as a sort of exercise. He was up to no good and she knew it, but that didn’t make him any easier to catch. He went to the church every day, where he gave sermons in the morning and evening to anyone who wanted to listen. Whenever he left the church, women thronged him, and there was a different woman at his house each night, though he was very circumspect; the women never arrived until midnight or one, long after most of the Town was asleep. Katie briefly considered bringing these affairs into the light, but in the end she held her hand, slightly disgusted with herself. She was attracted to Row—that day in his bedroom had never left her mind, not really—and she did not deceive herself that no envy colored her feelings, but private behavior was private behavior, and hypocrisy made it no less so. If she wanted to catch Row at something, it would have to be public, an issue that affected the whole Town. Nothing less would do.

In between sermons, Row went to Jenna Carver’s metal shop, and as the days went on, this devotion to duty began to puzzle Katie more and more. She had asked around and found that Row’s church took care of him: the congregation maintained his house, and the women had once degenerated into an actual scratching catfight over who got to bring Row his dinner. He had no need of a day job anymore. But every day, without fail, he went to Jenna’s shop and stayed for five or six hours. One afternoon, when Katie had found an opportunity to sneak up to the shop and peer in the windows, she found the glass papered over, the window blocked up.

Up to no good, she thought on the way home. She still remembered that night, long ago, when Row had taken her down to the metal shop and showed her Tear’s necklace. But years had passed, and now he might be making anything in there. Katie decided that she had to know.

The next day, she waited outside the shop, concealed behind Ellen Wycroft’s mill. Row had left the shop to give his evening sermon, but Katie had to wait another hour, until dinnertime, before Jenna Carver left the shop as well. The sun had already set; the year was rapidly moving from autumn to winter. On Friday night, the Town would hold the autumn festival, the last party they enjoyed before it came time to seal everything up and buckle down for the snow that was surely coming. Katie had loved the festival when she was younger, but each year since William Tear’s death it seemed more grim, all gaiety forced and everyone in Town watching each other narrowly, looking for signs of weakness. But Jonathan couldn’t skip the festival, so she had to go. These days, Katie rarely let him out of her sight. Virginia and Gavin were with him now, having dinner, but even that arrangement wasn’t perfectly comfortable. Katie liked to guarantee Jonathan’s safety with her own eyes.

Jenna’s front door was locked. Looking around the street, Katie saw no one. In the years since she and Row had come down here, a few people had built houses on the Lower Bend, but now those people were inside for dinner, their doors shut. Half of the lamps on the street hadn’t even been lit. A few streets over, Katie heard a dog barking, short, staccato yaps that repeated over and over. No one bothered to quiet the dog; all of the consideration that had marked Katie’s childhood was long gone.

Seeing that the street was empty, she pulled her knife and bent down to the lock. Her mind remarked that William Tear wouldn’t like what she was doing, picking a lock in a town that had been built on the right to privacy. Then she realized that was nonsense; Tear was the one who had taught them to pick locks in the first place. Picking locks, constructing barricades, knifework, hand-to-hand combat, resisting interrogation . . . Tear had taught them all of these skills. Once, the only locked building in town had been the library, at night after Ms. Ziv went home. But since Tear’s death, people had begun to lock their doors, and even to install additional locks. Most of them were crude, homemade deadbolts and chains, but the lock on Jenna’s shop was real, fashioned of metal and designed to take a key.

Secret police, Row’s voice whispered in her head. Secret police, answerable only to Jonathan.

The knife slipped in her hand. Katie swore, pushing a sweaty lock of hair out of her eyes, and started over again. It took only five more minutes of jimmying before the door clicked open. Jenna was an excellent metalworker, but no locksmith; Tear would have been disgusted.

Katie crept into the darkened workshop and shut the door behind her. Striking a match from the box in her pocket, she spotted a lamp on a nearby workbench and lit it. The glow was thin and sickly, but enough to see by. Casting over the workbench, she found a small wedge of wood and jammed it under the door. If Jenna—or worse, Row—came back unexpectedly, she could break the back window and make a run for it.

She hadn’t been in here since that night five years before, but a quick glance showed that very little had changed. The workbench and tables were still crammed with work in progress. Jenna would make jewelry from scratch, but she also did a healthy business repairing pieces that had come over in the Crossing. Katie held the lamp high as she moved down the long table that was Row’s workbench. She saw several waste pieces of silver, but no sapphire. The drawer where Tear’s sapphire had been, so long ago, was now empty but for a small scraper.

I should have had him watched years ago, Katie thought angrily. How much did he get away with in the dark? How much, while we sat around playing with knives?

But another voice asked her if that was the town she wanted to live in: a community that kept its citizenry under constant surveillance in the name of safety. Tear had said something about that once, hadn’t he? Yes, he had, long ago, when Lear had asked a question about the duty of government to keep its citizens safe. Katie closed her eyes and was suddenly back there: in the Tears’ living room, fifteen or sixteen, with the fire burning and Lear’s question hanging in the air.

“In such cases, Lear, safety is an illusion,” Tear told them. “A discontented population will erode even the most secure state. But even if safety were somehow achievable by force, Lear, ask yourself this: how important is safety? Is it worth steadily undermining every principle on which a free nation was founded? What sort of nation will you have then?”

Katie’s breath halted. She had been running her hand over the surface of Row’s worktable, almost halfheartedly, already aware that whatever was here, she had failed to find it. But her fingertips had just encountered a subtle set of bumps, not rough but sanded down, too symmetrical to be splinters. She brought the lamp closer and stared at what was there: an edge of some kind. She tried to get her fingernails under it, then dug at it with her knife, but nothing doing; the edge was too fine. Katie thought for a moment, then placed her fingers on the raised bumps and pushed down. With a soft, metallic ping, a section of the table popped up, revealing a hidden compartment. Inside was a brightly polished box of deep red wood.

Cherry, Katie thought. There were no cherry trees in town, but Martin Karczmar had found at least a few in his explorations across the river; the cherries he brought back were highly prized in the Town, and even the twigs were highly valued by woodworkers. But to get this much solid wood, one would have had to chop down an entire tree. Who would go to that much trouble?

She lifted the box from the hidden compartment. It had been polished so hard that the surface was almost as smooth as iron. The box had a latch, but thankfully, no lock. Katie thumbed the latch and opened the lid, then gasped.

Nestled inside the box was a crown. It appeared to be solid silver, set here and there with bright blue stones that looked remarkably similar to William Tear’s sapphire. It was a beautiful piece of workmanship; Katie held it up to the light, admiring the thing, but her mind was also working, running far outside Jenna’s shop. Why would Row make this thing, and in secret? What would he need a crown for?

Don’t be daft, her mind whispered. There’s only one answer to that question.

The door latch rattled. Katie nearly dropped the box, then hugged it to her chest. The knob turned, but the wedge she had stuck beneath the door held easily.

Someone knocked.

Silently, Katie set the box on the worktable and tiptoed toward the door, pulling her knife from its sheath. There was a chance that light would leak around the doorframe, but that was all right; Jenna could have left a lamp burning while she went home to dinner. Katie leaned against the door, putting her ear to the wood. She could hear nothing, but she sensed that the person had not gone away.

Is it you? she asked silently. Row always seemed to know every other damned thing; did he know that someone was in here, playing with his new toy?

Taking a good grip on her knife, she bent down and began to silently wiggle the wedge from beneath the door. Her heart was hammering, blurring her vision, and her palm oozed sweat around her knife.

How our bodies betray us, she thought ruefully. It was nothing like the practice ring. She got the wedge loose and stood up slowly, feeling one of her knees pop. She put a hand on the doorknob, meaning to throw the door open, but in the end she hesitated, unable to take the final step. If someone was standing there, what did she mean to do? Stab them? Could she really kill a person? What if it was Row? Could she kill him? She didn’t know, and for a long moment, she stood frozen, unable to move an inch.

The footsteps retreated, and then came the clomp of boots going down Jenna’s steps. Katie sagged against the door, her heart thudding in relief. She wiped a palm across her forehead and it came away wet. She waited a few more seconds, to see if they would come back, and then darted back to the worktable. She had stayed too long already; Row’s sermon would be ending soon. He might come back at any time.

Katie put the crown back into its box and slid the latch closed, then stared at the gleaming surface, her mind moving restlessly. It was only a crown, not a weapon; even if Row held secret dreams of being King of the Town—and he did; she knew he did—the crown would not help him achieve them. She could leave it here, put it back into its compartment, and no one would be the wiser. But something inside her cautioned against reading the crown at face value. Why was the thing so elaborate, set with so many sapphires? What did Row hope to achieve?

Stealing was one of the worst things someone could do, the antithesis of what the Town stood for, for there was no more unequivocal statement that something would not be given freely than the fact that one had to take it. Katie had never stolen anything in her life, and she sensed that the act would open a door inside her, a dark door not easily closed.

We thought Tear was perfect, but he wasn’t, she thought grimly, staring down at the polished surface of the box. He deserted us, right when we needed him the most. And if Tear’s words can’t be trusted, then who do we listen to?

Yourself.

The idea seemed dangerously heretical, even worse than stealing. But no other answers were forthcoming. Katie scooped up the box and slipped it under her loose sweater, where she tucked the end inside the waist of her pants and pulled the drawstring snug. Then she doused the lamp and crept outside. She kept a careful eye out for Row, but saw no one, and when she turned the corner of the next street, she wrapped her arm around the box and broke into a jog. She was still frightened, badly so, but she felt like laughing, and several peals escaped her as she disappeared into the woods, heading for the heart of town.

This year’s autumn festival looked just as always: streamers festooned the trees around the center of town, the many paths surrounding lit with paper lanterns. The artisans set up stalls in the square, displaying the wares for which they were willing to barter. But here, again, things were different. The cheer that usually marked this occasion was absent. Customers wandered between stalls, and the ale flowed freely, but everywhere there seemed to be knots of people, talking furtively and looking over their shoulders. The artisans, who usually brought tiny pieces of craftwork that they gave away to small children, now drove a hard bargain on everything.

Katie found that she was unable to relax. She seemed to hear whispering everywhere. She and Gavin and Virginia moved around the stalls, an instinctive triangle of which Jonathan was always the center, and she felt eyes upon them, eyes that moved the very instant she turned to look around. She felt as though she were steadily working down some sort of checklist for paranoia, but could not convince herself that it was all her imagination. People smiled at Jonathan, but all of the smiles seemed false.

Someone pressed a mug of ale into her hand, but Katie left it sitting on a table. Mum was there, watching, but that was only part of it. Katie sensed something building, hovering over them, almost like the static charge in the air before a vast storm came rolling out of the south. Everywhere she looked she saw bright eyes, glistening teeth, gleaming skin. She felt as though she had a fever. Music had started up now and people were dancing in a broad, cleared space in the center of the common, but the dancers looked wrong to Katie, as though they were trying too hard to force a jovial atmosphere, to cover up something rotten, ward off the Red Death.

“Katie!”

She jumped as someone grabbed her around the waist. Her hand was already going for the knife beneath her shirt when she realized it was only Brian Lord.

“Come have a dance with me, Katie!”

“No!” she replied, removing his hands. She felt as though everyone was staring at her, but when she turned, their eyes were somewhere else. Brian disappeared and she continued to move around the crowd, looking for a place to sit.

“Katie.”

She turned and found Row, standing behind her. His eyes flicked over Jonathan in quick assessment, seemed to dismiss him, then turned back to Katie.

“What do you want, Row?”

“A dance, what else?”

Katie snuck a look at Jonathan, but he and Gavin and Virginia had turned away to a nearby stall hung with leatherwork: boots and belts.

“He’s fine,” Row murmured into her ear. “He always was fine, Katie. He doesn’t need you. Why not have a moment for yourself? No one has to know.”

He tugged on her hand again, and Katie followed him, past Mrs. Harris’s gingerbread stall and into the trees behind. The trees closed in around them, and Katie felt a moment’s alarm—so much dark here!—before she remembered her knife. Row was trying to tug her deeper into the woods, but she halted, pulling free of his hand.

“What do you want?” she repeated.

“You stole something, Katie.”

“And what would that be?”

He put a hand on her waist, and she jumped.

“Where is it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied, trying to keep her thoughts veiled. She had buried the crown in the woods behind the town park, several feet beneath the roots of an old, dry oak. No one would ever find it unless they were looking for it, but Row had been able to peer inside her mind before. A twig snapped as he stepped closer, looming over her in the dark. She thought of that other night, so long ago, and a chill went down her spine. How had they gone from two children sneaking through the woods to this? Where had the rot sunk in? His hand was still on her waist, and Katie removed it, pushing his fingers away.

“Don’t play with me, Row. I’m not one of your church fools.”

“No, you’re not, but you have been conned. We all have, by Tear.”

“Not this again.”

“Think about it, Katie. Why keep everything such a secret? Why hide the past?” He grasped her arm, moving out of a patch of shadow, and Katie saw that his face was pale, his eyes wide and febrile, almost red in the moonlight. For a terrifying moment he reminded her of the thing she had seen in the woods that night, and she stumbled away, nearly falling against a nearby tree. But when she looked up, he was only Row again.

“I know why he hid the past, Katie. He didn’t want us to know that there was another way it could be. Each according to their gifts . . . the smart and hardworking rewarded, and the lazy and stupid punished.”

“That may play with your congregation, Row, but not with me. I don’t need to take your word for history. I read, Row. Your paradise is a nightmare.”

“Only for the weak, Katie,” Row replied, a smile in his voice. “The weak were pawns. But you and I could be anything.”

He pushed her up against one of the trunks, his hands groping roughly at her clothes, and Katie found that she didn’t want to stop him. She was drunk, but the culprit wasn’t alcohol. It was oblivion. She remembered that night, years ago, Row standing at her window, beckoning her out into the night world. She hadn’t known why she went then and didn’t know now . . . except perhaps that she wasn’t supposed to. Maybe it was just that. She didn’t love Row, thought she might even hate him, deep in some dark place where love and hate were closer than kin. But hate was its own aphrodisiac, vastly more powerful, and she hooked her fingers into claws and tore her way down Row’s back.

He shoved inside her and Katie came, not even expecting it. Bark dug into her back, but she didn’t mind; the pain seemed to fit everything else. Row was fucking her now, fucking her the way she’d read about in books, and the pleasure of it was so unbelievable that Katie jammed her palm across her mouth to keep from screaming. Only a hundred feet away, the festival went on, people talking and laughing. She tried to think of Jonathan, but he was far away, in the light-filled universe beyond the trees. Row’s mouth was on her neck, her breasts, biting at her nipples until she thought they must bleed, but the pain fed the thing inside her. Part of her wished that this could go on forever, that they would never have to go back to town, where they were only enemies now. She was working on her third orgasm when Row stiffened, shoved deep inside her and held for a long moment, then collapsed, panting, against her shoulder.

“It’s not too late, Katie,” he whispered. “We could be kings.”

She stared at him, feeling the break inside her seal back up, returning her to herself. She was twenty years old, Jonathan was nearly twenty-one, Row was twenty-two. She couldn’t make excuses for any of them anymore, including herself.

“Kings,” she repeated, pushing him off, wincing as he withdrew. “I notice you only made one crown, Row. Was it for me?”

“Katie—”

“Of course not. You’re not built to share, so don’t bullshit me. But this isn’t your town. It belongs to the Tears.”

Row laughed. Katie felt as though she were missing some vital piece of information. For perhaps the hundredth time, she wondered why William Tear hadn’t killed Row long ago. Surely he had seen this coming.

“I’m giving you a last chance, Katie. Come on board with me.”

“Or what?”

Row said nothing, but it didn’t matter, for a moment later a scream split the air. Katie whirled, but she could see nothing through the trees, only the glow of lights from the festival. Several more screams came in quick progression, echoing through the trees from the brightly lit common. Katie began to run, but it felt like moving through mud. Row giggled behind her, a cold sound, the sound that Katie imagined worms would make as they squirmed eagerly through the gap in a coffin. She caught sight of moving clothing through the trees as people ran from the festival, shrieking, and she pulled her knife as she ran, thinking that it didn’t matter any longer if people saw her with it, people should know that there was some force in this town beyond Row and his sorry band of sycophants, even if Jonathan paid for it later.

She came around the corner of Mrs. Harris’s tent and halted. The common was deserted, but bright lamplight illuminated the tents, their edges waving in the breeze, and the ground, a carpet of shattered crockery. She stared at the shards for a few moments before she understood: beer mugs, dropped in flight, their remains littering the cobbles. She looked to her right and felt her breath stop.

Two bodies lay together on the ground in the center of the common, the street beneath them soaked with blood. Katie crept closer, reached down, and turned one of the bodies over, jumping back with a low, horrified cry as she saw Virginia’s face, eyes wide and mouth slack. Her throat had been cut. A thin trickle of blood ran down her chin. Without thought, guided by a feeling of terrible inevitability, Katie reached out and turned over the second body.

It was Mum.

Katie’s first thought was to be grateful that Mum’s eyes were closed. There was blood on her neck and soaked into her shirt, but with her eyes closed, she looked oddly peaceful, the way Katie had always seen her in sleep. But Katie’s paralysis lasted only a moment before she stumbled away, clutching her arms around herself, her eyes wide and wounded, breath gasping from her throat.

Jonathan!

She stared wildly around, but she saw no sign of him, and none of Gavin either . . . Gavin, who had been on guard duty while Katie took a bit of rest and relaxation out in the woods. There was a tinkle of broken crockery behind her and Katie whirled around, certain that it was Row, coming for her. This was Row’s work, his people, and they couldn’t kill Mum and let Katie live, because she would kill them all—

But it wasn’t Row, only a fox, one of the tiny kits who lived in the woods, come to investigate the bonanza of leftover food on the ground.

Katie turned back to the two corpses before her, feeling oddly numb, almost analytical. Someone had knifed Virginia and Mum, but it hadn’t been Row. Who had it been? Virginia had been guarding Jonathan. She and Gavin . . . where was Gavin? No one could get past him with a knife. Katie stared around the common, feeling the pressure of eyes upon her. Row was still here somewhere, he must be. Out in the woods, perhaps, watching her, gloating over how easy it had been to distract her, to get her out of the way, make her a fool . . .

“Where are you?” Katie shrieked.

But there was no sign of anyone, only the deserted common, the bright lamps swinging in the late autumn wind.

She kicked down the door of Row’s house easily; it was an old house, built just after the Crossing, and the door fell into the front hall with a crash. Katie darted inside, her knife held out before her.

A large painting of Row, done by his mother, dominated the front hall. He was eight or nine in the picture, and it wasn’t very good, but his mother had decorated the frame to a ridiculous extent, embellishing it with flowers and glued-on sprigs of holly. Katie had walked past this portrait hundreds of times, barely noticing it, let alone taking account of what it might mean, all of those flowers dripping down the border, still emitting a saccharine, rotten scent.

She found Mrs. Finn in the living room, sitting in her rocking chair, staring into the fireplace. The house was cold, but there was no fire in the grate, and this fact bothered Katie for no reason that she could understand. Mrs. Finn barely even looked up as Katie entered the room.

“Get out, Tear whore.”

Katie halted, dumbfounded. She had never liked Row’s mother, but they had always gotten along fine; in fact, Katie had hidden her contempt for the woman much better than Row had. But Mrs. Finn’s tone held as much vitriol as her words.

“Where is he?”

“He’s in charge now,” Mrs. Finn replied. “We don’t have to put up with your lot anymore.”

“What lot would that be?” Katie asked, peering around the room. Row certainly wasn’t here, and she saw no clues. Katie wondered whether she was going to have to beat the information out of his mother. Could she even do that? Perhaps not, but every word out of the woman’s mouth made the idea seem easier. Mum was dead—Katie’s mind shied away from the thought, closing it off—but this horrible woman lived on, still making excuses for her son, even now.

“All of you,” Mrs. Finn snarled, “thinking you’re so much better than us. Ignoring my smart, brave boy for that weak nancy over there. All those books, they haven’t helped you, have they? My boy wields the weight in this town.”

“So you’re jealous of Jonathan as well,” Katie remarked, fingering her knife. “Just like Row.”

“Jonathan Tear is a fraud!” Mrs. Finn snapped. “He’s not his father, and why should he be? His cunt of a mother ruined everything!”

Katie drew a wounded breath. Of all of her memories of Jonathan’s mother, in that moment she could only think of the portrait that hung on the Tears’ living room wall: Lily, bow in hand, beatific smile on her face, and her flower-strewn hair streaming out behind her. Though she knew it from books, Katie had never heard the word cunt spoken aloud in her life, and the hate in that single syllable stopped her cold.

“You used to be Row’s friend, girl. I remember, and he remembers too. They just had to crook their fingers, and you dropped him cold.”

“Where is Jonathan?” Katie demanded. It occurred to her then to wonder why she hadn’t been taken with Jonathan, but that answer came easily: Row wanted his crown back, and hoped Katie would lead him to it. She didn’t understand the world that Row and the Tears lived in, jewels and magic and things unseen, but she could recognize that the crown meant nothing but trouble, and in that moment she resolved never to go near it again. It could rot in the soil forever.

Mrs. Finn smiled, spiteful. “My boy doesn’t need you anymore. He has his own gifts. William Tear can’t hurt him any longer.”

Katie narrowed her eyes, trying to make sense of the last statement. So far as she knew, Tear had never paid the slightest bit of attention to Row; indeed, that lack of distinction, the sense that Row had never been valued according to his worth, was the fundamental problem. Row had always thought that he deserved better. But William Tear had neither culled Row nor praised him, not even when it was warranted, not even when he should have, given Row’s intelligence and resourcefulness. Tear had ignored him so successfully that it must have been deliberate . . . and now a horrid suspicion grew in Katie’s mind. She stared at Mrs. Finn, already trying to reverse her thoughts, because she didn’t want an answer to this question, didn’t want to know—

“I have been reading all morning,” Mrs. Finn announced. She reached for the table and Katie jumped forward, so keyed up that she was sure that Mrs. Finn must have a knife of her own. But Mrs. Finn raised nothing more than a book, leather-bound, with a gilt cross on the cover.

“Do you know the story of Cain, child?”

“Cain?” Katie asked blankly. She had read the Bible, of course she had, to make sure she understood what was flowing from Row’s pulpit. But in that moment the name meant nothing to her.

“Cain. Unfavored son, ignored and passed over through no fault of his own. God’s will.” Mrs. Finn smiled again, and the smile was no longer spiteful now, but ghastly, as though she were peering through an aperture toward her own death. “I’ve read Cain and Abel many times. We had a god in this town, unjust and corrupt, but he’s gone now. My son will have his rightful place.”

“Your husband—”

“My husband died four years before the Crossing!” Mrs. Finn snapped. “We were coming here to make a better world, and how does he start? By choosing her! Even before the first boat ran aground, everyone knew!” Mrs. Finn clutched the arms of her rocker, her voice lifting into a scream. “I was four months pregnant and he left me for an American!”

Katie backed away, narrowly resisting the impulse to clap her hands to her ears. Mrs. Finn would never give Row up. But if Katie stayed here, Mrs. Finn would keep talking, and Katie didn’t want to hear any more. She thought of her younger self, sitting on a bench with William Tear in the fading sun. If she had known everything then, would she still have said yes?

“I know my Bible,” Mrs. Finn muttered with grim satisfaction. “We’re godly people in this house. Cain rose up.”

Katie opened her mouth to say something, she wasn’t sure what—possibly that Cain and all of his descendants had been cursed forever for that one irredeemable act—but before she could speak, she felt the hairs stir on the back of her neck. She whirled and saw Gavin behind her, his raised fist coming at her. The blow drove her sideways, slamming her head into the wall. And then she didn’t care about any of them . . . not William Tear, not Mum, not Jonathan, no one.

When Katie woke, she was freezing. She seemed to be in a room of vast darkness, one that admitted neither light nor anything else. Her nostrils stung, and after a moment, she realized that she could smell mold: decay and damp earth, all around her. She reached out and found warm flesh beside her.

“Katie.”

“Jonathan,” she breathed, and for a moment she was so overwhelmed with relief that imprisonment seemed a very small thing. Jonathan was not one for embracing, but Katie didn’t care; she pulled him to her, wrapping her arms around him in the dark. Mum was dead, she remembered now, and Virginia. They were all dead: Tear, Lily, Aunt Maddy. She and Jonathan were the only two left.

“Are you injured?” she asked.

“Not yet.”

The answer chilled her, but Katie did not pursue it. She released him and began to feel around her. Stone floors, stone walls, all of it covered with a thin layer of slimy damp that felt like moss. Some sort of basement. Everyone had a basement, but the Town’s houses were made of wood, not stone. Above her head, far in the distance, Katie heard something that she at first took for a high wind, but a moment later she realized that it was too musical for that.

“Singing,” she murmured, and then, a moment later: “We’re under the church.”

“Yes.”

She cocked her head, listening again. The music had the thick sound of a choir, but it was distant, so distant. They were deep underground, too deep for anyone to hear them, even if they screamed in unison, and this realization, too, made gooseflesh prickle on her arms. Row had built this room, he must have. But for what?

“There must be a door.”

“Don’t bother,” said Jonathan. “It’s padlocked.”

“I can pick a padlock.”

“Not this one.” Jonathan sighed, and Katie heard grim humor in his voice. “Your friend is quite the locksmith.”

“He’s not my friend,” Katie snarled, moving down the wall. Her hand finally encountered wood, the doorframe, and then a door, so thick that even when she pounded on it, hurting her fist, she was rewarded only with a heavy, dead thuck.

She retreated, stepping over Jonathan, and dropped to sit against the wall again.

“Are they dead?” Jonathan asked. “Virginia and your mother?”

“Yes,” Katie replied. Tears were in her throat but she fought them, biting her lip until she drew blood. If she started crying in this dark place, she would never stop.

“Gavin,” Jonathan replied, wonderingly. “Row I knew about, but Gavin . . . I just never thought—”

Why not? Katie wanted to scream at him. Why didn’t you know? You know about every other goddamned thing, so why didn’t you know about this?

She took a deep breath, trying to settle herself. No percentage in panic, William Tear had always told them, and even an imaginary Tear was a calming presence. Gavin was a traitor, and Katie could only assume that the rest of the guard had turned as well. No one was coming for the two of them. If there was a way out, they would have to find it inside this room. Above their heads, the singing spiraled upward, reaching a crescendo on a high note and then dying away.

“What does Row want with us?” she asked.

“He wants my father’s sapphire.”

“Well, why doesn’t he just take it?”

“He can’t,” Jonathan replied. He paused, and Katie sensed that he was framing his response very carefully. Her temper cycled into life again—did he have to keep secrets even now?—but the spurt was short-lived. The Tears were what they were. She had known what she was signing on for, ever since that day in the clearing when Jonathan had grabbed her hand and spoken nonsense. She had no right to complain now about where they’d ended up.

“I don’t understand everything about my sapphire,” Jonathan continued. “Neither did my father, though he certainly knew more about it than I did. Row’s always wanted it for himself, but it can’t be taken. I have to give it away, and he knows that too.”

“What happens if he tries to take it?”

“Punishment.”

“What does that mean?”

“Give me your hand.”

Katie reached out and Jonathan took her hand, then wrapped it around something cold. She had not held Tear’s sapphire for many years, but she still remembered the feel of it perfectly: cold, yes, but alive, almost breathing beneath her fingers.

“They’re all in there,” Jonathan murmured, wrapping his fingers around hers. “Tears and Tears. I don’t even know how far back they go; I’ve barely scratched the surface. This jewel has a mind of its own, but it’s their minds, all of them. My father’s in there, and someday I will be too . . . all of us together.”

Katie closed her eyes, and for a moment she held her breath, wishing she could see the thing as Jonathan saw it, know what he knew, move through that secretive, unseen world. But she wasn’t a Tear, never had been. She would never see further than what Jonathan told her, and while there was sorrow in that thought, there was also relief. Jonathan had spent his life tormented by visions; there was a price attached to Tear’s magic, though few knew of it. Lily had, Katie felt certain, and perhaps Mum. But she sensed that Row might not know. A ghost of an idea flitted through her mind, then danced away.

What can we do? she wondered. She could take Row in a fight, perhaps. But could she kill him? She thought of the thing that had chased her through the woods, white limbs and staring red eyes, a creature that Row had undoubtedly created, operating in the dark while the rest of the Town slept. Could she kill that? She had no knife; someone had taken it off her while she was unconscious. But would it even have mattered? This tangle was too deep for knives.

“Row is powerful,” Jonathan continued. “But not infallible. He’s been playing with things he doesn’t understand, and though he doesn’t know it, that makes him weak.”

Katie nodded, understanding this statement in intent if not in specifics. Row was careful, but not cautious. His reach had always exceeded his grasp, and one of the earliest lessons Katie had learned on Tear’s practice floor was that overreach left you wide open, even if you couldn’t see the vulnerability yourself. It was always easier to see such things from outside the circle; if only she could have stood outside this circle, somehow, assessing the situation as dispassionately as she had then.

Katie.

She jumped. Something had moved in her mind, deliberate but alien, a voice that was not her own.

“What?” Jonathan asked.

She shook her head. The singing had started again upstairs. Her brain felt as though it were splitting in two. Did Jonathan know who Row’s father was? If not, she couldn’t tell him. She had never understood what she felt for this odd young man, but whatever it was, she didn’t have to tell him about William Tear, to undermine everything Jonathan thought he knew. That had never been her role.

The chain outside the door rattled, and Katie heard the snap of the padlock opening. Torchlight flooded the room, and Katie saw that they were in a long, narrow chamber, perhaps twenty feet by ten. The stone walls were slicked with moisture, trickling down from the ceiling.

Who built this? Katie wondered. And when?

Gavin came in, followed by four more men: Lear, Morgan, Howell, and Alain. Katie watched them stonily, wishing she could have her knife back for even five seconds. She couldn’t take Gavin, but the other four would be easy pickings.

“We’ve brought water,” Gavin announced shortly, as Lear and Howell placed a bucket on the ground. Gavin seemed to have read her thoughts, for he had his knife in hand, and his eyes were never far from Katie as he moved across the room.

“How long will we be down here?” she demanded.

“Not much longer, I think. Row’s busy now, but he’ll deal with you when he’s done.”

“Was I not nice enough to you, Gav?” Jonathan asked, and Katie couldn’t restrain a smile at the mockery in his voice. “Did my father not make you feel special enough?”

“It’s not about that!” Gavin snapped back. “It’s about the town we want!”

Jonathan shook his head, an expression of disgust crossing his face, and Katie saw Gavin flinch. He needed so badly to be liked, Gavin did, even by the people he had fucked over. It was a deep weakness of character, and Katie stared at him with so much contempt that he flinched again.

“What sort of town is that?” she demanded. “A town where Row tells you all what to do, and you do it? He’s certainly managed you well enough here.”

“I make my own choices!” Gavin hissed. “And none of us can do that in a town of Tears!”

“So that’s what he told you,” Jonathan mused. “We’re in the way of democracy?”

“You are!”

Katie wanted to contradict Gavin, tell him to shut up, but she could not. For a single, odd moment, she saw Jonathan through Gavin’s eyes, Row’s eyes, and honesty bubbled inside her, a truth as unpalatable as it was undeniable. They were wrong, all of them, but in this one thing, they were right. How could you tell everyone they were equal, when the Tears stood there, bright and shining, different from everyone else? How could anyone build a fair society in William Tear’s town?

But a moment later she shoved the thought away, horrified.

“And what about you four?” she asked, turning to Howell and the others. None of them would meet her eyes except Lear.

“We promised to protect the Town,” he told her. “We have to have a clear direction. We have to cut dead weight.”

“Dead weight. And what does Row plan to do with us?”

Lear looked miserably at the other four, and Katie saw, alarmed, that none of them knew.

“I see. You’re all helpful advisers, until you’re not.”

“Shut up, Katie!” Gavin roared. He kicked at the bucket on the floor, coming dangerously close to spilling it; water slopped over the side to land on Jonathan’s feet.

“This is why I didn’t pick you, Gavin,” Jonathan murmured. “You have a hole inside, and you’ll fill it with anything. Quality not required.”

Gavin raised his knife, but Lear grabbed his arm, speaking quickly. “We were only supposed to bring the water.”

Gavin stared at the two of them, Jonathan and Katie, for another long, furious moment, then pocketed his knife and headed for the door. “Come on. They’re not our problem anymore.”

Katie bared her teeth. Only a moment ago, she had been thinking that Gavin was too stupid to merit anger. But at his words, the dismissal in them, the idea that he might wash his hands of the situation simply because that was what he chose to believe, Katie felt several small explosions fire in her brain.

“I will be your problem, Gavin Murphy!” she shouted after him, as the group of men exited through the door. “You’re a traitor, and when I get out of here, I will treat you like one! Even Row can’t protect you from me!”

The door slammed behind them, but not before Katie caught a glimpse of Gavin’s face, pale and suddenly terrified. She grinned at him, showing every tooth, and then the padlock snapped shut and the light disappeared.

“I admire bravado,” Jonathan remarked drily. “But that’s a tough threat to make good on.”

“I don’t care. He’s scared of Row; he can be scared of me too.”

“He’s scared of everything, Gavin. It makes him incredibly easy to manipulate. That fear ruled the pre-Crossing; my father used to talk about it. Entire countries would close their borders and build walls to keep out phantom threats. Can you imagine?”

“Yes,” Katie said shortly. It had taken only twenty short years to take Tear’s good town and turn it into a wreck. All Row had needed was a church and, perversely, a lack of faith. She could believe anything now. She tipped her head back against the wall, closing her eyes. Somehow it was easier to bear the darkness that way. “How did your father beat them?”

“He didn’t. He tried, but in the end he had no choice but to run away. They called it the Crossing, but in reality, it was nothing but a retreat. And now that’s failed too.”

His voice was bleak, so bleak that it arrowed straight down to Katie’s core and seemed to slice her open. She groped for his hand in the dark, twining his fingers with hers.

“Don’t be a prat.”

“I’m not.” Jonathan’s voice suddenly strengthened, as though he had resolved something. “I need you to do something for me.”

“What?”

There was a clink of metal in the darkness, and then Katie jumped as she felt something slither against her neck, a heavy chunk of stone tumbling down her breastbone.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m giving it to you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re tougher than I was. You always were.” Jonathan’s voice was bitter in the darkness. “You’ll take much longer to break.”

“Neither of us will break.”

“I will.” Jonathan’s hand clasped hers. “We’re out of options. It’s better than nothing.”

Katie made a face. The Tears were pragmatists; they always had been. But she couldn’t help longing for something better: not a compromise but a silver bullet, the holy grail of government. Where was it, that one perfect thing? She felt that if she could only find it, she would be willing to spend her life working to make it fire.

Fine words in a dungeon, Jonathan’s voice mocked her.

Katie frowned, then leaned her head back again. It was time to wait, to clear her head, to prepare for the moment when her oldest and closest friend would come through the door, carrying a knife meant for her.

Time drifted. Hours, days perhaps, Katie couldn’t see. Sometimes she slept on Jonathan’s shoulder, sometimes he on hers. Sometimes she woke in the dark with no memory of where she was, and then she would feel Jonathan’s hand in hers and realize that it hardly mattered whether they were in a dungeon or in a clearing, in the Town or outside it. They were together, the two of them, united in purpose, and that brought them a thousand times closer than they had ever been, so close that when Jonathan’s hand slipped beneath her shirt and Katie climbed into his lap, it seemed almost an afterthought, natural outgrowth of a place they had already been, not love but something a thousand times more powerful, and when Jonathan entered her, yanking her hair back to expose her throat, Katie almost shrieked with pleasure, and when the sapphire at her throat began to glow, illuminating both Jonathan’s face and her own, she saw that he was not entirely himself, that he too was in the hands of something else, and then she forgot as her mind stuttered and then fired, thinking over and over Now we are together now we are one—

When it was over, they dozed. Jonathan said nothing, and neither did Katie, but she didn’t think either of them were really sleeping. They were each waiting . . . preparing, in their own ways, for that ultimate moment: the click of the lock, and the opening of the door.