A guard steps closer, a long pole in his hands. At the end of the pole, the metal insignia of the Brute Squad—a curved talon beneath two slash marks—glows red-hot.

I twist away from the Commander, but he settles his knee on my side, turning my aching rib into a breath-stealing howl of agony, and holds my face steady with both his hands.

“I beat you,” the Commander says, “and every time I look at you, I’ll know it.”

The guard presses the blazing-hot metal into the side of my neck, and I scream.

The smell of scorched skin fills the air, and I retch as brilliant spots dance in front of my eyes. I drag in a deep breath and try to ride out the worst of the agony, but it refuses to abate.

Letting go of me, the Commander rises and says to the dungeon guard. “Water only. Don’t bother offering this one any food. We won’t need to keep him alive long enough to warrant it.”

Leaving me huddled on the floor, burned and bleeding, the Commander and his guards leave, slamming the cell bars closed in their wake.

I wait until I hear their footsteps fade. Until the door at the entrance closes. Until I’ve silently recounted everything I know about the Pythagorean Theorem. The conductive properties of copper. The relationship between negative mass and negative energy.

Only when I’m certain I’ve spent enough time looking defeated and broken that anyone watching me wouldn’t question my need for warmth, do I slowly crawl across the floor.

Every inch is torture. I clench my teeth and tell myself pain is just a state of mind. I can rise above it. My body doesn’t agree with my theory, so I force myself to recite the Periodic Table to give myself something productive to focus on.

I’m shaking by the time I reach my destination, but furious triumph warms me from the inside as I lay hands on the one thing I wanted all along. The thing that will make inciting the Commander to remove my chains and beat me nearly senseless worth it. The thing that will make escape possible.

My cloak.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

RACHEL

Dawn is a whisper in the cold morning air as I tighten the leather fastenings on my cloak, wrap it around the tunic and pants I wear, adjust my travel pack until it fits smoothly against my spine, and face the gate leading out into the Wasteland.

I’m taking my own bag with me. The Commander instructed two of his guards to accompany me home so I could pack, and neither of them batted an eye when I headed into a side street off Center Square. If they wondered why I kept a bag hidden in the bushes near a mercantile, they never asked. Instead, they kept one hand on me and one on their weapons at all times. I’m betting they thought I might try to escape.

I would have, if I didn’t have to reclaim the missing package so I can ransom Logan’s life. Not that the Commander is the kind of man who’ll keep his word to me once he holds the package in his hands.

Which is fine. I’m no longer the kind of girl who’ll keep my word to him, either.

Shelving the need to plan a way to free Logan without giving the Commander what he wants, I study my travel companion while pretending to watch the guards unchain the gate.

Melkin is tall, about Logan’s height, though he doesn’t have Logan’s muscle. Instead, his frame is all bones and angles, his skin stretched painfully thin. With deep-set dark eyes, a nose resembling a cloak hook, and a sparse coating of mud-brown hair hanging down his back, he resembles a starving hawk.

He clutches his cloak with long, skinny fingers and darts a glance at me. “Hope you know what you’re doing. I don’t figure on having to rescue you every time I turn around.”

I simply stare at him. I don’t know him. Dad kept me, and the fact that he’d trained me, separate from the others who ran courier or tracking missions for Baalboden. I don’t know Melkin, but that doesn’t stop the rage inside of me from begging to lash out at him. He works for the Commander. That’s justification enough.

Whatever he sees on my face causes him to blink twice, tighten his hold on his cloak, and look away as the massive stone gate swings open with a high-pitched groan.

Four guards line up on either side of the gate, ready to let us out and remain behind to stand watch throughout the day in case there are those who want in. Melkin places a hand on my shoulder and presses me forward.

I snatch his hand, crush his fingers in mine, and spin until his arm is pinned behind his back.

“Don’t. Touch. Me.”

He doesn’t respond, but when I release his hand, he watches me closely and follows me down the gritty cobblestone road past the guards, beneath the steel arch with the Commander’s talon-and-double-slash insignia burned into the center of its smooth surface, and leave the city behind.

The road leads away from the Wall through the scorched ground that makes up Baalboden’s perimeter and ends at the charred remains of the highwaymen’s wagons. We walk it in silence until we reach the point where the road ends and the wild tangle of the Wasteland begins. Stopping, we open our packs and pull out our weapons.

Melkin straps a double-bladed leather glove to his right hand, and the six-inch blades of silver protruding from both his index and ring knuckles sparkle beneath the hesitant touch of the early morning sun. I recognize the glove as one of Logan’s inventions, and it tells me plenty about Melkin.

He likes his prey close and thinks the abnormally long range of his arms will be advantage enough to keep him safe. When he straps a sword around his waist, I acknowledge that he must be proficient with his left hand as well. He takes out a thick walking stick and extends it to its full length. The black metallic surface swallows stray rays of sunlight whole.