Stolen (19 page)

Chapter 33

W
ES LED THE TEAM OUT OF TH
E MAZE
and into the temple, rushing past the terrified priests who ran from them. A few soldiers tried to stop them, but even they ran when they caught sight of Nat. Beautiful Anastasia Dekesthalias. The Resurrection of the Flame.

“Why are they screaming?” she asked.

“Because you're covered in fire,” Wes told her, awed. She was standing in the middle of a bonfire, covered in the hot white light, just as she had been on the deck of the
Colossus.
Her face and her skin and her eyes were glowing.

“I am?”

She held up her hands, amazed at the sight of the flames that danced on her skin. She looked afraid, and so, without thinking, he took her hand and held it. “Let it burn,” he said softly. “It's beautiful. You're beautiful.” He touched her cheek, her hair, and bent to kiss her through the flames.

The fire did not burn him, only tickled and caressed his skin like warm feathers all over his body. She looked into his eyes and smiled, and he knew they understood each other.

The marked victims were coming out of the second pen, the cage that hadn't opened at the start of reaping day, and when they saw Nat covered in fire, they blessed themselves.
Bless the drakon. Bless its rydder. Bless the fire that will light the world.

“Liannan,” Shakes said hoarsely, interrupting the two of them. “Where is Liannan? Did you find her?” Shakes's desperation reminded Wes he was there for someone, too. Eliza.

Nat shook her head, and the flame disappeared. She was just Nat again—the armor was gone, and she was dressed simply in black jeans, worn boots, and the flannel shirt she wore on the first night out of New Vegas.

Wes raised his eyebrow. “What other costume changes have you got under there?” he asked. “Because I have a few ideas,” he said with a grin. “And they're all hot.”

“Shush,” she said as they ran down the hallway after Shakes. “But what did you have in mind?” she teased.

“Liannan!” Shakes yelled, pushing into the crowd, scanning faces, looking for a sylph, finding one, then another. “LIANNAN!”

Wes skidded to a halt. “Listen, I've got to check the cells for Eliza . . . she's here somewhere.”

Nat nodded. “I understand. Go. I'll stay with Shakes.”

“Take Brendon and Roark, I'll go with Farouk,” he said. “We'll meet you guys at the entrance in five.”

“Right,” she said, motioning for the smallmen to follow her. Farouk ran to Wes's side.

She turned away when he caught her hands again.

“I don't want to leave you,” he said. He didn't want to let go.

“You won't. Not ever. I'll always be with you,” she said, squeezing his hands. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him again, then unlaced her hands from his. “But Liannan and Eliza need us.”

He nodded. Of course they did, it was why they were here in the first place. “Liannan needs our help, but the only person Eliza ever needed saving from was herself,” Wes muttered.

Then Nat turned away from him. “Shakes—I think I know where Liannan is. Hurry!”

Wes watched them disappear down one of the marble hallways, his heart beating painfully in his chest.

“Where to, boss?” Farouk asked.

Records. There would have to be records on file somewhere. Prisoner records. Lists. He couldn't go searching the whole place for her cell; it would take forever, and he would be too late again. “The office—come on. There have to be some manifests. She just got here.”

They found the office in the front rooms. It was abandoned, the priests having fled, and the whole temple was beginning to fill with smoke. Wes flung open file cabinets, hurling files and folders every which way as he searched for his sister's name on the documents. Where was she? Where was Eliza? Had they killed her already? Was he too late?

Farouk booted up the computer. He banged on the keyboard and scrolled through the screens.

“What've you got?” asked Wes, looking over his shoulder.

“Prisoner transport from El Dorado. Couple weeks ago. This is it. She must be on this list.” Farouk ran his finger down the screen, looking through the names. But there was nothing. No Eliza.

“She's not here,” Farouk said, fingers flying on the keyboard again as he tried a couple more searches. “That's weird. Your hacker said she was in the program, right?”

Wes nodded.

“But there's no record of Elizabeth Wesson anywhere. Not even in their main file. She's never been a prisoner of the RSA. I don't get it.”

“What do you mean?”

“She's not in any of the detention centers. See? Those are blacked out, but I was able to get through the firewall to figure out the names of the people they're holding—”

“Yeah, yeah, get to the point.”

“There's no record of her anywhere in the system.”

What did that mean? She'd been on the transfer list in El Dorado. And Bradley had threatened him with his sister's death to get him to accept his commission.

“Check the blacklists,” he insisted.

Farouk shook his head. “I already did. I went there first.”

“Do it again!”

Farouk typed a few letters on the keyboard. The screen flashed with
FILE NO
T FOUND. ERROR.

Wes shook his head. “Maybe they purged the records.”

“Maybe. But I doubt it, there's always a trail.”

Wes felt a sick sensation, and he remembered what he'd said to Nat.
The only person Eliza ever needed saving from was herself.
There was something wrong here . . . something didn't add up, and he had a dark, terrible suspicion that he knew what it was.

Chapter 34

“W
E'LL FIND HER,”
N
AT TOLD
S
HAKES,
who had run ahead, opening cell doors one after another, calling Liannan's name. “She's here. She's really here.”

She heard Liannan's voice in her head so clearly, it was as if the sylph were right in front of her.
Nat, hurry! Hurry! Nat!
The priests and soldiers had abandoned their posts, and tourists ran in all directions while the marked victims, unshackled and unrestrained, trained their power on their former captors, helping the fire grow, letting it burn.

“They must have kept the sylphs in a special place,” Roark said, “since none of them were in the maze with us.”

“Good idea,” Brendon said, huffing next to him.

“Shakes! We need to go this way,” Roark said, motioning to stairs that led away from the prison cells. “These pens open up to the maze, and there were no sylphs on the killing floor.”

Shakes nodded, his face pale and anxious. The fire was contained in the lower levels for now, but was beginning to lick at the walls and the stairway. “We need to hurry!”

Roark had guessed correctly. The four of them arrived on the next landing, finding another hallway full of cells. When Nat used her power and forced the doors open, sylphs began to walk out of their prisons. Some were blind; others were fingerless, some limped. They were all bald, their beautiful hair shorn to the scalp, and Nat remembered the silver extensions the priests wore in their hair.

Shakes gagged. “Motherfreeze it,” he whispered.

“Liannan of the White Mountain?” Brendon asked. “Do you know where Liannan is?”

One sylph shook her head, rubbing an eye that was no longer there, another scratched at the place where an ear had been cut from her head. When no one recognized Liannan's name, Nat felt her heart drop. Then she heard it again.

Liannan's melodious voice. Clear as glass.

Nat, come to me.

Nat.

Her friends made their way through the mob of sylphs, looking for Liannan, but Nat turned the other way.

She heard her friends scream Liannan's name. She heard them barge through a cell door, heard Shakes's sob. She heard Liannan cry, “Vincent!” Liannan always called Shakes by his real name; she was the only one who did.

No.

That was wrong. She heard none of this.

Liannan was still calling her. Drawing her to the other hallway, the one at the far side of the temple.

“Nat, where are you going? Nat!” Shakes yelled from the other side of the room. “She's in here! We found her! Nat!”

But Shakes was wrong.

Liannan was not in that cell; she was down this hallway.

Nat didn't look back. She knew where she was going, where she would find her friend.

She opened the door and walked underneath the archway.

SACRIFICE IS FREEDOM.

Chapter 35

“K
EEP CHECKING!”
W
ES S
CREAMED AT
Farouk, unable to accept that there was no record of Eliza anywhere in the system, anywhere in the marked program.

It couldn't be. Eliza Wesson was an RSA prisoner. She had been stolen from her family as a child, taken in a fire. That was what he had believed, that was what he wanted to believe, even if he knew the truth. As he had told Nat that night on the slave ship, the truth was, he had no idea what had happened to Eliza.

Eliza could be scary sometimes.

She wasn't very nice.

Eliza was a weaver. She made you believe things that weren't true.

Nine years had passed since he'd seen his sister. The girl he'd known then was a child, angry, confused, and often mischievous. He had made his share of mistakes, done stupid things, but Eliza had always been different. Even at seven, there was something wrong with her.

For nine years he'd tried to forget that side of her. He wanted to remember the sister with awkward smiles who wore bright colors. Those memories were hazy—perhaps he had idealized Eliza. His only souvenir of their childhood was a photo, a picture of a little girl in a puffy snowsuit standing next to a snowman. He was in the picture, too, his chubby arm slung around his sister's shoulders. She was happy, smiling.

That was the sister he had come to save, his last remaining family in the world. His mother would never forgive him if he gave up on her. It was the reason he had left Nat at the Blue several months ago, the reason he had brought his entire team to follow him into danger and ruin.

Because he had to find out what happened to her. They were twins, but Eliza had always been his little sister.

“I'm telling you, boss, she's not here,” said Farouk. “I'm sorry.”

Wes banged his fist on the desk, making a huge dent in the middle. “LOOK AGAIN!” he roared. When he saw the fear in Farouk's face, he apologized. “I'm sorry—but she has to be here. The system is wrong.”

Wes shook his head. His hands were shaking, and his eyes were watering. His head hurt. He didn't know what to do.

There was a scream from across the hallway. Wes exchanged a glance with Farouk and they bolted out of the room.

Shakes emerged from one of the cells, carrying Liannan in his arms. She was weak and pale, and her golden hair was knotted and tangled. The six-pointed star on her cheek was throbbing.

Wes felt a flash of joy to find her alive, but Shakes—that scruffy beanpole of a boy with a crooked beard, who should have had a smile on his face as wide as the ocean—was visibly distraught when he saw Wes.

“What's wrong?” he asked, even though he knew that everything was about to fall apart.

That Shakes was about to confirm the dark, awful suspicion he had shoved to the back of his mind.

“Wes,” Liannan said, her voice a whisper. She was the one who had screamed, he realized, and she hadn't screamed in fear but, like him, had let out a roar of frustration. “Wes . . . you have to help Nat.”

“Nat. Nat . . . what do you mean . . . why? What's happened?” he asked, his heart thundering with fear.

“Nat's in danger—”

“Where is she?” Wes asked, crazed. “What are you talking about?”

“Wes, listen—she used me to call her here. I tried to deflect it, I sent the call somewhere else, I sent Nat to you, to find Roark and Brendon, hoping it would delay her while I tried to fight her. But it was no use. She's so strong. She bled me, used my blood to mask the iron in a magic bomb that brought down Nat's drakon. Because it's Nat she wants. It's Nat she's wanted all along.”

“Who wants her? What are you talking about?” asked Wes, even if he already knew exactly what Liannan would say before she said it.

“Lady Algeana Penthos, High Priestess of the White. She's your sister, Eliza Wesson.”