“Our leading lady arrives,” said Wesley, folding his arms across his peacock-feather coat.
I shifted my weight uncomfortably. “Oren’s the one they want,” I reminded them. “They don’t know about me.”
“Of course.” He gave me a faint smile, the only hint of warmth in the room for me.
I found a seat in front of an untouched bowl, and the others started running through the plan one last time.
Wesley, undercover, would bring Oren and me to Central Processing, claiming to have caught the fugitive—Oren—and his companion. We’d undergo the questioning and screening processes while Wesley met with Prometheus to tell him we were captured and ensure that he asked to see us personally. Meanwhile Olivia would lead the rest of the rebels, Renewable and non-Renewable alike, to cause a commotion in the courtyard and draw as many of Prometheus’s Eagles out of CeePo as they could.
Originally, before Nina, only Wesley had known that I was the one who’d be attacking once we got to Prometheus. The others all thought that Oren, the fighter, was their best bet, and I was just backup. Now everyone fell silent, their eyes shifting toward my end of the table. I picked at my breakfast, feeling their gazes like heavy iron bars.
I glanced at Oren, who would be walking straight into the enemy forces with me. He looked up from his breakfast long enough to meet my gaze, his ice-blue eyes grave. He seemed calm, almost serene, whereas I felt like my stomach was trying to leap out of my throat. Most of my breakfast went untouched.
In terms of supplies, we took very little. We couldn’t very well go armed to the teeth when we were supposed to be captured prisoners. Oren had brought no weapons at all, and I had only the knife he’d given me in the Iron Wood, concealed inside my boot. There was also the blackout device that the others all carried as insurance against me—and none of them knew I had one too. It was still only theoretical, anyway, that it even worked. They wouldn’t have been able to test it here without risking all their machinery. And me, their best weapon.
“How long until we go?” My voice cut through the chatter. I sounded strained, impatient, and I forced myself to take a breath.
Wesley unfolded his arms and straightened. “If you’re ready? We can go right now.”
Every eye in the square was on us as Wesley marched us toward CeePo. We’d taken a long, roundabout route to another point in the city, far from the secret door into the walls we’d entered that first day. Wesley held one of Oren’s arms roughly, jangling the chains around his wrists now and then. I was chained as well, but allowed to walk freely. After all, Oren was the murderer.
We’d toyed with the idea of making the chains out of some metal other than iron, but we couldn’t get the weight right. “It has to be absolutely real,” Wesley had said as he locked the manacles around our wrists. “Otherwise they’ll figure out the instant I bring you in that something’s not right, and we’ll never get to Prometheus.”
And so my senses were muffled, the iron chafing at my wrists, a constant reminder of how powerless I was right then. For a brief, wild moment I wondered if all of this was so they could get rid of me—turn me over to Prometheus, remove the threat once and for all. I glanced at Wesley, seeking some kind of reassurance, but all I could see was his profile, stern and cold.
The faces of the crowd blurred as Wesley hauled us by. I tried to look out for the woman who’d turned us in that first day, but I couldn’t even remember completely what she looked like, much less focus enough to pick her out of the throng. Now and then we’d pass an Eagle, visible despite the crowd with their grey-and-fire uniforms, but they didn’t stop us. Wesley was in his plain clothes— though plain was a stretch, considering the expense of the peacock feathers—but it was clear they recognized him without any difficulty.
The crowd fell back when we reached the steps of Central Processing, leaving us out of earshot for a few precious seconds.
“If you want to change your mind,” Wesley whispered, not looking at Oren and me as we climbed the steps, “this is your last chance.”
I took a deep breath. They weren’t betraying me. This was real. I glanced at Oren, who looked back and shook his head. “No,” I said. “We’re ready.”
We were met at the doors by a pair of officials recognizable in any city as bureaucratic lackeys. One reeled back when Wesley announced he’d found Sampson’s killer—with a jolt, I realized that it was the first time I’d even heard the name of the man I’d killed. Of course, Wesley jerked Oren forward then and not me. Oren snarled, playing the part of the dangerous, vicious savage beautifully.
Watching his face as he glared at Wesley, I wasn’t entirely sure he was playing a part at all.
“And the girl?” one of the officials asked.
Wesley shrugged. “She was with him when I found him. She’s probably guilty of something, if only by association.”
The officials chuckled and waved us on through, saying something about prisoner processing. Wesley had explained that all prisoners go through a questioning process. I shuddered to think what they might do to Oren if they guessed he wasn’t being entirely truthful, but Wesley assured me they’d stick to the protocol laid out for them by Prometheus. Oren just had to stick to his story.
Prisoner processing was two floors down, below the “ground” level of the city. Wesley himself didn’t know how far the tunnels and caverns of Central Processing stretched below Lethe. Prometheus kept his lackeys separate, allowing certain jobs access to particular parts of the complex and not others, so that no one person knew the entire layout of the place.
The iron on my wrists was weighing heavily on me, making my head spin and my eyes blur. We traveled corridor after corridor, the faces of the people working in CeePo blurring as we passed. There was an elevator much like the one Oren and I rode when we first arrived at the city, although it moved much more smoothly and efficiently. I was determined to make a mental map, keep track of all the twists and turns so that I could find my way out again when it came time. I forced myself to focus despite my blurring vision.
And then, abruptly, we stopped.
I blinked, looking up from my study of the corridor floor to find a tall, slim man standing in front of us. Wesley was staring at him blankly, but I could see his cheek twitching. He knew this man, and running into him wasn’t part of the plan.
“On Prometheus’s orders,” the slim man said. His voice was soft, resonant, trained as if he were a singer. Not a hair was out of place, his charcoal-and-ember suit fitted perfectly across his chest. “The prisoners are to come with me.”
“What do you mean, on his orders?” Wesley was saying, bristling. This man held some kind of authority—he outranked Wesley in Prometheus’s organization. I held my breath.
“New evidence has come to light in the case of Sampson’s death,” said the slim man.
“New evidence?” Wesley scoffed. “Please. The man was beaten to death in front of an entire courtyard full of witnesses. Trust me, I was there. This is the boy.”
The slim man smiled a little. “We know, Commander. That has not escaped our notice.”
Wesley’s hand tightened around the chain holding Oren. The links clicked together like bones, muffled by the flesh of his palm. “This is my arrest. I will see him to prisoner processing myself.”
“Be our guest, Commander.” The slim man was still smiling, a calm, cool smile. It wasn’t a pleasant expression, but I felt certain it wasn’t meant to be. “Our interests aren’t with him anyway.”