“I don’t know.”
“But just think, Lark, think what we could do. This could end everything—the quarry marches, the trafficking rings, work bonds, abductions . . .”
I open my hands. “Me threatening one person could do all that?”
“It could be a start, at least.”
I look down, where Rat is sitting between my knees. He’s been exiled to the porch all day and happy to have company. I scratch him absently behind the ears, my stomach still turning at the thought of Veran’s plan. He’s taken a seat across from me, on Soe’s overturned cast-iron cauldron, and he’s watching me anxiously.
I drop my gaze to my hands, spotted with ink, sticky with resin, and sliced with the carving knife. I turn my palms over, studying the tattoos along my wrists. Perseverance. Strength. I’ve been thinking of them a lot today—they’ve been right in front of my face as I hauled the screw press down or whittled the next wooden block or pressed a line of letters into the sand. Never in my life have I been so saturated with words—I’ve never been good with them, or needed to be. Silence was a preferred trait among both the slavers and rustlers—no chatter, no talking back. Reading was even less useful than talk.
But today, this day filled to the brim with words and letters, broken apart and put back together, shaped by our fingers, cast into sand . . . while it’s worn me nearly to the bone, there’s the oddest feeling of accomplishment whirling around in my stomach.
I did something—something beyond just scrapping to survive, or swinging a punch, or stealing a loaf. I made something. It’s not done, and it’s not perfect, but if anything, that’s only building this little flare inside me. I did a useless, frivolous thing. Tamsin had most of the big ideas, but I—I made them work.
Veran’s clearly bursting with impatience. His fingers fidget on his knees. The fringe twitches on his boots. “Are you worried about not having your sword and buckler? We might be able to find something in town.”
“It’s not that. It’s just . . .” I rub my face. So many things come to mind. There will be guards—lots of guards, if these ashokis are as important as everyone says. This isn’t my terrain. I don’t know the land, I don’t know the road, I don’t know where the angle of the sun will help me or hurt me. I don’t know my horse. I don’t know my new companions like I knew my campmates. I don’t know that Iano or Soe will fall into line behind me. I don’t know that Tamsin’s physically strong enough. I don’t know what Veran—knuckleheaded, heroics-obsessed Veran—might do in the heat of the moment. With a lurch, I think of Pickle, his last impulsive fight on top of the stage, and the fall that broke his body and let his life out.
My stomach clenches. “I just don’t know, Veran. I don’t feel good about it. I get the feeling more things could go wrong—really wrong—than right. And . . .” I rub my face. “I don’t . . . I don’t know that I’m the same person who stepped up in your stage a few weeks ago.”
Don’t feel like the same person.
Not sure I want to be the same person.
It’s been a slow slide, starting with the decision to leave Three Lines and travel into the desert with this stranger—someone I’d never have said yes to back in the days of Arana and Bitty, when we were at our highest. And then came that trek across the desert, that fight at Utzibor, that killing strike to Dirtwater Dob. The ride into Pasul—that was the last little slip of normalcy. After that came the posthouse, the man, the girl—my father, my sister. The blind race back to Three Lines, and then the gutting feeling of finding it empty. Losing Jema. The water scrape. Tellman’s Ditch.
And then today, this weird, upside-down day, when for the first time I was up to my ears not in sand or sweat or blood, but words.
Maybe that’s why I’ve been so absorbed in my tattoos today. Before all this, they were my identity—a sun, a sword, a lark. Now they seem like a record. A diary of a past life. Petroglyphs, carved in old stone.
Veran’s fidgeting has stilled.
“You are still the same person, Lark,” he says quietly.
I shake my head—I hadn’t meant it to be a dig at myself, that I’m not the same as the bandit who held a knife to his throat out by the South Burr. But before I can speak, he turns, reaching for one of the many parcels they’ve brought in from town.
“I have something for you,” he says. He pushes a quilt aside and pulls out a bundle of clothes. He hands me two long-sleeved button-down shirts and a new handkerchief, bright red. I rub the stout fabric between my fingers appreciatively.
“Thanks,” I say. “That was nice of you.”
“Oh.” He waves a hand, still rifling through the bundle. “Those are just the basics. Have a look at this.”
He shakes out a vest and holds it up so I can see. In the fading light, it looks blue, with bright gold threads shooting outward. He watches my face, his eyes dancing.
“Wow,” I say. “Uh . . . that’s something. How much did that cost?”
“Bah—I don’t remember.” He drapes it across my knees, and Rat snoots the fabric with his nose. The buttons flash as they move. I lean back, almost unwilling to touch it.
“And,” he says, with an air of anticipation, reaching into the sack.
“And?” I repeat, looking up. “Veran, how much did you spend?”
He doesn’t answer. He slowly straightens, bringing out a crisp, clean-edged cowhide hat.
I stare at it. It’s a thing of beauty, with brown and white patches and a rolled brim, and a leather braid running around the base. It’s the kind of thing I’d swipe off a traveler in a stage and slap down triumphantly for Patzo in Snaketown, winning me a sack of beans and a pound of bacon and a night spent comfortably in the woodshed.
“Since you lost your old one,” he says, holding it out between his fingertips.
Hesitantly, I take it, since that’s clearly what he wants. I set it on top of the fine vest. I can’t think of anything to say. I’ve handled clothes this nice before, but it’s always to pass them on to my campmates or trade them in town. I can’t imagine myself actually wearing them. Suddenly I feel dirtier than ever, the sweat and blood and ink from today all sitting heavy on my skin.
Veran leans forward, his wrists draped off his knees. “Lark, listen . . . I know a lot of things have happened in just a few weeks. And I know a lot of it was my fault. Sending your campmates away, losing your horse, bringing the soldiers after us. But . . . despite all that, despite being here in Moquoia, you’re still the same person. You’re still the Sunshield Bandit. Whether or not you still have your old sword or your old hat or any of that doesn’t matter—it’s still who you are. And you can still use it to help those people in Tellman’s Ditch.”
He’s speaking gently, sincerely, trying to reassure me without realizing that he’s doing just the opposite. That title, the Sunshield Bandit, given to me by sheriffs and angry posses across the Ferinno, plastered across bounty sheets, settles deep in my gut like a stone. My thoughts flicker to my tattoos again, and I realize—they’re not a diary. They’re a proclamation, sunk into my skin, the same as my slave brand. Past life or not, I’ve still marked myself as the outlaw who terrorized the Ferinno.
The little burst of pleasure from a minute ago over a day spent on a fanciful word machine crumbles away, leaving guilt in its place. In the excitement of helping Tamsin, I forgot Tellman’s Ditch—literally forgot the people being marched inland. I didn’t think of them once. I sank into a day of distraction without a single thought, while they’re getting parceled out and forced onward, over the dusty plains and into the cold mountains, into a life beyond anybody’s reach.
I let out my breath, my fingers tightening on the brim of the handsome hat. As Veran watches, I tilt it to check the size, but it looks large enough to go over my hair. My dreadlocks are bound up in a thick bun—I reach up and unwind the cloth holding them there, and then pull them back into my old ponytail. I lift the hat and settle it over my head. It’s a good fit, snug enough to stay on without pinching.
I’m not sure why that should disappoint me.
Veran’s smiling, his eyes agleam in the light coming from Soe’s windows. I take a breath.
“You’re right,” I say. “I got carried away today. We shouldn’t waste any more time.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” he says quickly. “I think what you and Tamsin did is amazing. I can’t believe you thought of casting the letters in sand. Everyone at the university is going to lose their minds—your uncle Colm—”
“No,” I say, straightening up and spreading out the vest over my knees, my fingers tracing the rays of the sunburst embroidery. “I shouldn’t have gotten distracted. This is too important.” I pull out the bandanna from the work shirts and knot it around my throat. “Get me a sword—not the toothpick one Iano has, but something broad, single grip. I don’t need anything else.”
“Not a shield?”
“There’s hardly any sun for me to use, anyway. It’ll be fine. Can you get me a sword?”
“Soe will have to go back into town in a day or two—I’m sure she can buy something from the metalsmith if you’re not picky.”
I nod. “Good. Do you know where you plan to confront this ashoki?”
“She’ll be traveling from Ossifer’s Pass, so she should be coming in from the north.”
“Tomorrow you and I’ll go out and scout the road—figure out the best place for the ambush.”
His eyes flicker in excitement. “Got it.”
I’m reminded again, uncomfortably, of Pickle. “You sure you’ll be up to this?”
“You tell me what to do,” he says confidently. “I’m all yours.”
I’m not sure I like that, either.
Nothing good seems to come to the people who get tied up with me.