WE ALL SIT in Aarya’s living room and I unzip my backpack, pulling out the branch. I run my fingers over it, humming with anxious anticipation. It has four pinecones, all identical and all superglued to the branch. I take my knife from my boot and begin to cut the glue, easily popping off the first cone.
I examine the bottom of it, pulling at the remaining glue. I inspect each of the scales for anomalies and look at the branch, but there is nothing there but pinecone and wood. So I start on the next one, which proves much the same.
“Anything?” Aarya asks impatiently.
I shake my head, removing the third pinecone and examining it carefully. But once again, there is nothing special about it, and no message from my dad. What if I got it wrong? What if it wasn’t table number eleven, or if it was, but the clue wasn’t the pinecones? I hold the fourth cone in my hand, knife poised to cut it off.
“I would move faster if I were you,” Aarya says. “Or the Ferryman might very well kill your father while you’re being precious about those pinecones.”
Ash gives Aarya a sharp look and Ines shakes her head.
“What? I’m only stating the obvious,” Aarya continues.
“If it’s obvious, then you don’t need to state it,” Ash says.
But Aarya only shrugs. “Testy, testy.”
I cut the fourth pinecone off, turning it over. The wood beneath it is smooth and normal. But as I pull off the superglue on the base of the cone, my face lights up. The bottom of the pinecone is hollowed out and inside is a small rolled-up piece of paper.
I tip it into my palm and immediately unroll it. Written on the paper in my dad’s handwriting is a message. I read aloud:
We’re taking to the street in treason
Welcome to the first Death Season
It’s time to make a change, and we’ve picked a day
The head Lion we will slay
My mind races. “A rhyme?” I say, confused.
I’m silent for a beat and Aarya taps her fingers on the armchair. “Out loud, November, say what you’re thinking out loud.”
I shake my head. “I’m just…I’ve never heard my dad recite a rhyme in my life, much less write one.”
Ash looks at the paper with me.
“Your nonrhyming father aside, we need to decipher the meaning,” Aarya says, and leans forward with a curious look, like she would take the paper from my hand if she could. “It’s a threat to Jag, that’s for certain. But clearly that’s not all. If it matches the other clues he’s left, then you should be able to understand it.”
“November?” Ash says.
I stare at the paper, hyperaware of the small time window and the insurmountable pressure. Nothing immediately jumps out at me, and so I read it again, but the words just swim on the page like nonsense. I huff. “Why is he making me chase clues about him over two damn continents?” I say, more to myself than to them. “Here I am trying to understand some absurd rhyme when I should be warning him that the Ferryman is closing in.”
Aarya grunts. “Are you kidding? If it were my dad, it would have been five continents, only to end up back where I started…annoyed.”
“My dad isn’t like most Strategia,” I say reflexively.
“Are you sure?” Aarya says in a tone that tells me she has her doubts. “Because testing children in frustrating and uncomfortable ways is about as Strategia-like as a parent gets. And I’m sorry to burst your rosy bubble, but he sent you to a Lion property and into a celebration hosted by Jag, of all people. He’s not exactly trying to keep you safe.”
I open my mouth to argue with her, angry that she would even suggest such a thing. The choices my dad’s made my entire life have been about keeping me safe. He loves me. He’s doing this for me. But given the recent chain of events, I’m also not sure she’s wrong.
“Let’s just go out on a limb here and suppose that November knows her father better than you do, Aarya, and give her a minute to digest the message,” Ash says.
“Oooh, please don’t use sarcasm on me, Ashai,” Aarya says with overblown drama. “How will I ever go on?”
“With the same psychotic clown routine you’ve been using for years,” Ash says.
“Rawwwrr,” she says, and slashes her fingers at him like a large cat.
But I’m barely listening because I’m staring at the message, reading it repeatedly, not absorbing the words and my mind drawing a giant blank. I exhale in frustration. Stop it. Get control of yourself. It’s just like learning to fence. The more emotional you get, the more ineffectual you’ll be.
I elongate my breaths, slowing my heart rate and rolling back my shoulders. And I look at the message again. I’ll break it down in pieces, translate it, write it backward—whatever I need to in order to make sense of it.
“Okay,” I say. “What I’ve been doing so far isn’t working, so I’m going to think this through out loud. Jump in if you notice anything, ’cause right now I’m just spinning my wheels.”
Aarya puts her hand on her chest, looking aghast. “As if you thought I would keep my opinions to myself and deprive you all of my musings.”
I look from the paper to Ash, ignoring Aarya. “What we know is that every clue so far has required both me and Ash to decode, so I don’t imagine that this one is any different. There are probably things in here that you all will know and I won’t.” I clear my throat. “Let’s see…the first bit reads: We’re taking to the street in treason.” I pause. “On this part, I’ve got nothing. That doesn’t even sound like something my dad would say, to be honest.” I look up at them to see if they have any input, but no one says a word. “Then he writes: Welcome to the first Death Season. What’s weird about this is that he did say ‘death season’ to me once and only once, when I was six.”
“Would he expect you to remember that?” Ash says.
“Actually, yeah,” I reply. “It’s part of a story we’ve told dozens of times. And…hang on…you know what?” I say, feeling a glimmer of hope. “It’s time to make a change, and we’ve picked a day could also be a variation of that story.” I read the next line. “But The head Lion we will slay has no meaning to me beyond the obvious killing-Jag connotations.”
“A code based on personal experiences,” Ash says. “That fits the pattern.”
“It definitely does,” I agree.
“So let’s hear it, Ember,” Aarya says. “When did your dad say those things to you?”
I raise a wary eyebrow at the nickname. “Okay, so, my mom died in October the year I turned six,” I say. “By the time early December rolled around, there was none of our usual cheer. Everything felt…wrong.”
Ines gives me a sympathetic look, but Aarya looks like she wishes I would get on with it.
“Then one evening,” I continue, “my dad came into my room with a pile of those holiday magazines…did you have those? The ones where everyone is wearing terrible Christmas sweaters and looking pristine while ice-skating?”
Ines shakes her head.
“Well, anyway, he came in and dumped the magazines onto my bed and told me to sit up. He said that winter was always our family’s favorite season and that he was going to be damned if it was going to transform from one of the happiest times of year to the death season. He said we were going to treat that winter as the first winter.”
“So the ‘death season’ could translate to winter,” Ash says.
“Right,” I say, feeling more confident. “He said we would treat it as the first winter and that it was time to make a change. He told me to pick a day, any day in December, and we would start a new tradition, something that was just ours, that had nothing to do with the years before. So I chose the twentieth.”
“Hmmm,” Aarya says, like she’s considering the whole thing. “Winter and December twentieth.”
“The weird part is that it’s five days past that date,” I say. “And December twentieth is obviously in winter, so why the redundancy?”
“Unless the December part isn’t necessary,” Ines says, and I look at her.
“How so?” I say.
“Your story said to pick a day, right? And you picked the twentieth. So what if it’s winter and the number twenty?” she says. “Like in, for instance, an address.”
My eyes widen. Could this really be the clue I’ve been waiting for all along? “Ines, I think you might be a genius.”
Ash grabs the atlas of the UK and spreads it out on the table. He flips to a map of London and we all crowd around it.
It only takes a few seconds before Ash plunks his finger down. “Found it. Winter Street.”
“And Winter Avenue,” Aarya says, pointing to the complete opposite side of the city.
For a brief second we’re quiet.
“We’re taking to the street in treason,” Ash and I both say at the same time.
“Well then,” Aarya says, grinning. “Twenty Winter Street it is.”
“Or One Winter Street,” I say, “considering the rhyme says first Death Season. It could be One Winter Street, apartment number twenty, for instance.”
Aarya gives me a look that almost appears to be respect. “Yes, yes it could.”
“But what about the last line?” I ask.
“If I had to take a guess,” Ash says before Aarya can jump in, “it was designed to look like a threat, in case anyone else found it. It’s actually a brilliant code.”
“An address,” I repeat, and stand, itching to get to it. I need to tell Layla.
Aarya is already up, checking the weapons in her boots and on her belt. “While I understand that we have a seriously limited time constraint to find your dad, I just want to say that it’s a terrible idea to go to an address that the Ferryman may or may not know about without staking it out first.”
“If you wanted to be safe, Aarya, you should have stayed home,” Ash says, repeating her comment from our text conversation.
I grab my coat and gloves and toss Ash his. And in less than a minute we’re out the door.
Ash drives through the streets of London, and I sit up front with him, tapping on my knee, silently repeating my hopes that we’ll find my dad and that this isn’t just the location of yet another clue. Here we are racing to beat the Ferryman, and I can’t even be certain we’re headed toward my dad. If I don’t see another clue for ten years it will be too soon.
Ash looks over at me, periodically reading my face. “Something we should know?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Not exactly. It’s just…that message from my dad…it…” I look over at Ash. “It was a rhyme. My dad doesn’t rhyme,” I say, repeating my objection from earlier.
“Apparently he does,” Aarya says from the backseat.
“Are you thinking the message was altered? That it wasn’t from him?” Ash asks, ignoring Aarya.
“No. It was his handwriting,” I say. “And it follows the patterns of the other clues he’s left us. It’s just that all of a sudden, after seventeen years of raising me in a small town away from Strategia, talking to me in non-Strategia ways, and teaching me non-Strategia values, he suddenly does a one-eighty.”
“Didn’t your dad also lie to you your whole life?” Aarya says, which earns her a disapproving look from Ash through the rearview mirror.
“He did,” I say. “And I’m learning to accept that, even though I don’t like it. But sending me to Logan’s and to that Lion ball is different. Why would he willingly put me in danger…to what, test me? Everything in me tells me he wouldn’t do that, yet here we are with an address that he could easily have hidden in the tree outside my house instead of in a Lion event. What kind of a parent would do something like that to their child?”
“Mine,” Ash and Aarya say at the same time, and it puts the kibosh on my rant.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean—”
“You did and it’s fine,” Ash says. “You’re right that Strategia parents aren’t as warm or cuddly as other people’s parents. But they have a level of responsibility that other parents don’t. They know their children will grow up to stop disasters, to thwart attacks, to sidestep wars—and they do what they need to in order to get us prepared. When you’re looking out for everyone, there are always personal sacrifices. Strategia aren’t perfect.”
“Speak for yourself,” Aarya says.
I nod because I’m not sure what to say. Ash’s point is absolutely fair, and from a nonemotional standpoint that logic makes perfect sense. But I’m not coming from a nonemotional standpoint and I don’t want to. I want my dad—the one I’ve always had, the one who loves me so much he would risk everything to keep me safe.
Ash slows and I spot the sign for Winter Street. We pass a restaurant cleaning up for the night and a closed chocolatier’s with the number 6 on the awning. And the instant Ash puts the car in park, I’m out the door.
I walk quickly to a brick apartment building with white trim, bay windows, and a bronze number 1. It only takes a few seconds for Ash, Aarya, and Ines to join me. We don’t discuss it; we just casually walk up to the door, and Ash pulls out his lock-picking tools as though they were keys. I stand next to him, blocking him from the view of any pedestrians, and in a couple of seconds we’re inside.
The lobby is modest but clean, with mailboxes near the entrance and a flight of stairs with a polished wooden railing. We walk toward the staircase at an easy pace, avoiding any movements that might signal we’re out of place here. And we make our way steadily up two flights, where the apartment numbers begin with twos.
Three doors down is apartment number twenty and my heart pounds furiously as we close the short distance. I take a hopeful breath, raise my hand, and knock. Four seconds pass. I knock again. Still nothing.
Please let my dad be here. Please.
I look at Ash and he pulls out his lock-picking tools, slipping them into the keyhole. There is the familiar click, and he cracks the door an inch. He peers through the opening, but instead of taking his time assessing the inside like I would have imagined, he opens the door wide.
For a split second I try to convince myself that it’s because he sees my dad, but in my gut I know that’s wrong. And the instant I lay eyes on the room, I panic. The living room is a mess—furniture overturned, glass on the floor, and blood.
I rush into the room. “Dad!” I call out, but there’s no answer.
Beside me, Ash has his knife drawn and Ines is clutching a blow dart. But I can’t think about weapons right now. All I can think is that there is blood on the floor that belongs to someone, and I hope more than anything that someone isn’t my dad.
I race into the bedroom, which is disconcertingly tidy, with a quilt folded at the bottom of the bed and my dad’s plaid duffel bag, which matches my own, sitting on the floor next to an armoire. My heart sinks. “No,” I say, backing out of the room.
Ash touches my arm. “November—”
But I pull away. “I’m not…This is not…No,” I say, trying to unknow this horror.
I walk back toward the living room, but Ash blocks my path. “Why are you…move, Ash,” I say.
“I need you to listen to me,” he says, his voice demanding my attention. “Whatever happened here happened not long ago.”
I stare at him, trying to take meaning from what he’s saying, but all I can think about is the blood splatter in the living room.
“Which means that we may not have very much time here,” he continues, and his look is hard and serious, not soft and comforting like a non-Strategia’s would be. “The Lions will be coming back to scrub this place clean and go through your father’s things. This is our only chance to search the apartment ourselves and we need your help. You’re the only one who would know if your dad left you something.”
The instant Ash suggests it, some of the emotional fog clears.
“Right,” I say, my voice tight. “I understand.”
Ash steps out of my way after giving me an assessing look and we move back into the living room.
Ines is bending down near the floor, inspecting a few drops of blood on the wood. “I would say this happened no more than an hour ago,” she says. “The blood is still fresh.”
“No wonder Jag gave that speech,” Aarya says, walking around the room, taking in all of the toppled furniture. “The Ferryman was probably en route as he spoke.” She turns from one side to the next and chops her hand in the air, like she’s simulating the altercation. “If I had to guess, though, the Ferryman wasn’t alone. I would say that there were three or four people in this fight, based on the wreckage and the locations of the blood.”
Ines nods her agreement.
I walk through the living room, fighting the urge to break down, and scour it for anything that might be personal or that my dad might have left for me to find. There are a coffee table and a couch with a charcoal-gray throw in front of a fireplace, two overturned chairs and a broken table next to the window, and a bookshelf with books scattered on the floor. The problem is that everything in the room is bland; there’s nothing that reminds me of Pembrook or that feels personal in any way.
Aarya and Ines systematically inspect the apartment, flipping through the pages of the books and checking the kitchen drawers for false bottoms. Ash stands by the window, peering beyond the curtains down the street. I can only assume he’s keeping watch for Lion assassins.
“Anything?” he asks after a couple of minutes.
“A big fat nothing,” Aarya says, and I nod in agreement.
“I’m going to check the bedroom,” I say as I move toward it, remembering the day at my house when I was certain Ash wouldn’t find anything in there. And to my surprise, Ines follows me in.
“How can I help?” she says.
“The quilt,” I say. “At my house there was a message in one of the seams.”
And she immediately goes to work. I pick up my dad’s duffel bag. Plaid blanket, plaid duffel bag—it feels like an obvious association. Plus, no one but me would know that we have matching bags.
I go over the outside of the duffel bag with my fingers, checking the seams and the fabric for any possible bumps, but find nothing. I open the bag and it’s empty, with only the faintest whiff of my dad’s peppermint aftershave remaining. I press my lips together and shake my head, forcing myself to focus. And then I see it—inside the side pocket is my dad’s favorite whittling knife with the handle shaped like a wolf.
I pull it out and flip it open, but there’s nothing there but the blade. My heart sinks—what if he didn’t have time to leave me a message? I slip the blade into my boot, unwilling to leave it behind for the Lions to find, and I move to the armoire. I pull the doors open and inside hang simple black and dark gray clothes, exactly what you would expect from a Strategia wardrobe. I flip through the shirts and pants, running my hands over the pockets and the cuffs, looking for anything that might be out of place.
I pull the last pair of pants aside and on the final hanger is my dad’s gray wool scarf—actually two of my dad’s gray wool scarves. I frown. He’s worn this scarf through my entire childhood and now I come to find out that it’s not even special—there are two. I grab the fabric of the first one, running my fingers along it. At the very bottom is a frayed edge. I instantly have a flashback to the game my mom used to play with me—the one where she would make me distinguish between two seemingly identical objects.
“November?” Ines says, now staring at me.
“I think”—my throat is suddenly parched—“this is my mom’s.” I pull it off the hanger, holding it close to my body. “I just don’t know why it would be…” I stop, my fingers finding the tag and a small bump inside the fabric.
I separate the tag fabric and sure enough, folded inside is a small piece of paper with my dad’s handwriting.
“Got it!” I say, and Ines smiles.
She quickly folds the blanket exactly as it was when we came in. I wrap my mom’s scarf around my neck and slip the note in my pocket. I close the armoire doors and zip the duffel bag, placing it where I found it. In a flash we’re all out the door, down the stairs, and walking to the car.
I stick my hand in my pocket to text Layla.
Me: Dad captured. Found note.
We jump in the car and Ash pulls away from the curb.
“Okay, let’s hear it,” Aarya says from the backseat.
I take the small piece of paper out of my pocket, unfolding it. Unlike the other notes where the handwriting is neat, this one appears to have been written quickly. Did my dad know he was in trouble when he wrote it?
I read aloud:
The tall bouncer at the pub also guards the Lion estate. He goes there directly after his shift at 2 a.m. I love you, my sweet girl.
I stare at the last line. While I know it’s not the important part of the message, I read it over and over, swallowing back the emotion that threatens to come.
Aarya whistles. “I don’t know whether this is cause for celebration or the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”
“The Lion estate,” I say. “That’s Jag’s house, right?”
“Yes,” Ash says, stopping at a light. “But a Family estate is more than a house. A number of Family members live there in addition to the head family, guards, and staff. The properties are large, with meeting rooms, a great hall, and a dungeon.”
My heart races. A dungeon. “And the Lion estate is where you think the Ferryman took my dad?” I ask.
“Without a doubt,” Aarya says. “But a Family estate isn’t just something you sneak into. We could spend weeks planning to break into one with a large crew and it still might not be enough time to do it properly.”
I nod. “I don’t expect you to come with—”
“I’m coming,” Ines says, and I turn to her in surprise. “It’s half past midnight. If we head to the pub now, we’ll arrive in time to track that bouncer.”
“You want to go tonight?” Aarya says in disbelief, staring at Ines like she’s completely lost it. “You’re not even giving us one day to think this through? We might as well just hand ourselves over to Jag.”
“Do as you wish,” Ines says. “But please don’t distract us. Every minute here counts.”
Aarya’s mouth drops open, but Ines doesn’t seem put off in the least.
“Where’s this pub?” I ask.
“The London Market,” Ash says, and I can hear by the tightness in his voice that it’s not a good thing.
“So central London?” I say.
“Under,” Ash says.
I stare at him. “Under what?”
“Under central London,” Ash says, and I instantly understand Aarya’s objection. “It’s a Strategia market in the middle of an underground labyrinth.”
My stomach drops. “As in the only people in this market are Strategia?” I say. “And because this is London, those Strategia are disproportionately Lions?”
“By golly, I think she’s got it,” Aarya says, clearly not happy with the situation.
“The pub is called the Lions’ Den,” Ash says like it’s all the explanation that’s necessary. He hits the gas pedal. “We’re going to need more weapons.”
I immediately text Layla.