Deception

Chapter Fifty-Five LOGAN

Rachel leans heavily on me as we climb down a set of stairs and hurry through the main hospital hallway. The walls are a brilliant white, and the floor beneath us is smooth, dark wood. Quinn refuses Willow’s help as he walks, but his breathing is harsh, and his hands shake. Frankie and Adam walk in front of us.

Jodi, Drake, Smithson, and Nola meet us in the front hall, a circular room with a scattering of stiff-looking chairs covered in soft green cloth.

“Ian isn’t in the building,” Nola says. Her usually calm expression is set in angry lines. “No one’s seen him in here all day.”

“Well, if Clarissa was telling the truth, some of Ian’s tracker friends are here from Rowansmark. Maybe he went to find them,” Rachel says.

“Oh, good. More murderers to kill.” Willow adjusts her quiver and doesn’t look at Quinn.

“The triumvirate is expecting you in the council room now,” Elim says as she crosses the stone floor with brisk steps. “I’ll take you.”

“We don’t have time for this now,” Adam says. “We need to find Ian.”

I glance meaningfully at Elim and shake my head.

“We’ll tell the triumvirate we know who the killer is and ask for their help in capturing him. They know this city, and the probable location of the Rowansmark trackers, better than we do,” I say quietly. “But we aren’t going to stand around and wait for them to reach a decision. We’ll give them his identity, and then we’re going to turn this city upside down until we find him.”

We follow Elim out of the wide double doors, across the small, manicured courtyard, and through the stone archway that leads to the main road. With every step, I see Donny’s eyes lit with eagerness as he remembers to keep his knife ready. Sylph smiling while she carefully bandages my head. Thom sacrificing himself so that I could live.

Ian’s hands are covered with the blood of my people—my friends—and every breath I take is fueled by the cold, implacable fury that lives within me. Ian will die for what he’s done. I only wish I knew how to reanimate him so I could kill him again and again and again until he’s suffered the way he made us suffer.

Silencing the tiny voice that wonders if my motivations are so very different from his, I scan the streets as I walk and pray for a glimpse of him. My motivations might be similar, but I don’t plan to kill innocent people to achieve my goal.

Lankenshire is a city of gray-white stone, tidy yards, and streets that curve in gentle circles around the cluster of government buildings that rest in the city’s heart. Elim walks with her customary brisk strides, her dark hair swinging with every step. I’m thankful the hospital is only one street away from the council house. Rachel holds her head high, but I can tell every step she takes is harder than the last.

We follow the street as it spirals inward toward the city’s center. Most of the buildings we pass look like businesses. One tall structure claims to be a library. I can’t imagine what it’s like to live in a city where every citizen has access to a huge collection of books.

I guess the triumvirate doesn’t share the Commander’s conviction that ideas can be threatening.

“You can rest in the council room,” I tell Rachel as we round the corner and see the orderly square laid out before us. It’s a testament to how weak she still feels that she doesn’t argue.

The council building is an imposing structure made from polished gray brick. A tall statue of a man with a narrow face and an impressive sword stands in the middle of the square surrounded by pink and purple flowers.

Ahead of us, Elim halts in the middle of the paved path that leads to the council building’s steps. Casting a quick, panicked look over her shoulder at us, she lifts trembling fingers to her throat.

I peer around her to see what’s wrong and instantly reach for my sword. A line of Rowansmark trackers stretches across the steps leading into the council building. I scan the rest of the square and see more trackers stepping out of the shadows. In seconds, we’re surrounded by no fewer than fifteen.

Ian isn’t with them.

“Give us the controller, and your friends can walk away from this place unharmed.” A tracker near the center of the square steps closer. His skin is nearly as dark as Oliver’s, and his head is bare. His brown eyes are calculating as he assesses us.

Rachel lets go of me and draws her knife. Willow nocks an arrow on her bow.

“I don’t have it with me,” I say before anyone else can show aggression toward the trackers. If I can convince the trackers to separate me from the rest of my group, ostensibly to retrieve the device, I can keep my friends safe. As if she can read my mind, Rachel steps a little closer to me. Her hands shake as she holds her knife, but her face is a mask of furious determination.

I admire her courage, but on a day like this, when she’s already struggling just to stay on her feet, her courage is going to get her killed.

“You wear the device on your chest,” the tracker says.

Of course he knows that. Ian must have told his tracker friends every single detail he’d observed over the past few weeks.

I glance behind me. The trackers are closing in. If I’m going to derail what’s about to happen, I need to do it soon.

Ripping at the laces on my tunic, I show the tracker my bare chest. “I told you the truth. I don’t have it with me. And if you and your men so much as injure one of my people, I swear on my life I’ll never tell you where I hid it.”

The tracker doesn’t seem surprised that I anticipated this moment. He got his information about me straight from Ian, who’s had ample opportunity to observe the way I think.

Which means Ian will already have accounted for this possibility, and he’ll be ready with a counterattack.

I stare the tracker down. “Where’s Ian? Expecting you to do his dirty work for him while he hides his face from those he’s betrayed?”

No sooner do the words leave my mouth than Ian separates himself from the thick hedges surrounding a meeting hall and walks toward us, clapping his hands in slow, deliberate movements.

“Well done, brother. Well. Done,” he says. The sly sincerity in his voice is at odds with the anger in his eyes.

I’ll see his anger and double it. I have the weight of Baalboden’s destruction and the loss of thirty-eight of my people to fuel me. Ian has a twisted sense of patriotism and a mile-wide streak of insanity.

I step in front of my people and hold my sword steady.

Ian laughs, an ugly, vicious sound. “Isn’t that heroic?” He turns to the other trackers and throws out his arms. “My brother, the hero! The boy who colluded with Jared Adams to steal from Rowansmark. Left his family to suffer the consequences. And then stole his followers away from their leader so that he could start his own city-state on the backs of Rowansmark technology and Baalboden labor.”

“That’s not what happened.” Adam’s voice is little more than a snarl.

“Well, look who’s decided to become a devout Logan follower. It wasn’t too long ago that I was vigorously defending his honor to you.”

“Why bother defending him if you’re going to turn around and do all this?” Adam gestures around us.

“I had to gain his trust, didn’t I?” Ian looks at me and slowly tugs on the silver chain he wears until the tiny copper dragon charm is visible. “You know, until I called the tanniyn that day we stopped by the Ferris wheel in the Wasteland, I wasn’t absolutely sure you still had the controller. I’d caught up with you a day before you met the Commander to give the tech to him. I’m afraid I lost sight of what happened to the controller after that. I was a little busy telling the tanniyn where to go.”

My jaw hurts from clenching my teeth. “That charm calls the beast? Does it also override the controller? Is that what happened when the Cursed One went inside Baalboden?”

Ian’s smile is fierce. “My father wouldn’t build technology meant for the Commander without giving us a way to shut it down. And if you hadn’t altered the strength of the controller with your little booster pack, I could’ve finished all of this that day on the field the way I finished your city.”

My voice shakes. “You killed thousands of people. Thousands.”

“Justice requires sacrifice.” He steps closer.

“Instead of listening to this lunatic, how about if I just put an arrow straight through his lying tongue?” Willow asks.

“If you shoot me, every single person inside Lankenshire will die.”

Willow shrugs and pulls her bow string back. “I’ll call that bluff.”

Ian gestures toward the top of the council building. “Do you see that?”

I follow his arm and see a dark gray box attached beneath the eaves of the building’s roof. The metal looks like the same that was used to make both the dart and the device.

“What is it?” Frankie asks, his tone belligerent.

“It emits a sonic pulse. A slightly stronger pulse than the one worn by every city-state’s leader to keep the tanniyn at bay. If a city dishonors its protection agreement with Rowansmark, any tracker in the area can change the frequency to summon the beast instead.” He smiles, a ghost of the charming Ian we’d come to know. “I did enjoy listening to you uneducated, superstitious people call the tanniyn the Cursed One. I bet you still believe there’s only one tanniyn left, too. You really never once thought to challenge anything the Commander said or did. How pathetic.”

“Neither did our father,” I say. “If he had, we wouldn’t be here now.”

Ian’s face flushes brilliant red and he stalks closer. Perfect. If I can make him angry enough to forget that he should stay out of sword range, I can end this.

End him.

My eyes graze the metal box attached to the building’s eaves, and my stomach drops. I can’t kill Ian while any Rowansmark trackers remain inside Lankenshire. Not if it means the Cursed One, or tanniyn—whatever we want to call it—will be summoned to turn Lankenshire into a pile of smoldering ruins. Not when I haven’t examined the tech to know if the power boost I gave our device is enough to override this new signal.

Rachel trembles beside me, and I cast a quick look at Quinn, who stands on her other side. He doesn’t look too good himself, but he wraps an arm around her and gently eases her back a few steps. The fact that she doesn’t fight to stay by my side speaks volumes about her condition.

Ian takes another step forward, his fists clenched. “He was not your father. He was mine. So was our mother. But you killed them.” Ian’s voice rises. “You killed them both. My mother couldn’t stand to suffer over the loss of you, even though I was right there. She chose death instead. And my father—”

“Paid the price for his loyalty toward the Commander with his life while you watched. I know. You told me, remember? While you were busy lying to me about your background, because unlike a man of honor, you chose deception and murder as a means to get the vengeance you crave.”

I step forward, as much to put distance between me and my friends as to get closer to Ian. Quinn has already moved Rachel back another few yards. Behind the trackers who line the council steps, the triumvirate exits the building and stops to stare. I look at Ian. “I guess you and the Commander aren’t very different from each other, are you?”

Ian’s entire body vibrates, and he spits his words at me. “I have more honor in my little finger than you could find in the entire group of pathetic refugees from Baalboden. I remained loyal to my leader. To my city. Even in the face of my family’s disgrace.”

“Honor and loyalty require you to murder children? To poison innocents?” My voice is rising too. “To burn an entire city to the ground because you thought your life wasn’t fair?”

“Fair?” Ian is yelling now. “Let me tell you what isn’t fair. You spent your life in the lap of luxury, coddled by the Commander as his precious investment, while I spent mine scrambling to stay one step ahead of the disgrace my mother’s suicide and my father’s theft brought down on my head.”

“You idiot!” Frankie roars, whipping out his sword and closing the gap between him and me. “Logan’s Baalboden mother was flogged to death in front of him when he was just six years old. He was declared an outcast. He survived on the streets by begging or stealing or eating trash just to have enough to keep himself alive. Until you destroyed our city, most of us still wouldn’t have anything to do with him. He had a mountain of loss, neglect, and downright cruelty to overcome, but he didn’t turn around and start killing innocent people because of it.”

“He betrayed his family!” Ian’s voice rings across the square, full of terrible rage. “He left us to our disgrace.”

“I didn’t know.” I speak quietly, hoping to calm Ian. Hoping to stop the violence I see in his eyes. “Until two hours ago when a Lankenshire man who’d spent significant time in Rowansmark nineteen years ago recognized me, I didn’t know I was anything other than Logan McEntire from Baalboden.”

Ian’s laugh is harsh. “That’s very believable, Logan. Very. You delivered that lie with all the false sincerity with which you live your life.” He steps closer. “But I know you knew the truth. Jared Adams checked in with my father every six months, bringing progress reports on you and assuring us that you were healthy and happy. The same man who took you in as his apprentice and allowed you to court his daughter.” His voice shakes. “You were close to Jared, connected to him in every way, so don’t stand there and tell me you didn’t know the truth.”

“I didn’t . . .” My voice dries up. My air runs out. My heart is a frantic, caged thing beating against my chest.

Jared knew? All this time, he knew who I was and why the Commander hated me so much, but he never told me? I thought he respected me. Maybe even loved me. Earning his regard was one of the touchstones by which I lived my life.

Ian is still speaking, but I don’t hear a word he says. Who else knew? Oliver, who was closer to Jared than anyone but Rachel and who fed me, clothed me, and treated me like a son? Did he save me out of love, or was he tasked with making sure the Commander’s investment didn’t starve to death in an alley before I could be useful?

The pain of my mother’s lies, Jared’s secrecy, and Oliver’s uncertain motives slices into me, but I don’t have time to dwell on it.

Ian locks eyes with me and says, “Do you understand pain atonement, Logan? The pain must be commensurate with the crime. Most people survive the punishment. But if the crime is too big—if you’ve betrayed your family, your employers, your fellow citizens, and your leader by giving the power to rule the continent to the one man your leader hates beyond all others—the punishment is impossible to survive.”

“Marcus died. I get that.” My hand grips my sword with white knuckles. Two more steps and Ian will be in range. I can’t kill him, but I can maim him. If I take him out of the equation, perhaps we have a chance at fighting off the rest of the trackers. Perhaps none of them will summon the beast while they’re still well within its path of destruction. “But just because you lost your father—”

“I killed him!” Ian’s voice sounds desperate. “It was my test to be accepted into the ranks of the military council without the taint of my family’s disgrace clinging to me. I administered the pain atonement, and I watched him die.”

I stare at him in horrified silence as the emotion on his face slowly subsides, replaced by a slick mask of charm that fails to contain the twisted creature he’s become.

Had he always been like this? Always capable of murdering innocents and laying the blame on his inner demons? Or did he join our group hoping to find family with me, hoping to make me see things his way, only to be disappointed once again when I wasn’t who he needed me to be?

It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that the killings stop, and that he pays for his crimes.

Around me, my people fan out to flank me, weapons raised. My heart clenches as the trackers move closer. Only five yards separate us now.

“Tell your people to back off,” Ian says as he reaches into his cloak pocket and withdraws two clay cylinders, each about the size of his palm.

“Or what?” Willow asks. “You’ll call that unholy lizard—”

“The tanniyn,” Ian sneers. “If you’re going to talk about something, at least use the correct terminology.”

“Would you like to hear the terminology I use for you?” Willow asks. “Or should I tell you that after I’ve cut out your tongue and fed it to the dogs?” She steps past me, and Ian retreats a step.

“Tell your people to back off, Logan, or once again, you’ll be responsible for the consequences,” he says.

“Funny how you seem to think everyone else should be responsible for what you do,” Rachel says from ten yards behind me. Her voice sounds breathless. Pained.

I glance back to see her leaning on Quinn, her knife still in her hand, her skin as pale as the stone beneath our feet. Quinn meets my eyes. I beg him with my expression to get her away from here before all hell breaks loose. She’s in no shape to defend herself, and if I’m worried about her, I’ll be distracted while I’m fighting.

Quinn nods his understanding and begins moving Rachel away again, a task made difficult by the presence of trackers at his back. He’ll have to make it look like he has no part in what’s going on.

And I’ll have to provide a distraction capable of buying him the time he needs.

“Give us the device, along with any modifications, designs, or replicas, and your people get to stay alive.” The tracker who first addressed me speaks again, and Ian takes a sliding step to my right.

“What about Logan?” Adam asks. “You said his people get to live. What about Logan?”

“Oh, there’s no scenario in which Logan survives this.” Ian moves to the right again, and the other trackers step closer. The moves are coordinated. Rehearsed.

Planned.

“You see, the very second Logan hands everything over to me, he will die,” Ian says, his thumbs rubbing the clay cylinders he holds.

“Then why would he ever give it to you?” Frankie says. “You’ve lost your mind.”

What is Ian up to? I stare at the cylinders he holds while I edge toward him, my sword ready. Some sort of incendiary device? More tech involving the Cursed One?

“He never had his mind to begin with,” Willow says. “He’s nothing but a lunatic who lost his mommy and daddy and wants to burn the world down so he can sit back and watch.”

Ian snarls at her, but then drifts farther to the right. Farther away from me.

“He’ll hand it over—”

Farther toward the southern edge of the square.

“—because if he doesn’t—”

The other trackers converge on us, weapons out.

“—if he holds back even one single piece of tech—”

Ian slides to the right again. Toward the edge of the square.

Toward Rachel.

“—he’ll lose everyone he loves.” His blue eyes meet mine, and he smiles. “Just. Like. Me.”

“No!” I shove Willow aside and start running.