The canal branched off from the river north of the bridge. Winter gave the bridge an anxious glance as she walked by, shuddering at the memory of standing on it that morning. The bloodstained wood revealed where she’d stumbled across. Where she’d climbed onto the railing. How long had Marcus waited there after she went in the river? Did he really believe she was dead? Had he told Phoebe?
Just past that was the massive pipe that drew in water for the city. But there was nothing out of place in the area around it. Winter crossed over the pipe and continued north.
Nearly ten minutes later, she spotted a figure in the forest ahead. She ducked behind a tree and peered around the trunk.
Jonathan Forrest stood with his back to her, assessing some metal contraption that sat on the side of the river. It was difficult to make out details from here. She needed a closer look.
Winter glanced down at her clothes. They were all black, but noticeably different from the Saint’s uniform. Well, if Forrest pointed it out, she could spout any number of believable lies. She grabbed the mask and hat from the bag and put them on.
“Forrest!” Winter called as she approached. But her eyes were on the contraption, not him. The main body was a cylinder, with a pipe opening into the river, and a ladder leading to a hatch in the top that allowed access to the space inside.
“Plague Saint!” Forrest turned and waved. “I assume you’re coming to the assembly meeting tonight?”
“Of course. I just came to give this a look.” Winter gestured to the—thing.
Forrest walked toward her, swaying as he did. “Impressive right?” He lowered his voice and leaned in. “Engineers did pretty good, even though they didn’t really know what it was for. Even set it on a timer so we don’t have to be here. Slow, steady dispersal over the course of a few days.” His words slurred into each other at the end of that last sentence. He laughed.
Slow, steady dispersal. Marcus’s poison would creep into every last corner of the city.
Winter frowned. “Why bring in more outsiders than necessary? I thought you were an engineer, anyway.”
“I’m just a businessman.” More laughter, as if that statement were hilarious.
“But you designed the trolley system.”
“Oh, no, I just bought the idea. Steal of a price, too. The idiots who actually came up with the thing—well, I don’t know what they’re doing these days. Probably begging for scraps on the street.” Forrest took a swig from the bottle in his hand. Surprising, considering how composed he’d been at the last assembly meeting. Was he planning on sobering up before attending tonight’s dinner?
Regardless, he was happy to keep spilling secrets. “Mayor told me I had to make the trolleys free to ride. Swore the financial advisor would compensate me for it, but factory owners and other businesses needed easy transportation for their workers,” he explained. “This whole plague mess is perfect. Now I have some leverage, you know?”
“I don’t think I quite follow,” Winter told him. Her hand hovered over her bag, still open from when she’d grabbed the mask. Her fingers twitched.
“To force a fare. I’ll go to the council and say, ‘the trolleys are too crowded, the plagues will spread like wildfire. If we charge people to use ‘em, we reduce that.’”
“And the people who need them to work?”
Forrest shrugged. “Guess they better save their money.”
Okay, he didn’t care about people, but he cared about himself and his money. And his money didn’t just come from other rich people attending his clubs anymore. “You own some of the factories now. If your workers can’t get to the building, you’ll lose money…”
“Trust me, people will find ways to get to work when it comes down to it. They can walk if they have to.” Another swig of the drink. “And there’s no shortage of people looking for jobs. Even once the weakest start dying, there will always be more teenagers looking to support their families.”
Winter’s eyes narrowed. “Okay. Well. Good luck with that. I’m actually glad you’re here, they sent me to find you.” Her gaze flickered to the cylinder hanging over the river. “Has that thing been filled yet?”
“Uh, yeah. Blackburn wanted everything ready to go by tomorrow morning. Once we’ve all been treated with his new medicine, well…” Forrest made a vague motion with his hand. “Bombs away.”
“There’s actually been a change in plans. We need to postpone the dispersal and move this thing—”
Forrest chuckled, interrupting the lie she’d hoped would be convincing to a drunk fraud. “Sorry, Saint, but I’m going to need confirmation from Atherton and Blackburn. You’re useful, but you’re not exactly like the rest of us.”
“And Marcus Blackburn is?” Winter snapped.
“Woah.” Forrest held up his hands. Dark alcohol sloshed out of the bottle and splattered on the thin layer of snow beneath them. “Don’t take it personally. It’s just that the hierarchy here is more like you work for us but not really with us, you know?”
Winter yanked out the sword and angrily tossed the bag onto the ground. She pointed the blade at Forrest, the tip coming dangerously close to his neck. “Can you or can you not shut down this contraption, you fucking fraud?”
“What the hell?” The bottle slipped from his hands. “Look, I told you, I didn’t design it! I have no idea how it works. Please don’t—”
Winter swung.
She left Forrest bleeding out from his neck on the ground while she made her way to the contraption and up the ladder to investigate the hatch. The damn thing was locked. She examined the padlock, wondering who had the key. Marcus? Atherton? Maybe it was hidden somewhere safe.
No matter. There were ways to break a lock, and as Forrest had so kindly mentioned, she had until tomorrow morning.
Winter walked back to where her bag lay on the ground, wrapped the sword back up, and slid the weapon inside. Occasionally, her gaze moved to Forrest, and the sight of his body did nothing to wipe away the odd, detached numbness that had settled over her after she’d swung the sword.
Cold logic guided her now. She couldn’t leave him here where another council member might stumble across him. Throwing him into the river above the canal could contaminate the water supply—the filtration system could only handle so much—and moving him below the canal intake would take too long.
The meeting started soon. She’d have to deal with him later. For now, she’d hide him. There was more than enough overgrowth to do the trick, and he easily vanished into the shadows of a thorny bush.
Winter’s next stop was the church.
She smashed the lock on the church’s rarely used back door with a large rock and crept inside. Distant noise warned her that there were plenty of people in the building, but she didn’t run into any of them on her way down the corridor. She tried doors until she found a storage room.
Racks of church maiden gowns took up most of the room’s space, with bins of masks balanced on top of them. Winter changed into one of the gowns. She tucked all of her hair under the hood. Then, she put on the church maiden mask.
The gown didn’t have pockets. Winter lifted the skirt and made an incision in the inner lining with her pocketknife. She wouldn’t be able to carry much without anyone noticing, and there was no way she could make the sword fit. She settled on shoving the bottle of liquid death into the inner lining of the gown and hid her bag behind the grate of an air vent.
She left the room and continued down the hall to an intersection. The faint drone of conversation came from the direction of the chapel ahead, but closer, clearer voices were audible to the left. A woman’s voice barking orders was particularly distinct.
Winter went left and stopped in front of an open door. Church maidens filled the room on the other side, swarming around tables filled with platters of food. A table at the back wall—next to some rows of shelves packed with bottles and boxes—caught Winter’s attention. On it, empty glasses surrounded a large jug.
A maiden stood in front of the table, emptying bottles of wine into the jug. Strange to combine so many bottles together if they were just going to be poured into glasses afterward. Unless something else needed to be added. Something everyone at the assembly meeting needed to drink.
Winter cut across the room, unnoticed among the dozens of other identical girls. Phoebe might be here. Winter scanned for girls who looked to be about the right height as she walked, but she wasn’t certain any of them were Phoebe.
The girl at the drink table poured the last of the wine and reached for something new: a bottle of clear liquid.
Winter stopped next to her. “What are you doing?” she demanded before the girl could get the cap off.
The girl froze. “Um, the priestess told me to combine this with all of the drinks.”
“No, I’m supposed to do that. It has to be a certain ratio. Go help that group over there get food platters ready.” Winter gestured toward the tables in the middle of the room.
The girl set the bottle down and darted off. Winter picked it up. Clear liquid cure sloshed around inside. Winter glanced to her right at the crowded shelves. It was the best hiding spot within reach. She took a few steps to the closest shelf and shoved the bottle of cure into a dark corner behind a box of plates.
As she turned back around, someone shouted, “Hey!”
A priestess stormed toward her, and Winter wondered if she’d seen her hide the cure. She could run, but she couldn’t just let them add the stuff to the drinks. And if they knew she stole it—
“These glasses aren’t going to fill themselves,” the priestess said, pointing at the jug and the empty glasses around it. “Drinks are supposed to go out in five minutes. Get going.”
Might as well, Winter decided. She could keep searching for Phoebe while she worked. And with the cure out of the picture, the last big thing she had to do was shut down the contraption on the river.
While Winter returned to the table with the jug, the priestess wandered off to lecture a group of maidens standing around on the other side of the room. No one was paying Winter much attention. She knocked a glass off the table onto the carpet. When she knelt down to pick up, she was definitely hidden from view. Perfect.
She had no luck finding Phoebe while she worked, and after a few minutes she decided the task was impossible. It wasn’t something she should be focused on right now, anyway, though part of her couldn’t help but worry over whether Phoebe had really made a full recovery.
Maidens began to gather at Winter’s table, bringing empty platters with them. They took drinks as Winter filled them. Excellent. Marcus and the rest of the city’s elite would think they were drinking medicine that would save them from the death they wanted to unleash on their people.
“You get out there too,” the priestess said.
It took a moment for Winter to realize the priestess was speaking to her. She hadn’t noticed her approach. “Huh?”
“Take a platter. We have more than enough drinks poured for now. We need to get them out there.” The priestess snapped her fingers. “Today, please.”
Damn it. Winter took one of the trays and joined a line of maidens leaving the room. They won’t recognize you, she reminded herself. You have the mask.
The thought didn’t do much to slow her heart or stop her chest from constricting, but Winter managed to keep her hands steady as she entered the chapel and surveyed the tables. City council members, business managers, dozens of people she didn’t recognize.
But there was a table of familiar faces. Mayor Atherton, Ellen Bates, and Marcus, along with a few other council members. Winter moved toward them without thinking. By the time she had the sense to reconsider, to keep herself as far from the one man who knew her identity as possible, she was too close.
“Is the Plague Saint coming tonight?” Atherton asked.
“Haven’t seen him,” Marcus said. “Maybe he’s working on something in his lab. He doesn’t really need to be here, anyway.”
“Sure, sure.” Atherton looked over at Winter expectantly. “Those drinks for us?” he asked.
“Oh, uh, yes,” Winter mumbled. She closed the gap between her and the table and held out the platter.
As Atherton took his drink, he asked, “What about Forrest? You hear from him?”
“I saw him drinking earlier.” Marcus took a drink for himself. Winter watched the glass move toward his mouth. “Probably got caught up partying somewhere. I’ll go look for him later if he doesn’t show up and take him a drink if I have to.” The dark wine touched his lips.
Beneath Winter’s mask, the barest smile crept onto her face.
Instead of returning to the food prep room with the other maidens, she took a different turn through the halls. Once she was around a corner and out of sight of anyone moving between the back room and the chapel, she abandoned the platter on the ground.
She opened the door to the storage room and walked to the vent where the grate she’d loosened still hid her bag. It was a comforting presence as it slid over her shoulder. She reached inside to check that the sword was still there.
A shadow passed over her. Winter glanced back at the figure blocking the light from the hall. The church maiden stood still, their mask looking down on Winter with something that felt a hell of a lot like judgement.
“Can I help you?” Winter asked as she straightened up.
“It is you.” A hand moved up to remove the mask.
Phoebe.
“Oh.” Winter’s heart slammed against her ribcage. “You look well, considering, you know…”
Winter couldn’t quite place all of the emotions warring on Phoebe’s face, but they were certainly strong ones. Phoebe gestured wildly as she half-whispered, half-shouted at Winter. “You’re supposed to be dead! What are you doing here?”
Winter removed her own mask. “Dead?”
“Mark said you stabbed yourself and jumped off a bridge into the river.”
“That is technically true,” Winter admitted. “Well, not the stabbing part. I stabbed a bag of blood. It wasn’t my blood though. I mean, I did lose a lot of blood, but also—”
“Are you here to kill him?” Phoebe demanded, and Winter was grateful to have her rambling cut off. “Because I won’t let you.”
“I’m not here to stab Marcus, or whatever.” Also technically true. Technically. Winter ignored the stab of guilt she felt at the relief on Phoebe’s face and scrambled for a different reason for coming to the church. “I came here to—” She swallowed. “I came here to find you.”
“How did you know I would be here?”
“I’ve been following you. Sort of. Look, I came here because I wanted to talk to you first, after Marcus forced me to fake my death,” Winter said. “He pulled a gun on me, Phoebe! And attacked me with a knife! And he’s already killed…God knows how many other people.”
“What do you want me to do, huh? Trust you over him? He’s my uncle.”
“And I’m your—” Winter swallowed.
“My what? Friend?” Phoebe shook her head. “You killed—”
“I know.”
“You tried to kill—”
“I know.”
“You lied to everyone!”
“I know.” Winter rubbed her forehead. “But even if you don’t want your uncle hurt, you can’t just stand aside while he and the council go through with their plans. Marcus is going to unleash the white plague on the city. Along with a mix of the other plagues.” She locked her eyes with Phoebe’s, mentally begging her to listen. To understand.
“I saw the contraption they’re going to use, by the river,” Winter continued. “They’re only going to use the cure to save themselves, the rich, and people who are capable of working. They’ll kill off the weakest in our population in a last resort to wipe out the plagues, because they don’t think their lives are worth fighting for. Or paying for.”
The muscles in Phoebe’s jaw clenched. “Kill them, then, since you’re so good at it.”
“Phoebe, we have to do something. It doesn’t have to involve killing them.” Winter couldn’t imagine a world where the people who planned this survived and didn’t continue to find other ways to punish and kill innocents in Devil’s Pass, but that wasn’t what Phoebe needed to hear right now.
The anger and hurt in Phoebe’s expression was fading to uncertainty. She knew better than to let her uncle get away with this, even if she loved him.
“Marcus has a strong plan and everyone in the chapel is on his side. I can’t stop him alone,” Winter continued. “I have a new plan. I want to get the cure to everyone.” After a moment’s hesitation, she added, “And I need your help.”
There was still apprehension on Phoebe’s face. She chewed her lip a moment before saying, “Me? Really?”
“I swear, I’m not asking you to do anything crazy,” Winter said. “And I promise I won’t do anything else to Marcus. No stabbing or fighting. Unless it’s self-defense.”
Phoebe folded her arms. “Not just him. You can’t kill anyone else if you want me to even consider helping you.” She took a step forward. “And if—if I help you, it’s only because I don’t want to watch this city fall to a plague. I don’t want to see anyone else die.”
Phoebe was more naïve than Winter had thought if she believed this could end without death. What did she think would happen at the end of this? Justice for the city council? A trial? Prison? They ran the city. If they were all in on this together, nothing could stop them.
Nothing but retribution.
“Of course.” Winter swallowed. If anything ever were to actually drive Phoebe to murder, it would probably be tomorrow’s events. And at this point, Winter just might let the girl kill her. “I swear that I won’t harm anyone else from this point forward.”
Phoebe sighed. “What do you need me to do?”
“First, don’t tell Marcus that I’m still alive.”
“Fine.”
“Next, we’re going to need River’s help.” Winter grimaced. “Could you…not tell him what I’ve done?”
Phoebe’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you believed in what you were doing.”
“I do, but—” Winter shook her head. “He deserves to know, but he deserves to hear it from me. I have to tell him everything myself.”
“You’re really going to tell him?” Phoebe sounded skeptical.
“I will,” Winter promised. “But first, we have to save the city.”