19 #3

She stayed beside the lattice one heartbeat longer.

Aelyn took a pen. She waited for Sorev to dictate the first name. Her voice kept the precision she used to turn a conversation into a written obligation.

Isolde could lift the grate. Two steps would bring her to the corridor.

She wanted Aelyn to turn and embrace her before asking where she had been.

The ease of that hope held her still: she had spent years imagining her friend’s answer without allowing her to hear the question.

Below, Aelyn corrected a date in the record and demanded that Sorev repeat a mother’s name.

She had work she could lose by looking up at her.

The child beside Isolde pulled at her apron.

“Are we going?”

His name was Neri. He was five and had a cough he tried to contain with both hands.

“Yes.”

Isolde moved away from the lattice.

The passage to her former life remained behind her.

A wooden ladder led down from the gallery. Miren opened the lower trapdoor. The first group was already crossing the pipe chamber.

Neri coughed.

Below, Sorev stopped dictating.

“What was that?”

Aelyn snapped the inkwell shut. The sound traveled down the corridor.

“A kitchen,” she said. “It makes sounds.”

The captain called two guards.

“Check above.”

Miren pushed the children toward the ladder. Isolde picked up Neri. Kaoran waited at the junction.

“They heard us.”

“The channel door is still open,” he said.

“Two guards are following.”

Kaoran took the empty basket.

“I’ll leave it across the landing. Go down with the children.”

Eda opened the salt chamber door. The group crossed. Miren came last and slid the bolt shut.

The soldiers entered the gallery. They struck the trapdoor. Wood splintered.

The children reached the channel.

The gate was open half a pace. Water rushed toward the river. Orla had prepared two large baskets covered with waterproof hide. Each could carry three children. The older ones would walk along a side ledge.

“First basket,” Kaoran ordered.

Eda put Lur inside with Neri and a girl. Torel the stoker appeared from the ash shaft. He had left the boiler when he heard the alarm.

“I’ll take it,” he said.

He stepped into the water and held the rope.

“Second basket.”

Miren placed another three inside. Maive waited beyond the gate with a boatman.

The blows reached the salt chamber door.

Isolde counted the children. Ten.

“One is missing.”

Miren looked at the group.

“Tavi.”

An eight-year-old boy had stayed in the gallery. He carried a green blanket and knew a hiding place beside the storeroom.

“I’ll keep evacuating,” Kaoran said. “You know the gallery.”

Isolde went back.

The door gave as she reached the salt chamber. Two guards entered. Miren threw a handful of salt into the first man’s face. Isolde struck the second behind the knee. Her left leg held the turn. Her right took the weight.

The first man cleared his eyes and caught Miren’s arm.

“Where are they?”

“You’re late for dinner.”

Isolde took his weapon. She shoved him against a cask and closed the door. Miren slid the bolt.

“Tavi hides when he’s frightened,” she said. “His mother works in the fruit storeroom.”

They climbed the ladder.

The gallery was empty. Sorev had sent more men toward the bridge. Aelyn continued dictating the record below. Every name occupied a separate page.

Isolde found the blanket beside the lattice.

Tavi had crossed to the other side.

“He knows a grate into the storeroom,” Isolde said.

Miren pointed to a small opening.

They approached it. The storeroom smelled of apples, onions, and herbs. One door led to the corridor. Another connected to the kitchens.

Tavi was beneath a table.

Aelyn was in the same room.

She had come in to check the ration books while Sorev waited outside. She held the tablecloth with Lenda’s page hidden inside. The document protruded between the folds.

Isolde saw her profile through the grate.

Aelyn opened the page.

She read the names, the schedules, and the phrase written in the margin: the living first.

Her fingers stopped on the phrase. She read it again and looked at the back, though she knew that copy had no signature.

“Isolde,” she whispered.

The name passed through the wood.

Miren looked at Isolde.

Tavi put a hand over his mouth. He was four paces from Aelyn, beneath the table. If the councilor lifted the tablecloth, she would find him. Then she would look for the route. She could find Isolde too.

Sorev called from the corridor.

“Councilor, we need to continue.”

Aelyn folded the page. She looked at the floor, the table, and the grate.

Isolde wanted to answer.

Her voice could be a whisper. Aelyn would recognize a breath. Almost four years of absence would end inside a storeroom.

Tavi was trembling.

From the gallery, Isolde tapped the wood three times. A pause. Once.

It was the urgent-exit signal the network used to announce danger. Aelyn heard it.

Her face changed.

She let an apple fall on the other side of the table. Tavi watched it roll toward the kitchen door. The distraction opened a path.

Aelyn went into the corridor.

“The storeroom is empty,” she told Sorev. “We continue the record.”

Tavi came out from under the table. Miren opened the grate. The boy climbed into the gallery.

Tavi passed Isolde and brushed her sleeve.

Aelyn’s footsteps moved away toward Sorev. Isolde kept her palm against the wood until Miren touched her elbow. She had to bend a leg to climb down from the ledge and, for an instant, had forgotten which would hold her weight.

Miren took Tavi.

“The channel.”

They went back.

* * *

The last basket crossed as the guards reached the sluice gate.

Kaoran waited beside the pillar. Torel had taken the children to the boats. The guard who chose to remain tied had undone the knot and opened a side exit with the key.

“You can close the gate,” he told his companions. “The children have passed through.”

One raised a sword.

“You helped them.”

“I kept them from drowning.”

Isolde dropped from the shaft between them. She deflected the blade with the gate bar. Kaoran caught the second man’s coat. Miren took Tavi beneath the bars.

The blue plate lit up.

The bridge guards had discovered the heated contact. They activated the closure from above. The green wheel began turning the other way.

The sluice gate descended.

Tavi was on the other side. Isolde and Kaoran remained inside. Miren had crossed to the outer ledge.

“Come through!” she shouted.

Kaoran pushed the helpful guard beneath the bars. Then he sent the wounded soldier through. The second clung to the wall.

“Go,” Isolde told him.

“They’ll arrest me.”

“Here the gate will crush you.”

The man crouched and crossed.

Kaoran went after him.