The Severed Tower (6 page)

It was the same with Ben.

Ben was brilliant. He was brilliant everywhere, but most of all in the Strange Lands. He was made for it. His ability to quickly solve complex problems was why he was the best Freebooter in the world. He could study an Anomaly once and have it mastered, could always pass through it from then on, faster than anyone else. His brain was like a sponge for details and patterns, and once something was learned, he never forgot it.

Looking at him beaming up at her, his eyes sparkling in spite of the Tone, she saw the other reason she’d been attracted to him. Ben relied on facts and logic and numbers, and it made him almost emotionless. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be who he was, someone who went the direction his mind pointed him, not his heart.

But it had always been different with Mira.

With her, he smiled. His masks dropped. He shared secrets and dreams, he was a whole person, not an automaton. She was the only one who brought that out in him. And she liked it, she liked that he had opened for her, and for her alone.

Not unlike how Holt had very recently opened for her, too, she thought.

Holt.

The world came flooding back, and she remembered that he and Zoey were right behind her. Watching.

She squirmed in Ben’s grasp until he set her on the ground. Behind him, his team of Gray Devils Freebooters stood up as they slowly recognized who she was.

Mira recognized most of them, too. A redheaded kid named Scott Norwood, the third-highest-rated Freebooter in the Gray Devils and the fifth overall. He’d always had a competitive streak with Ben, though Ben never seemed to notice. Twin sisters, both fourteen, Tara and Ranee Enright, had only been Freebooters a few months before Mira had been exiled, but she remembered they’d shown impressive pathfinding skills. Joseph Pisano, a tall, lanky kid, who had always had a crush on Mira, she thought, though he was too shy to act on it. And others, about twenty in all.

She used to be one of them, someone they looked up to. But now they stared at her with hostility. In their minds, she had betrayed their faction, she was a Point fabricator, and things were very different now. It was another reminder of just how much she’d lost.

The Gray Devils moved toward her.

Behind her, Mira sensed Holt step forward, saw his hands slide toward his pistol. She opened her mouth to speak—

“No.” Another voice beat her to it. Ben’s. Calm, soft and low. But somehow it always carried, everyone always heard it. He slowly held up a hand as he spoke.

The Gray Devils froze in their tracks, staring between Ben and Mira.

“Everything’s fine,” Ben said. “It adds up. If Mira’s here, then things are resolved. Right, Mira?” Whether he was covering for her or believed what he’d said, Mira couldn’t tell.

“Yes,” was all she said. She’d tell Ben the truth later, but not with the other Gray Devils nearby. She quickly moved on before anyone else spoke. “Ben, I want you to meet my friends.”

Mira was surprised by the effort it took to say that. It was a moment, like many others, she’d been dreading. A part of her hoped it would never come, but it had. And there was nothing to do about it now. “This is … Holt.” She forced herself to look at him. Her throat felt dry. “He’s the one who got me here. And he helped me in Midnight City, too. I wouldn’t be alive without him.”

Ben looked at Holt. And Holt looked back.

Ben had an amazing ability to deduce things from simple observations. He could put seemingly random and unconnected pieces of a puzzle together with very little effort, and right now his gaze moved up and down Holt with intensity.

“He was also the bounty hunter who captured you,” Ben said. Holt’s eyebrows raised. He looked at Mira questioningly. “It’s your shoes, mainly,” Ben continued. “You don’t wear boots like most people. And yours are new, probably salvaged a month ago, maybe less. That makes it a conscious choice. Shoes over boots. Only reason you do that—so you can
run
. Which means you run a lot.”

Holt’s stare hardened, but Ben didn’t seem to notice.

“You’re clearly not timid, I can see it in your eyes, so you’re not running
from
anyone. You’re running
after
them. Chasing people … and you do it a lot. That, combined with the handcuffs on your belt, suggests you’re a bounty hunter. Someone who chases people for a living. You must be good, too. Catching Mira couldn’t have been easy.” Ben’s voice shifted slightly. The barest hint of darkness. But for him, it said a lot.

Holt smiled slightly. “She definitely made me work for it.”

Mira felt a shudder, almost smiled herself, but stopped. This wasn’t the place. This was a charged situation.

Ben nodded. “I’m sure.” He looked away and down at Zoey, who was holding on to Holt with one arm and Max with the other. Ben’s eyes moved over her in the same laborious way.

“This is Zoey,” Mira said. Zoey just looked back up at him silently. “She’s a very good friend of mine.”

Ben studied her curiously. “There’s something different about you. Something familiar, too. I can’t put my finger on it, which is … unusual for me.”

Zoey’s voice was almost as soft as Ben’s. “There’s something different about you, too. Your emotions are hard to see. Like the Librarian. But he did it on purpose. That was how he tried to be. With you … I think it’s just who you are. Like you just don’t feel much.”

As she spoke, Ben’s gaze magnetically locked on the little girl.

“Sometimes it worries you,” Zoey said. “But not for long. There’s always something new to take your mind off it, something new to figure out. Your thoughts come one after the other, but they’re not all jumbled up. They’re … together. They make sense to you.” Zoey seemed surprised. “You must think about things a whole lot.”

Mira had rarely ever seen a look of surprise on Ben’s face, but he wore one now. “Yes,” he said. “I do.”

Ben was the one used to figuring people out, and the fact that Zoey had just done the same thing virtually ensured he would try and deduce why. The problem was, Zoey’s deductions weren’t based on physical evidence or deduction. They were based on amazing and dangerous powers that no one here needed to know about. If Mira let him, Ben would figure it out eventually. Ben figured
everything
out.

“I didn’t know you would be here,” Mira pressed on, trying to distract him. And she knew there was one thing she could say that would guarantee it. “But I’m glad you are. I was hoping we could go with you.”

Ben pulled his gaze from Zoey in genuine confusion. “Go with us where?”

Mira swallowed. “The Severed Tower.”

Ben raised an eyebrow. A second later, the entire collection of Gray Devils behind him laughed out loud.

“You wanna take a little girl and a dog into the
Core?
” one of them asked in disbelief.

Her name was Faye. Mira knew because she used to tutor her on artifact creation, and Faye had been so grateful she’d gotten Mira a box of hot chocolate mix in thanks. Now Faye looked at Mira with scorn.

Mira just kept her eyes on Ben. His opinion was the only one that mattered. Ben looked back curiously. Who knew what pieces he was putting together, but it was too late now to stop it.

“Go back inside,” Ben told his team. “Double-check your gear. We’re going to make Polestar in two days, make up for lost time, and that means passing through the Mine Field and the Compactor without rest.” Ben’s Gray Devil team reluctantly disappeared back under the canopy.

“No one’s going anywhere
near
Northlift,” Echo piped up from the other side of Holt. He’d been watching everything in the background, but he was just as firm in his opinions now as he had been earlier. “You won’t be seeing either of those Anomalies anytime soon.”

“I’m not convinced of that,” Ben said absently. “You’re evacuating. The Crossroads will be empty soon, and you won’t have enough people to stop us. I know how to work Northlift, I’ve watched the operators do it, and it only takes once for me to see how something works.”

Echo stiffened, but Holt spoke up. “I think these two have a lot to talk about,” he said. “Is there someplace Zoey and I could rest? Been moving pretty much nonstop for three days.”

Echo looked at Zoey’s weary eyes and frowned. “Yeah. Sure. Come on.” He turned and headed back the way they’d come, and Holt pushed Zoey and Max after him.

Mira tried to catch Holt’s eye as he did, but he wouldn’t look at her. There was a hollowness in her stomach as she watched him walk away.

When they were gone, Ben moved closer.

It made her uncomfortable, she realized with surprise. Somehow it felt wrong, and, at the same time, natural and comfortable, too. Ben’s mouth opened to speak, but then abruptly shut as he noticed something. His features contorted in a way Mira had rarely seen. He was shocked, and it took a lot to shock Ben Aubertine.

“Your … eyes…” he said in a stunned whisper. Ben had noticed the one thing Echo hadn’t, that her eyes no longer held the telltale traces of the Tone. “That’s … how did…?”

“Ben,” she said firmly, stopping him before he got going. “It is
exactly
what it looks like. And I know you want to know, I know it’s almost impossible for you to sideline something you’re curious about, and I know ‘curious’ probably doesn’t even begin to describe it, but I
can’t
tell you about my eyes right now. I will, I promise, but I need you to be patient. Okay?”

Ben just kept staring into her eyes, searching the pupils for evidence or clues, and she wasn’t even sure he’d heard her.

“
Ben.
”

He blinked, refocusing—and then smiled.

A smile from Ben was unusual, and it filled her with emotion like it always did. “I’m … so
happy
for you.” It was genuine, the sentiment, devoid of any envy or bitterness, and it only complicated things in Mira’s mind. He leaned in toward her. Mira didn’t move, a thousand thoughts swirling through her head. “I missed you. You’re the only one I ever miss.”

Mira pulled away from him at the last second.

Ben studied her curiously. He hadn’t predicted that reaction. But, as always, he quickly surmised where it came from. “I see.” He didn’t look hurt or worried, just resolved. “Lenore’s dead, isn’t she?”

The question hit like a lightning bolt. “Yes…” Mira said, her voice shaking. “I mean
no.
She’s not … dead. She’s…”

“Succumbed,” Ben finished for her. Mira’s eyes widened. Sometimes his ability to deduce things was staggering. But he just shrugged. “You said ‘yes,’ at first, which means she might as well be dead, but if she’s not, the closest thing is Succumbed. There’s only one thing I know of that could Succumb a Heedless.” He was right. Even now she was aware of the horrible artifact that sat in her pack. “When you were getting your artifact … Lenore said I was the one who told her about it,” Ben said slowly. “You feel betrayed.”

When she spoke her voice wasn’t shaky anymore. It was stern and cold. “Did you?”

Ben looked back at her but said nothing. He just turned and started walking down a path between half a dozen rusting helicopters. “You’ll need your Lexicon,” he said.

Her Lexicon was one of the last things on her mind, but he was right. She would need it if they were going into the Strange Lands.

Mira stared after Ben a moment, then followed him. A small brass dice cube appeared from one of his pockets, the same die he always carried. He juggled it on his hand, floating it between his knuckles, back and forth. It was a habit for him, something he did when he was deep in thought.

“I
was
the one who told Lenore,” he finally said.

A wave of heat rushed through Mira. She was surprised by how tangible the anger and pain was. Even after Lenore had told her, even after she’d seen Ben’s name on the Scorewall outside the Unmentionables column, a part of her hadn’t believed it. Or at least, hadn’t wanted to. But now it was real.

Mira stopped and stared at him. “How the hell could you
do
that to me? You were the one person I could
trust!
Do you have
any
idea what I’ve been through because of what you did!?”

Ben turned and studied her calmly. He seemed introspective, not ashamed or hurt. It only made Mira angrier.

“No,” he said. “I won’t pretend I do. But what I do know is that whatever it was, you could handle it. And that’s the reason I did what I did. It wasn’t an easy choice for me, Mira.”

Mira spoke slowly in a voice laced with so much venom she barely recognized herself. “Please try to explain it in a way that makes sense to those of us without your ability to intellectually rationalize every goddamn thing you think and want.”

Ben sighed, as if summoning patience. She wanted to hit him. “It was my opportunity to get a Severed Tower expedition. You know how important that is.”

“More important than
me,
apparently,” Mira shot back.

“Like I said, I
knew
you’d be fine. You’re always fine, you always get out of whatever mess you’re in. It was mathematically certain you’d escape, and then either come back with a plan to get your artifact—or accept Lenore’s offer, which, by the way, wasn’t a bad one.”

“Ben…”

“If it was certain,
really
certain, that you would be okay, if I knew you would make it—then why shouldn’t I take Lenore’s offer? Everyone wins. It’s easy math.”

“Because people are
dead
because of what you did,” Mira replied. “There’s more than just you and me in the world, Ben.”

“Not as far as I’m concerned.” Finally there was a hint of emotion in his voice.

Mira sighed and looked away. She felt tired all of a sudden. It was the kind of answer she should have expected from Ben, and in its own way it actually did make sense. But that didn’t make it feel any better.

“I … know you’re mad at me,” he said. She looked back up at him. “But you have to believe I knew we would be together again. It’s the only thing other than the Tower that matters to me. I wouldn’t risk either. I
promise
I’ll make it up to you. You’re back now. Everything’s over. You and I can go to the Tower like we always—”