My name is Willa.”
“Of course!” Ira said, laughing loudly. “We haven’t introduced ourselves properly!”
“Shh!” Telemachus hissed, looking around uncomfortably. “Won’t someone hear?”
“Most of the men are in the city tonight; getting drunk at a tavern, like as not,” Ira said. “Besides, if anyone comes, I’ll tell them I’m interrogating the prisoners.” He sat down on a bench so hard that the table shook. “And that’s just what we’ll do. I have some questions for you, if you don’t mind.”
“We mind,” Silas said flatly, crossing his arms and glaring at Ira.
Willa looked around nervously, blinking a few times. “We’ll just be in the kitchen, won’t we dear?” she said to Rae.
“No,” Rae said, not even looking at her. She stood beside Silas, straight and defiant. “I’ll be right here.”
“Never mind, then. I can manage just fine by myself,” Willa said, tucking a strand of brown hair behind her ear. “It’s mostly ready anyway.” With that, she retreated into the kitchen, leaving the rest of them standing in a circle, eyeing each other. It reminded Jesse of a story he had heard a traveler from the Northern Waste tell about wolves fighting for control of a pack.
This time, though, no one wanted to make the first move. When the silence seemed to drag on, Jesse said, “Silas, you don’t have to be rude. They’re on our side.”
“We don’t know if we can trust them,” Silas insisted, cold gray eyes fixed on Telemachus, who stared right back. Before, his gaze was dull and unintelligent, but now Jesse could see a sharp mind behind his disguise. “Maybe they’re Guard members. Maybe this is all fake.”
“He’s a smart one,” Ira said to Telemachus, as if none of them were in the room.
“Of course he is. How else do you think he survived?” Telemachus looked curiously at them. “But for an entire squad to get away…why, that’s unheard of.”
Jesse didn’t bother explaining the truth. He wasn’t a member of the Youth Guard. The fourth squad member, a young woman named Alieah, had died in training. He knew it hurt the others, especially Parvel, to remember that part of their story.
“While I applaud your caution, I assure you, you have nothing to fear,” Telemachus said. His smooth words, compared to the way he spoke in the house of refuge, almost startled Jesse. “If we had wanted to kill you, we would have done it by now.”
He was right, Jesse knew. If Ira and Telemachus were on the side of the king, they would have been killed instantly.
“Sorry we had to meet the way we did,” Ira said, shrugging his broad shoulders. He too began to roll up his sleeve. “As a token of good faith,” he said, “though it might be a bit hard for the young lady there to see.”
He soon found that with his burly arms, his shirt wouldn’t roll all the way to his shoulder. “Bah,” he said, giving up the attempt and pulling his shirt off. “There it is.”
He had exposed his right arm, the puckered skin covered in red welt-like scars from his shoulder to just before his elbow. “Hot coals,” he explained, his face hardening. “I was the only one of my squad who survived the attack. I knew I would have to take desperate measures to keep them from finding me. It was the only way I could think of to disguise the Guard tattoo. I tell folks I was badly burned in a fire that consumed my parents’ house.”
Jesse shuddered, not just because of the raw flesh, but because he pictured Ira burning it himself, screaming in pain. He would never make Silas, Parvel, and Rae do something like that…would he?
Ira put his shirt back on. “Once he knew you were Guard, Telemachus found me. We thought we should get you away from there before anyone else recognized you.”
“How would they?” Rae asked. “I doubt many of the king’s men stop by houses of refuge.”
“Especially in this district, it can’t hurt to be too careful,” Ira said. “The king hates us, you know. Wants to kill every Youth Guard member, to destroy the young ones who might fight back against him.”
“We know,” Jesse said, cutting him off.
Ira looked a bit disappointed at the reaction. “Then you know that only a few get away from him alive. Those who do need to stick together.”
“And so you bring us to a Patrol outpost?” Rae said, using her sharp words like a dagger. “How is this any safer than the house of refuge?”
“Because we know how to make you invisible,” Telemachus explained patiently, not seeming flustered at all by Rae’s outburst. “After all, we’ve done it ourselves. We can get you disguises, help you fake an accent or a mannerism, get you jobs in a town somewhere so that you can live in perfect obscurity.” Now that he had dropped his act, he spoke with perfect articulation and a slight District Two accent. “That’s what I’ve learned to do at the house of refuge.”
“Yes, about that,” Jesse said. “Do you always act…?” Jesse trailed off, trying to think of a polite way to finish his sentence.
“Rude, surly, and hostile?” Telemachus suggested. “Only to strangers. To the priests and the orphans, I’m a gruff, loveable hunchback. They know they can trust me with anything. I don’t talk much about my past. But then, no one at a house of refuge does. And no one asks questions.”
“The perfect place to hide,” Parvel said thoughtfully. “An excellent choice, Telemachus.”
“My name isn’t really Telemachus,” he admitted. “I chose it for myself, once I went into hiding. And you’ll do the same. I have a friend who can forge papers for you with your new identities.”
“What if we don’t want new identities?” Rae asked.
Jesse groaned. Why does she always have to pick a fight?
“Then you apparently want a death sentence instead,” Telemachus said.
“Fresh bread!” Willa exclaimed, bustling through the door with a tray of rolls and breaking the uncomfortable silence. She began to hand out the rolls; then stopped when she got to Jesse. “You need two,” she said, winking at him. “You’re nothing but skin and bones.”
At first, Jesse resented the comment, but as soon as he tore off a piece of the roll and put it in his mouth, any annoyance melted away. “Honey rolls,” she whispered to him. “Secret recipe, you know.”
Right then, Jesse decided that Ira and Telemachus were on their side. No one would let their enemies eat these rolls. They would keep them all for themselves.
Parvel nodded politely and took a roll. “I take it, Ira, your Patrol uniform isn’t a costume?”
“Of course not,” Ira said, beaming at his own cleverness. “After I dyed my hair and grew this beard, I joined up.”
“How could you do that?” Rae demanded, looking at him with disgust. “After what you know about the king?”
Ira shrugged. He tore off half of a roll and stuffed it into his mouth, talking
