The Arrivals. Melissa Marr

      CHAPTER 4

      Jack was trying not to notice that their return trip across the desert was slower than the trip to Covenant had been. Maybe it was simply a result of not wanting to return to camp and wait. They’d know within the next two days if Mary would return to them, and until they knew, it was hard to focus on much else—or hurry back to camp.

      Unfortunately, the world didn’t pause for death. The monks were still out there; the job remained unfinished. Jack had an uneasy feeling after their conversation with Governor Soanes—and seeing Daniel hadn’t helped matters.

      “How did Daniel know we were in Covenant?” Jack prompted.

      “Damned if I know.” Katherine’s expression became closed, and he knew she was hiding something. If she’d been anyone else, he’d be mistrustful, assuming that she was passing information to Daniel, but although his sister was guilty of a lot of things over the years, none of them was treachery.

      He waited.

      They were over halfway to camp when she said, “I think he was there to talk to me, but I don’t know how he knew we’d be in Covenant.”

      Jack nodded.

      A few more minutes passed before she added, “He says Ajani is coming off the rails lately. He wanted to warn us.”

      “Warn you,” Jack corrected. “Should I ask if he left after you spoke?”

      “You shouldn’t have to ask, Jack,” she snapped. Then she sighed. “Do you know how Danny knew where to find us?”

      “I don’t.” Jack trusted the rest of the Arrivals. Mostly. Melody had spent some time with Ajani last year, and Jack suspected she still had some contact with his people. She was the most likely source of any information leak; on the other hand, it wasn’t too hard to guess that Jack would be going to see the governor after Mary’s death. Anyone in Gallows could’ve seen them and sent word to Ajani. Hell, Daniel might’ve been in Gallows and heard it himself, for all they knew.

      “Was the governor expecting us?” Jack mused.

      Beside him, Katherine sighed again. “It sure seemed like it, but I can’t say for certain. If I had any real answers, I’d share them. All I know right now is that the monks were supposed to be looking for peace, but they weren’t; that Soanes wants them dead; that Daniel thinks Ajani is unstable; and that if Mary doesn’t wake up, we’ll have a new Arrival to deal with on top of the rest of the bullshit.”

      “What happened to women being the gentler sex?” Jack shot her a pretend grumpy look; he couldn’t stand seeing her look so defeated. “Shouldn’t you be offering some sort of comforting reply?”

      Katherine rolled her eyes, but her lips curved in a small smile. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make him relax a little. She was able to hold her own against most of what the Wasteland threw at them, and she was the only one from their world who could do spellwork, but the emotional stuff threw her into maudlin moods, and Jack wasn’t an idiot: he knew his sister still had feelings for Daniel. She shot him often enough to prove to everyone she didn’t, but it wasn’t particularly convincing.

      “I’ll figure it all out, Katherine,” Jack promised her quietly. “And whether or not Mary wakes, we’ll get through this too.”

      He wished yet again that he’d had the sense to tuck her away in some school back east instead of letting her stay in California with him. If he’d put her where she’d have been safe, she wouldn’t have been brought to the Wasteland; if he’d thought about her safety instead of giving in to his own arrogant belief that he could keep her safe, she’d be in a better world where she could have a proper life. Instead, she was trapped here in the Wasteland, dealing with monsters and death, scuffling in the dirt and blood, and knowing as well as he did that there was no end in sight. He looked over at her and repeated, “I’ll figure it out.”

      Unfortunately, the following day, when they were back at camp, Jack had no clearer idea of what to do. They’d know by the next day whether Mary’s death was permanent or not. In some reserve of hope that he still clung to after all these years, he hoped that death in this world would mean waking up back in a better one. He didn’t much care whether that better world was the one they’d once known or some sort of afterlife where the Arrivals would find peace. He told himself Heaven was a child’s hope, but if so many impossible things were real, believing in Heaven, in a forgiving God, seemed a little more possible.

      His beliefs had dwindled over the years, but as he sat near Mary he whispered a prayer. Then he decided to do something he’d never done before. While Katherine slept in her tent that night, Jack went to the only other person he’d ever met who was capable of standing up to her.

      Edgar looked up as Jack entered the tent. Not surprisingly, Edgar was sitting at his table cleaning his weapons. Before coming to the Wasteland, he had been a hired gun for a thriving crime syndicate, so he was as fastidious about weapons maintenance as Jack was. Edgar wasn’t quite the dapper killer he’d been when he arrived in the Wasteland, but he was still an unusual man. His word was binding; his kills were calculated. The job was business, nothing more, nothing less. His willingness to shoot was only tempered by a sense of loyalty, and Edgar Cordova’s loyalty was very narrowly assigned: Katherine was his beloved; Jack was his boss. As to which of the Reed siblings outranked the other when they were at odds, it varied, depending on what Edgar thought most sensible at the time.

      “I need your help,” Jack started.

      Edgar resumed cleaning the pistol in front of him and asked, “With what?”

      “I hate asking you to stand between Katherine and me,” Jack started.

      “But you’re going to.”

      Jack stepped farther into the tent. It was as practically laid out as the man who slept in it, utilitarian but with a few unexpected exceptions. In his room in every one of their personal quarters, Edgar had a device that allowed his trousers to hang so they wouldn’t wrinkle and a clothes rack for his shirts and jackets. Beyond his clothing contraptions, Edgar’s tent was very basic. A plain dark wood partition concealed the toilet; a weapons chest stood to the side; and in the middle of the room was a bed. Jack stopped at the small table where Edgar sat.

      “She’s having a hard time with Mary’s death,” Jack said.

      “She always does when one of us dies.” Edgar wiped down the barrel of the pistol and set it aside. “So do you.”

      “True.” Jack didn’t want to talk about his own reaction. Of all the people in this world or the last, Edgar was one of the few he didn’t keep at a distance.

      “I want to wait alone with Mary,” he admitted. “I need you to keep my sister out of my tent.”

      Edgar shook his head. “Kit won’t be happy.”

      “I’ll tell her I ordered you to do it,” Jack offered.

      The look Edgar gave him would make more than a few people piss themselves in fear, but Jack knew him better than that. If Edgar were genuinely angry, he wouldn’t waste Jack’s time or his own with scowling.

      Once they returned to Jack’s tent, Edgar took one of Jack’s chairs and positioned it outside. As Jack went back inside to wait, Edgar said, “If Mary stays dead, I’m letting Kit past me eventually. You can have until midday.”

      Jack nodded and resumed his vigil by Mary’s body. Now that Edgar stood outside to stop Katherine from coming into the tent, Jack would have privacy. None of the other Arrivals were particularly close to Mary; it wouldn’t require any special measures to keep them out. Edgar cared only for Katherine; Francis likewise had a brotherly fondness for Katherine. Melody was too self-centered to be close to much of anyone, and if Hector had emotions, no one