CHAPTER FIVE

The food shortage was becoming severe. Even as the district’s administrator─especially as its administrator─Rita couldn’t allow herself to eat more extravagantly than the populace.

The young soldier by her side had volunteered to test her food for poison. He took a sip of her water, then sliced small portions off the surface and center of the bread and potatoes, and tried these too.

Over the last few weeks there had been a number of attempts on Rita’s life. She had come close to being cut down in the streets, and had been shot at. No one had tried poison yet, but caution was her greatest ally. She couldn’t afford to drop her guard, even here in the district hall.

The taster was the only person with her in the oversized chamber, but more guards were posted under the windows and in the corridor beyond the door.

Rita pulled in the mountain of reports her troops had brought her. Under the wavering candlelight, fully aware that it was bad manners, she scanned the reports as she ate.

Despite all of her devotion and hard work, the stream of residents who chose to act out of self-interest was endless. People who hid sheep that could be milked, who lied about their age to be excused from the Night Harvest─at least the majority had been arrested after their neighbors or family had turned them in.

Some of the reports were marked with black-red stains. Blood. The soldiers must have beaten the accused during the interrogation. It wasn’t behavior that she actually welcomed, but no one admitted to crimes otherwise. She needed to give tacit approval to violence, as a necessary evil to get the swindlers and crooks to talk.

There was a knock at the door.

Her taster looked sharply up. Rita was more or less done with her meal. His job, she realized, had been completed a long time ago. Engrossed with the reports, it had slipped her mind to dismiss him.

“Come in,” she said towards the door.

The face of one of her troops, still young, poked in through the gap. He was shortsighted and wearing glasses. Rita had come to value the boy lately. Despite his youth he was a fast thinker.

He entered the chamber and stood to attention, saluting.

“Reporting in! Eugen has admitted to plotting treason! He is also connected to the clandestine forces.”

It took Rita a moment to process the words, but she remembered quickly enough.

Eugen. Among the soldiers who’d been left behind in Quinta, he was third in rank after Rita and Amanda. Rita had held him in fairly high regard, but recently she’d been tipped off that he might be connected to the rebels. She’d ordered a few of her subordinates to interrogate him.

“I see. That’s unfortunate.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“And?”

“Pardon me?”

“Names, of traitors within the military. Did he give you any?”

“I…don’t think so.” His eyes moved nervously. Perhaps he was admonishing himself for having come in to report without obtaining all of the facts.

“Go and find out,” Rita said, but immediately reconsidered it. “Actually, no. Have him brought to me.”

“Yes. Right away.”

The soldier saluted and bounded out of the room. Rita caught a fleeting glimpse of the troops standing guard in the corridor.

Her taster shifted uncomfortably by her side. He seemed unsure whether he should leave and whether he was even allowed to ask if he should.

“Stay a little more,” Rita instructed. She wanted as many of her troops as possible to witness how she dealt with conspirators.

Soon afterwards, multiple footsteps approached. There was another knock at the door, and on Rita’s acknowledgment it was flung open. Two soldiers came in, dragging another with them. He was built like a rock and had a craggy face to boot. The bespectacled soldier stood in wait behind them.

“Bring him here.” Still seated, Rita flicked her eyes towards the space in front of her desk.

The bulky soldier, Eugen, was forced forwards, the two guards tugging him by the arms. His legs hung completely limp, and his toes scraped over the floor. Maybe they’d broken his kneecaps. His arms were also slack at either side. The tips of the fingers on his left hand were wrapped in layers of cloth, no doubt originally white but now stained and dark. They’d removed his fingernails. That was all it had taken─losing his fingernails on one hand and the use of his legs─for him to confess his crimes.

He was weaker than she’d thought.

The soldiers hurled him to the floor. One grabbed him by the hair, made him lie on his side, and yanked his head up. The other stood behind them keeping a watchful eye.

Rita nodded at the taster, who was still next to her. She glanced at the table, and he scrambled to put away the empty plates.

She examined Eugen anew. His once craggy face, severely beaten, was now swollen out of shape. His eyes were puffy and almost fully closed. Blood streaked his cheeks and jawline, swabbed unceremoniously away from his nose and broken lips.

“Is he conscious?”

Eugen’s eyes opened a fraction, revealing that he was.

“Commander,” he rasped. “Please…help.”

“I will help you. Once you’ve told us everything you know.”

“But I…haven’t…”

“Didn’t you admit it? Aren’t you connected to the resistance?”

“I─”

“He did,” interrupted the soldier still holding him by the hair.

The one behind them moved in and stamped down on the captive’s toe.

A baritone cry issued from Eugen’s mouth, a voice like an animal in its death throes. Tears trickled down from the slits that had been his eyes. His toenails must have been removed as well, and his shoes were probably filled with blood.

“Any other traitors? What info did you leak? How have you assisted them?”

“I… I…” Eugen repeated the self-same word.

The soldier standing behind him stamped down on his toe again─and again and again, putting all his weight on it each time.

Eugen writhed, screaming in agony and sending spittle into the air, then cowered into a slobbering ball. Shivers ran up and down his frame.

“I betrayed you… I betrayed you!” he wailed, forcing his eyes open.

“What information have you leaked?”

“I…”

This time the soldier stepped on Eugen’s knee and slowly started applying his weight.

Eugen spasmed violently. “P-Patrols, guard details!”

“Who was your contact?”

“Never…never the same person. Th-They come to me!”

“What else do you know about them?”

“What…I know…”

Eugen’s pupils were darting around. His face was covered in an oily sweat.

It mixed with the dried blood already there.

Rita met the gaze of one of the soldiers.

Taking her meaning, he began to unsheathe the sword at his waist. There was the shrill sound of metal scraping against metal. Reflecting the candlelight, the blade cast fleeting sinews of light over the walls and the ceiling.

“M-Mathias! Mathias Kramer!” Eugen screeched.

Rita’s hands squeezed into fists. She felt as though her blood had frozen and boiled over at the same time.

Mathias. Her friend, her childhood friend, who’d killed one of her boys. She’d discovered long ago that he led the resistance. The intel was common knowledge amongst the Garrison.

It was nothing new. Yet to hear the name again, and in this fashion, shook Rita to her core.

He still expected her to be his kind Rita.

It was why she felt so let down.

“Commander!”

The urgency of the voice pulled Rita back to the chamber.

Eugen had somehow struggled to his feet. He shook off the soldiers’ hold with an incredible display of brawn and charged at Rita, his hair disheveled, his eyes bloodshot.

He kicked the floor, soared over the desk, and extended his arm─

Crap, Rita bit her lip just as…Eugen halted in midair.

Then, as though time were running in reverse, he was jerked to his rear. His back collided into the floor. He rolled around groaning, and blood seeped out from a hole in his clothing near his buttocks.

Only just containing her amazement, Rita looked up.

Amanda was standing in the open doorway. She was in a crouch, her anchor-firing mechanism aimed in Rita’s direction.

Rita immediately understood. Amanda had used the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment to fire an anchor into Eugen to winch him back. It must have been tugged loose and recovered just as soon.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Rita expressed her gratitude.

Before her eyes the soldiers rushed to restrain Eugen and to bind him tightly with rope. She couldn’t help thinking, Why now? He had neither the will nor the strength to mount any further resistance.

Amanda walked into the chamber. Glancing at Eugen and the soldiers in turn, she narrowed her eyes in disgust.

“Why the ruckus?”

“I was questioning him. This kid, he’s with the resistance.”

“Don’t think you’re overdoing it a little?”

“They don’t tell the truth otherwise.”

“I wonder.” For a moment, Amanda regarded Eugen in silence. “Aren’t you just making them say whatever it is you want to hear?”

“Amanda,” the bespectacled soldier voiced a nervous protest.

She ignored him completely.

This is who she is. This is Amanda. She never thought twice about speaking her mind, regardless of whom she might be addressing. As a result, people tended to believe she wasn’t two-faced.

“Maybe it’s putting the screws like this,” Amanda continued, “that’s turning people against the military and giving rise to an organized resistance.”

“I disagree,” Rita countered without a pause. “If you aren’t strict with them, people degenerate.”

“Corner a fellow and he’ll take extreme measures. What happened now is a perfect example.”

Amanda pointed at Eugen. Bound many times over, he was sniveling and shedding tears from the pain.

Rita shook her head. “You’re wrong. He wouldn’t have told the truth if I’d been compassionate. He would have continued to leak inside info, degrading the whole situation in Quinta. I need to ensure that doesn’t happen.”

“I see.” Amanda let out a small sigh. “Well, you’re the king of these parts. I’ll do what you tell me.”

“Make sure you do. And…”

Rita surveyed the executive chamber. The soldiers who had brought Eugen in were hauling him to his feet. The bespectacled one was watching on with a tense look. The tester stood at her side, looking quite lost. Blood from Eugen’s buttocks rudely stained the floor’s wood panels.

Rita said to Amanda, “I owe you for your help just now, so I’ll overlook it. But I advise you not to voice such opinions in the future.”

“Guess I’ll be going then,” Amanda announced curtly, turning her back to Rita.

“Where to?”

“I’ve got patrols. Your decision?”

This jogged Rita’s memory. A while ago, she had put Amanda in charge of late-night patrols. “Right. Take care.”

“And you.”

Amanda left, her footfalls silent.

“Acting commander,” the bespectacled soldier said.

“Yes?”

“What should we do, regarding Eugen?”

“Continue his interrogation. If you don’t mind, I’m going to take a little rest.”

“Yes, please.”

“You know what to do. Once you’re done.”

Rita heard the young soldier gulp. His eyes drifted in the direction of the plaza.

Suddenly interested, she asked, “Who tipped us off?”

“Oh, um…” the bespectacled solider hesitated.

“Yes?”

“The informant is from Eugen’s year. They’d been in the same team since the beginning and were close, it seems. That’s probably why he noticed.”

“I see.”

Rita had valued Eugen. She’d even granted him a large mansion for that reason. Perhaps his friend had become jealous. Perhaps that was why he’d jumped at the chance to inform on a teammate.

But no, she was wrong to look for malice. He’d fingered his friend out of a genuine wish to uphold order. Moved by Rita’s principles.

“Eugen’s mansion,” she said, “will go to the soldier who turned him in. Tell him he is free to move in with his family.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

There was a sudden rush of footsteps, and another subordinate leapt into the room.

“What is it?”

“Intruders at the east wall! Please proceed to verify─”

“Intruders? What do you mean?”

“I don’t have the details. But apparently fighting has broken out!”

“Understood. I’m leaving this place in your hands,” Rita ordered the bespectacled soldier. Then she headed toward the door. “I can come now. Show me the way.”

It would be another long night.

***

His body tottered in the moonlight, tipping until, unbalanced, he fell from the fifty-meter wall.

“Gabriele!”

Mathias reflexively reached out with his left hand. The other was wrapped in cloth, fastened around the taut wire. His legs were balanced on the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment fixed around Bernhardt’s waist.

The three of them had made their way back to the wall, scaled the exterior side, and begun to rappel down into Quinta itself. They had concealed themselves behind a cannon and gauged the interval between patrols. Having confirmed that the troops were far enough away, they’d finally commenced their descent. And yet…

They had been seen.

Mathias’ hand fell short of Gabriele.

“Hold on!” Bernhardt said, immediately letting the wires out at full speed.

The two of them entered free-fall. Bernhardt landed a powerful kick on the surface of the wall. Their bodies curved away from the structure and floated into empty space.

Mathias’ feet slipped from the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment. His hand came away from the wire. He, too, started to plummet towards the ground, forty meters below.

Snapping his left hand back in, he formed a ring with his arms and locked them around the wire. It bit into the inside of his elbows, all but tearing the fabric. He ended up suspended from that one point, and pain seared through him as his skin chafed.

Bernhardt stretched out his arms. He caught Gabriele’s clothes in both hands and pulled him in. Then, somewhat awkwardly, he wrapped his legs around the man’s small frame, securing him.

The wire flexed, and the three of them swung back towards the wall in the manner of a pendulum.

In the ring made by Mathias’ arms, the wire danced madly. This time, it pressed against the upper part of his right arm. The one he’d broken.

He clenched his teeth against the pain but, unable to bear it, ended up screaming.

He had no time to prepare for the collision. Neither did Bern-hardt.

They crashed into the wall.

Mathias seemed to have hit his shoulders, hips, and back. The impact momentarily banished all five of his senses, but the pain came almost immediately afterwards, excruciating, joined by the sensation of his innards rising to his throat.

He was left hanging behind Bernhardt’s waist, his elbows hooked around the wire.

Above him Bernhardt’s arms had formed a ring, too, around Gabriele’s head, to lock him in place. The wounded man, still unconscious, was limp.

“Will he be okay?!”

“They got him in the shoulder. A mere flesh wound,” Bernhardt made light of it.

Indeed, the area between Gabriele’s left shoulder and elbow was stained dark red. He was still bleeding, and Mathias wanted to attend to the wound as soon as possible, but…

“It’s that man!”

“He escaped! He’s getting back in!”

“Get word to the captain!”

The group of soldiers shouting at one another above their heads had to be the ones who’d fired at Gabriele just a few moments earlier.

There was another volley of gunfire. The bullets grazed the air next to the hanging trio.

“Let’s get to the other side of the road. Grab the belt and let go of the wire. It’s going to get a little bumpy.”

“Okay.”

There was more gunfire. Two shots. Luckily, the bullets went farther astray.

The soldiers were likely unaccustomed to firing their guns. Granted, leaning out from a fifty-meter wall buffeted by strong winds and hitting a target that clung to the surface some ten meters down was no simple task. Perhaps it was an impossible one given the skill level of the rookies left to Quinta.

But it was too soon to relax.

A troop of them were looking up at them from the street directly below. It wouldn’t be long before the shooting started from there too.

“Pardon me.” Mathias hooked his legs around Bernhardt’s waist, pulled himself slightly away, and took hold of the belt connected to the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment.

“Fine. Now then…”

His arms locked around Gabriele’s body, Bernhardt brought his wrists as far to the left as they would go. He placed his fingers on one of the levers poking up from his waist.

The three bodies began to descend. As they did, Bernhardt adjusted the angle of the firing mechanism and shot a second wire diagonally downward. The anchor struck the roof of a three-storied building across the street next to the wall, audibly smashing into the tiles and jabbing deep into the surface. The Vertical Maneuvering Equipment had them suspended on two wires, one on either side.

“Time for a midair stroll.”

Even with Gabriele in his grip, Bernhardt continued his expert manipulation of the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment. He seemed to be maintaining a uniform velocity for both wires as one was reeled in and the other was released. As a result, instead of falling, they were gliding at an angle through the air, towards the rooftop.

Caught in the moonlight, their shadows landed on the street below. The soldiers ran over these, shouting to each other, and Mathias could make out what they were saying before long.

“Will we make it?”

“Watch you don’t bite your tongue!”

Heeding Bernhardt’s advice, Mathias clamped his mouth shut. The roof was approaching. When they were just a couple of meters off, it suddenly felt like they were floating. They’d entered free-fall.

“Seems the wall-side wire popped─”

They crashed into the tiles before Bernhardt could finish.

Amidst another surge of agony, Mathias realized he’d let go of the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment’s belt. He started to roll and hurtle across the tiles with frightening speed. His aching body reeled from impact after impact.

The roof slanted down towards the road. Realizing that he was on his way to falling headfirst from a three-storied building, Mathias unconsciously spread out his limbs. His left elbow, then his hand, struck the surface of the roof. He suffered another unbearable streak of pain as his fingers banged off and leapt up from a tile.

He kept sliding, now on his back. Yet he’d managed to kill some of his momentum, and the rolling had stopped.

Bit by bit he slowed before finally coming to a halt. Struggling to shut the pain out of his mind, he cautiously raised his head. He was right next to the edge.

That was close…

He rolled over to lie prone on the tiles. He raised his head a second time, still wary, and found Bernhardt crouched where the anchor had struck the roof and looking his way.

“Stay there.”

Bernhardt let go of Gabriele and, unspooling the wire in gradual increments, began to approach Mathias. His clothes, or rags, were stained dark with Gabriele’s blood. He squatted down next to Mathias and glanced at his own waist.

“You should probably take hold.”

“Thank you.”

Mathias reached out and hooked his fingers on the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment’s belt. As Bernhardt set the wire to wind back in towards his original position, Mathias let himself be pulled by the arms in a half-crouch.

Somehow making it to Gabriele’s side, they surveyed their surroundings. Soldiers were running along the top of the wall, pointing down and shouting. There was a similar commotion coming from below. They had to get away, and as soon as possible.

“Can we use the rooftops?”

“At first, yes.”

Bernhardt grabbed Gabriele by his clothes and hauled him up. Once again he formed a circle with his arms and fed Gabriele’s head and shoulders through.

“Let me help.”

“No need to be polite, I’m stronger.” Bernhardt tugged his arms in, still cradling Gabriele, who was now bent at the waist. “They’ll be up here soon. The smart thing to do would be to get to street level before that happens.”

“Yes.”

“That way.”

Bernhardt motioned his jaw away from the wall. Then he set forth.

Mathias followed him from behind. It was difficult to keep his balance. His whole body was screaming, but he knew he had to put up with it.

“Time we headed down.”

Bernhardt turned a right angle and stopped at the edge of the roof. Between them and the next building was an alley some three meters wide.

“I can’t leap so far!”

“No need. Take hold of me.”

In the same manner as they had at the wall, they lowered themselves to the ground. There were footsteps and male voices, rather close by. Soldiers were already running through the alleys in search of them.

“I suggest we split.”

“And Gabriele? Will he be okay?”

“He’ll be coming around anytime now.”

Mathias doubted Bernhardt would say something like that just to set him at ease. If the man thought Gabriele was going to die, he would declare as much and coldly state that they were leaving the unlucky bastard behind.

It was true that the blood hadn’t spread much.

“That’s good to hear.”

“Now where should we find each other?”

“There’s a small bookstore, all the way into the bazaar. He knows the exact location,” Mathias cast his eyes on the man in Bernhardt’s arms.

“Wonderful. He shall be my guide.”

“If you’re having trouble you can ask someone. They’ll know where if you ask for Derek’s bookshop.”

“Understood.”

Bernhardt was a seasoned “outlaw” who seemed to have spent time in Quinta in the past. There was no need to worry. If there was anything to be concerned about, it was Mathias’ own ability to escape.

“All right then…”

They swapped looks, then set off in separate directions.

They were near the edge of Quinta, but on the side that originally bordered the interior. The citizens living here had enjoyed comfort, and the houses were large. Most were empty now, though. The privileged had been the first to flee the district.

Mathias turned a corner each time he sensed someone nearby. He vaulted into whichever alley was narrower. At the same time he took care to move away from the wall and in towards Quinta’s heart.

He was making his way down a winding street hemmed in on both sides by two-storied buildings when he came to a dead end.

This isn’t my day…

There was a building in front of him, a commonplace brick structure with two floors. On his side there were no windows at street level, no foothold to scramble up on. Nor was there any tree, or even barrels or wooden boxes lying around.

He immediately made an about-face. There was an intersection just ten meters ahead.

A few figures appeared there.

The larger half of them had special-purpose blades slung in sheaths on their waists. The ones with rifles caught Mathias’ attention, too. Even in the faint moonlight, the crests stitched to their chests were clearly the Garrison’s.

He couldn’t advance. But he doubted retreating would improve his fate.

“Shit,” the crass word escaped his lips. That, too, he could never have imagined a year ago. Six months with outlaws had changed him in no small measure.

“Stay where you are!” came the interpellation.

What do I do? Should he surrender himself and wait for his comrades to break him free? Or should he try to fight his way through, hoping for the best?

Unable to decide, he almost stood still doing neither.

Just then, one of the soldiers punched one of the others in the pit of his stomach. When the unsuspecting victim doubled over, he had his head driven into the wall.

“Captain?!” a third soldier piped, the lantern in his hand illuminating his bewildered expression. This one suffered a gouging blow to the side of his head, crumpled onto his knees, and hit the ground. The soldier who’d kissed the wall lay limp next to him. The lantern, fallen too, flared all the more brightly for a second.

“What in the…”

Mathias stared at the soldier who had snapped─he assumed─pick up the hand lantern. The only one without a rifle, this “captain” instead wore the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment and twin sword sheaths. From below, the warm light illuminated her face.

Amanda was scowling hard.

“Must you be such a handful?”

“Right. ‘Captain’ meant you…”

“You’re taking responsibility for this.” She indicated the two soldiers sprawled by her feet. “This gets reported, I can’t stay in the Garrison. I’ll have to go into hiding.”

Like Mathias, Klaus, and the others.

Is she going to kill them to protect her place in the Garrison? he suddenly feared, and asked as much. “You’re not…silencing them, are you?”

“You can be a real ass, Mathias.” She looked up again, and two cold eyes bore in on him. They conveyed her irritation. Of course she wouldn’t silence them, which meant there was no going back for her thanks to him.

“I’m sorry.” Relieved, Mathias dipped his head in apology.

“Maybe that isn’t enough.”

She looked away, then dropped into a crouch to pry a gun from one of the soldier’s hands. She held it out. She was urging Mathias to take it.

He shook his head. He wouldn’t use guns within the town limits. If possible, he didn’t ever want to touch one again.

Amanda gave a loud snort but laid the gun down anyway. She knew Mathias’ history. She wasn’t going to insist.

“Follow me.” She turned her back on the scene and started to run, lantern in hand.

“We managed to deliver the equipment. They found us when we came back over the wall.”

“I know.”

“Gabriele’s still with him. I told him we’d meet at the bookstore.”

“Got it.”

Amanda appeared to know every backstreet in Quinta. She took lane after lane without a moment’s hesitation. They passed the occasional pedestrian, residents who were night owls or who were up absurdly early, but never came across any soldiers.

They emerged into a broader street, one Mathias had never been on before.

Amanda came to a halt before a sturdy-looking but bland two-storied building made of stone. She stooped at the wooden door, put her lantern on the floor, and opened the lock. She’d been in possession of a matching key.

“Where are we? It doesn’t look like a house…”

“This leads to the underground reservoir. We can use it to get through the net.”

The net of soldiers blocking their way, Mathias supposed. “You’re impressive,” he said.

Without answering, Amanda picked up the hand lantern and stepped through the doorway.

The flickering flame illuminated a pitch-black corridor. They continued forwards until they came to another door. This one had no lock. They opened it to reveal a stone staircase leading a long way down.

The lantern’s light cast their shadows against the wall. Mathias felt a stream of cold air on his skin. They had descended about two basement floors in a normal building.

The space opened up. There was a landing, and around it a black, glossy expanse of water. Countless stone pillars, spaced at regular intervals to support the high ceiling, rose from the surface like colossal trees.

“I didn’t even know this place existed.”

“That way.”

Amanda raised the lantern, indicating something to the right. Alongside the wall there was a stone footpath about half a meter wide that appeared to wind around the entire area. It probably connected the landing they were on to others. Each would lead to another exit, and Quinta itself.

Mathias nodded and stepped onto the path. Amanda followed from behind, using the lantern to illuminate the way. The light reflected off the water, and whenever Mathias dislodged specks of sand, multiple ripples spread across the surface.

After a minute or so, he halted, sensing something.

“What is it?” Amanda asked from behind. She held the lantern out over the water, casting more light on the path ahead.

“There’s something…”

Mathias realized what it was before he had finished.

Without any light source, and without making the faintest noise, someone was approaching them from the opposite direction.

She stopped just five meters away.

“Hello, Mathias.”

It was Rita.

Mathias had even avoided the public executions at the hands of the plaza Titan. Soldiers would be carrying flyers with his picture and looking for him.

Not for a single day in those six months had he not thought of Rita.

She looked as though she’d lost weight. Her cheeks were sunken, her eyes severe. Her light blond hair was cropped short; that at least was unchanged. Gone, however, were all traces of her laid-back personality.

It was as though she was, in fact, another person entirely.

“Rita…”

What to say? There were so many things he wanted to tell her.

He’d imagined this moment, their meeting again, their having the chance to talk, over and over. What he would say first, what he would say second, Rita’s reaction─he’d run a thousand different scenarios through his mind.

All of that was gone. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

“Hello.”

The one word, stupid, useless, was all he could muster.

Idiot, forget greetings. Apologize. Yes. First, apologize.

“Sorry.”

He racked his brains for words to follow. But none came, however much he tried. He began to fret.

Rita watched him with an unreadable emotion in her eyes. Without a word, she drew the blade at her waist with an echoing screech of metal.

“Move out of the way.”

The sound was matched from behind. Amanda’s elongated shadow shifted angles. He realized she’d drawn her blade and rested the lantern on the floor.

Mathias stayed where he was. He couldn’t move.

“I want us to talk,” he tried.

Rita said nothing in response. But nor did she cut him down.

“I…”

It was cold, and yet Mathias was covered in sweat.

“I wanted to help you. You had been left here, in Quinta. I thought I could help get you to the interior. For that, I needed to leave Fuerth and come─”

“I know,” she cut him off. “That man told me.”

“Then─”

“You said you came to help me?”

“I…”

“Were you trying to help me when you killed Duccio?”

The scene from half a year ago replayed itself in his head. The flash of the muzzle, the boy soldier’s head exploding, all of it dissolving into a downpour.

“No… That was an accident. I hadn’t meant to kill him.”

His voice echoed amidst the pillars, the water, the walls, the ceiling. It was as though countless versions of himself were all speaking at once.

Rita opened her mouth, abruptly asking, “Am I so precious? For whom?”

Surprisingly, there was no sign of anger in her eyes. Nor sorrow. They were hollow, devoid of any message.

Mathias was unnerved, but responded, “You are. Of course you are…”

To me.

It hit him before he finished. He realized what Rita was trying to say.

Everything he thought he’d done to help her, to rescue her, he’d done for himself. It was to see her again, and nothing more, that he’d returned to Quinta.

If he had rescued her… That would have been nothing more, too. It wasn’t for humanity’s benefit that he’d tried to save her, to say the least.

Rita appeared to share the realization. She made a slight nod, her eyes still hollow. “I appreciate the sentiment. But it’s misguided. It’s wrong to consider your own happiness and nothing else.”

Mathias had assumed the boy soldier’s death had triggered Rita’s rampage. That a desire for revenge had pushed her to initiate such extreme policing measures.

But the truth wasn’t so clear-cut.

As the cause of Mathias’ selfish behavior and the ensuing tragedy, perhaps she was feeling untoward guilt. Perhaps “eradicating all selfishness” had become her obsession for that reason.

Because Rita did not forgive selfishness.

She’d always been that way, in fact. She’d forsworn her own father, the man who’d left his daughter behind and killed himself in order to escape it all.

How had Mathias forgotten? It amazed him.

“You’re right,” he agreed. “I should never have come here. It was a mistake to even think about it. I should have stayed in Fuerth, prayed for your safety, and searched for something I could do from there. I accept that.”

“If you believe it, disband the resistance. Turn yourselves in.”

“We won’t.” Mathias shook his head. None of this altered what he needed to do. “I was wrong, but I don’t think what you’re doing now is exactly right, either. If I’m the one who started this, then I’m the one who ought to put an end to your rampage. To atone for my own actions.”

“I’m not doing anything wrong.” She drew her second blade and pointed it at him. “You see, I’ve decided to build a better world. I’ll make this a place where nothing like that happens. And I’ll do whatever I must.”

“You’re wrong to keep everyone imprisoned in such a dangerous place. You have to try to establish contact with the interior and begin evacuating.”

“They abandoned us.”

“That’s not true. They just don’t know the situation here.”

“Why so sure?”

More than half a year had passed since Mathias’ departure from Fuerth. He could hardly claim he knew how things stood in the interior.

“Either way,” he insisted, “the district can’t live on like this forever, completely isolated. There’s a limit to how much food you can get from the Night Harvest.”

“That’s not all we’re doing. We’ve started cultivating, and also, inside the wall─”

“How many people will it support, for how long?”

Mathias recalled what he’d been through only hours earlier. Attacked by a Titan, he’d sought refuge in a river only to be captured. He would have been eaten alive if not for Bernhardt.

“Forget cultivating anything outside the wall. I was just attacked by an aberrant Titan, not far from town. Does your ‘better world’ force people into facing that kind of danger?”

“Sorry, I’m getting bored.”

The voice came not from ahead, but from behind Mathias.

It was accompanied by the hiss of compressed gas. Something raced past his right side, below his armpit, and straight towards Rita.

She swung her blade. A high clang, followed by a low thud. A blackish object struck the wall and fell onto the narrow path. It was an anchor from the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment. The wire led back past Mathias.

Amanda.

“Run,” she said.

“But─” Mathias tried to turn around, but his clothes were yanked at his left shoulder. He lost his balance and began to lurch towards the pool of water. “Wha…?”

It had been Amanda. The stone wall, Rita, Amanda─they were all receding even as the two women stood with weapons drawn. Amanda reeled in her anchor and fired her other one. She charged as if to chase after it.

That was the last thing Mathias saw.

He hit the reservoir back first. His heart froze.

It was cold, much colder than the midnight stream.

He was sinking. It was dark. He couldn’t make anything out, not even which way was up and which down. It felt as though he was being swallowed alive by some black, amorphous monster.

At any other time, he would have panicked. But right now, his safety was the last thing on his mind. It hardly mattered whether he lived or died.

What mattered was Rita.

Her heart had grown as cold and hard as ice. Thawing it would be no simple matter. The chances of persuading her here were almost nonexistent.

But he couldn’t let time take its course. Every day, numerous residents were being made to take part in the Night Harvest. They lived under strict surveillance terrified of informants.

No, he had no choice but to take definite action.

First he had to end Rita’s dominion over Quinta.

By force.

Without his realizing it, Mathias had floated back to the surface. His face emerged from the water.

Up ahead, Rita and Amanda were locked in combat.

The latter seemed more proficient with the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment. While she deployed her blade with one hand, she used her other to repeatedly launch and reel in her anchors. She was firing them whenever even a little space opened, taking advantage of her opponent’s distraction to step in and strike with her blade.

Meanwhile, Rita seemed adept at swordplay, employing two blades with precision to deflect Amanda’s attacks in the nick of time.

“There are four exits, leave using the farthest!” Amanda said, holding her blade before her face and parrying Rita’s blow.

Four exits. Meaning there would be stairs leading aboveground at each of the underground reservoir’s four corners. He just needed to make for one.

“Got it!”

He wouldn’t be of any use, even if he did try to help. And he wasn’t puerile enough to insist on fleeing together. Amanda might defeat Rita and manage to escape. On the contrary, she might fall into Rita’s hands. In that case…he’d push Bernhardt into fulfilling his role sooner.

All he could do was pray neither of them sustained severe injuries.

Pressing her sword in against her opponent’s, Rita abruptly released the blade from its hilt. The freed blade sailed into the air while Amanda’s scythed above Rita’s head. By then Rita had already swung her hand down and fixed the hilt to a new blade. She brought it up in a sweeping arc.

Amanda jumped back to evade the blow. Then came the sound of an anchor firing.

Mathias had a bad feeling about it…

He plunged his arms through the water, propelling himself forwards and ducking his head below the surface. Anchor and wire whistled overhead. They pierced behind him, formed bubbles, and were reeled back in immediately.

Rita had aimed for him, not Amanda.

Mathias surfaced for air.

“I’ll find you, even if you run,” Rita warned, still facing forward.

Mathias didn’t respond, this time diving as far as he could into the water. He began to swim toward the wall at the opposite side from where Rita and Amanda stood.

It was difficult. He didn’t really know how to swim. But he kept going, stifling his desire to breathe. It was dark, after all. From above Rita wouldn’t be able to tell where he was.

No sooner than he thought this, an anchor and wire sliced diagonally past him. She’d fired again. Could she guess his approximate position, then, even without seeing him?

He couldn’t hold his breath any longer.

His fingers found something hard and slimy. It had to be one of the columns. Disregarding the unpleasant sensation, and thanking his good luck, Mathias traced his way to the far side and swam up to the surface.

Poking out his head, he took a gasping breath. The stone column acted as a shield so he didn’t need to worry about a direct line of fire.

He could hear metal clashing against metal. The fight continued.

He didn’t even try to look their way.

He took another big gulp of air then, for the second time, plunged deep. He repeated the process of swimming to a pillar and raising his head out of the water.

I’ll find you, even if you run, Rita’s words replayed themselves in his head.

You’re wrong, Mathias argued against the voice. I’m the one who’ll find you.

The bookstore was locked, but one of his comrades let him in as soon as he’d knocked and given the password. When Mathias proceeded towards the back, he saw that most of the resistance leaders were there. The store’s owner, Derek, must have called an emergency meeting as soon as he’d received word of Bernhardt’s rescue. Mathias saw Jodi for the first time since she’d handed him the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment by the gate.

Bernhardt was there too, sitting in the center and drinking warm tea like he owned the place. His handcuffs hadn’t been removed, but the chain linking his wrists had been severed. He’d bathed and changed into clean clothes; he seemed to be in high spirits.

Klaus was leaning against a bookshelf, behind him, with his arms folded over his chest. Nikki, though, was nowhere to be seen. She was probably still asleep somewhere. She hated to be woken up, Mathias remembered. If someone had tried, to alert her to Bernhardt’s rescue, it was entirely possible that she’d gone straight back to sleep after muttering, “Nice…”

Mathias’ comrades were keeping their distance from Bernhardt. Everyone, the ones who were there at least, knew of his history with the Military Police Brigade and as an outlaw. With introductions out of the way, they were probably unsure as to how to deal with him.

A young man shrieked, upstairs. The voice had to be Gabriele’s. It was enough to tell Mathias that he had made it.

Unsteadily, using the bookshelves for support, he walked towards the gathering.

Bernhardt caught sight of him and lowered his mug.

“Excellent, glad to see you again.”

“You too.” Mathias glanced up at the ceiling. “How’s he doing?”

“Like I said, barely a flesh wound. They’re taking care of it right now.”

They could hear his voice. Ow, stop that, damn it!

“It doesn’t sound like he’s dying, at any rate.”

Bernhardt nodded. “He likes to exaggerate.”

“Here you go,” Derek said, placing a wooden box to use as a chair.

Mathias thanked him and sat down. He scanned the faces of the resistance leaders assembled before him.

Jodi hesitantly raised her hand and asked, “Sorry, but what happened to Amanda? We heard she was on the run with you, Mathias.”

“It’s likely Rita got her.”

As Mathias recounted the events from the underground reservoir, he couldn’t stop his voice from shaking. The resistance leaders listened with solemn faces. But none showed any extremes of amazement or shock. Comrades being captured was hardly a new experience for them.

Mathias bowed his head. “I’m sorry. I left someone behind again.”

“You did fine! You’re in charge of this organization, I do believe?” Bernhardt indicated their surroundings with one of his usual dramatic gestures. “You’re making progress. Why, that was a sound snap decision! Quite beyond you just half a year ago.”

Bernhardt no doubt thought he was paying Mathias a compliment, but it didn’t help lighten his heart.

“Still, this is a difficult situation,” Derek said, swapping a couple of misplaced books that had caught his eye. “Amanda was Rita’s closest aide. And we know she shows no mercy to traitors.”

“She might end up suffering the same fate as him,” someone noted, looking at Bernhardt.

“Which is why,” Jodi said next, “we should act as soon as we can. Now that we have…” She gave Bernhardt a nervous look as though the chained “plaza Titan” itself were in the room with them. “Mr. Bernhardt? Now that we have him on our side.”

“You’re right,” another leading member said, scratching his head. “We won’t be able to get her out with any of our normal tricks. They’re sure to have tightened their watch now that he’s escaped. No, the only thing we can do now is overthrow the regime. If we pull that off we can get the lass out too.”

By “the lass” he meant, of course, Amanda.

Loud stomping footsteps approached from above. The door to the stairs opened and Gabriele burst in with a bandage over his shoulder.

“The hero returns!”

Nobody responded.

Gabriele pouted, disappointed as he cast his eyes around.

“Nothing? It’s thanks to my valiant efforts that the old guy’s here. I think that deserves a little applause, a few whistles, maybe a speech in thanks─something, right?”

“You did well,” Mathias said in acknowledgment.

“Put some feeling into it!”

“Amanda’s been captured,” Jodi told him with a grave expression.

Even Gabriele’s darkened at this. “Really?”

“Really,” Jodi said.

“We were saying how it would be difficult to get her out via conventional methods. That it was time to do something big.”

“It was suggested, no more,” Derek corrected, studying Bernhardt out of the corner of his eye. “Personally, I’m inclined to agree. Our ranks have grown in the last few months. Killing the plaza Titan might be enough to set things in motion.”

“Well, I don’t like it.” Klaus unfolded his arms. “We should be the ones deciding whether or not we kill the Titan.”

Jodi’s eyes stretched wide. “We rescued your friend.”

“So? No one told me it was on condition of slaying the Titan.”

Bernhardt nodded at this, looking mischievous. “Indeed. I don’t remember ever making such a promise.”

“What?!” Jodi half shrieked.

Mathias knew not to be concerned. Bernhardt was eccentric to the point of pronouncing the idea of killing the plaza Titan as “compelling,” and Klaus was simply against the idea of people taking their assistance for granted.

Bernhardt swept his gaze around the room. He took his time, savoring the focus, the looks filled with anxiety, suspense, hope. Then he breathed out and smiled broadly.

“Not that I see any reason to say no. We could go right now, if you’d prefer?”

The comrades all breathed a sigh of relief.

“We appreciate it,” Mathias said, thanking Bernhardt again.

“It’s my pleasure. As I believe I told you outside the wall, I’m angry at them too. I’m a man who values respect more than anything else. They lack it.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“All right, then.” Derek got to his feet. “Mr. Bernhardt will help us slay the plaza Titan. Once this is done, we call upon Quinta’s population to rise up. Are we in agreement?”

Jodi’s chest was flushed red with excitement. “The sooner we do this the better.”

The others had fire in their eyes as well. No one showed any signs of opposing the plan.

Klaus was still moody with his arms folded, but Mathias suspected he would cooperate when the time came.

“Hey, you guys. I think someone’s here?” Gabriele held a finger to his mouth.

They all fell silent.

Someone was certainly knocking at the door. One knock, followed by a pause and three more knocks, another pause, and one final knock. It was the code of the resistance.

“I’ll go.” Always helpful, Jodi was the first on her feet.

She hurried through the bookshelves. They heard the door opening, and when Jodi returned, it was with Nikki in tow. Mathias was on the verge of taking her through the plan, but when he saw the expression on her face, he stopped himself. There was nothing of her usual easygoing manner.

“I just heard, on my way here.” Casting her eyes on the books piled up on the floor, Nikki drooped her shoulders. “They’ve scheduled a special public execution for this afternoon. They’re going to feed Amanda to the Titan.”

Mathias and the others stood hiding amidst the crowd under the powerful rays of the late afternoon sun.

After Nikki had delivered her news some ten hours earlier, Bernhardt had spoken up: “Perfect! This is exactly what we needed. We can butcher their authority if we’re able to kill the Titan during a public execution. There’ll be no more reason to fear the soldiers. And if I’m doing this anyway, I hope to do it in front of a crowd. It’ll be much more effective!”

Mathias saw his point, but it felt excessive to carry out their plan in the middle of a public execution. With so many people gathered there in one place…

“People will get hurt.”

“Your plan is to stage an uprising, yes? You can’t overthrow a regime without spilling a little blood. You’d do well to stop pretending otherwise.”

“We don’t have enough time to prepare!”

“It’ll work out if everyone pitches in. You have people throughout Quinta, I hear. It seems the movement has been growing rapidly. You have a hundred now? Two hundred? In any case, it’s better to work on a tight schedule.”

“But it has to be a trap. She’s baiting us!”

“That’s fine. We just need to make sure we don’t fall into it.”

The plaza was already packed full. It was suffocating just to stand there hemmed in on all sides. Vying to get a better view, people were leaning forwards, stretching up, squinting their eyes. There was little conversation but they were clearly fired up. Not for the first time, Mathias felt that things were abnormal. Quinta’s residents lived in fear of being informed on, of being arrested, yet attended public executions with great fervor.

Perhaps it was the need to feel reassured that they, at least, were still safe.

Only the semicircular space before the district hall remained, as always, empty of people. The Titan sat crossed-legged in the center. It wore its usual melancholic look. Even on its haunches, it was two floors tall.

Heavy chains circling its neck, torso, arms, and legs spread out in a radial pattern and connected to mechanisms like the one used to open and close a gate. Each of these was fixed securely to the ground by a number of stakes. There had to be twenty or thirty of the mechanisms. Some had soldiers standing at either side, others didn’t.

Wooden scaffolding, set up in front of the Titan, reached the district hall’s third-floor balcony, the notorious gallows.

Rita, along with her soldiers, had yet to appear. The windows were shrouded by curtains.

They would show themselves soon enough.

With Amanda in tow.

Ready to sentence her to death.

The soldiers had made a special effort to publicize the special execution. No doubt they meant to entice Mathias and the members of the resistance, but even if none of them showed up, such a salient instance of a rebel’s fate was bound to strengthen the regime’s hold over the masses.

In other words, the plan couldn’t fail.

“I must say I’m feeling the nerves!”

Bernhardt lifted his hands above the crowd and rolled his wrists. His handcuffs were gone. Craftsmen sympathetic to the cause had exercised their expertise. Still, and although his hair had been cropped short and his beard shaved as a disguise, anyone who knew his face might recognize Bernhardt.

“Well, it doesn’t show.”

If there was anyone still relaxed among them, it was Bernhardt. Concealed beneath his overcoat were the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment and the specialized blades.

They were some twenty meters from the edge of the crowd. Mathias would have preferred to get closer to the Titan, but that would risk revealing themselves to the Garrison.

“Remember what to do?” he asked Bernhardt.

“Remember who you’re talking to?”

“Gotta say, you don’t lack confidence, old man.”

Gabriele had been keeping careful watch. He was to Mathias’ right, while Bernhardt stood behind the two of them.

The plan was to move into action the moment Rita came into view. First, Mathias and Gabriele would clear a path, forcing people out of the way. Bernhardt would then leap or climb over Mathias and fire an anchor towards the Titan. From there he would sail through the air to assault the creature. Simultaneously, members of the resistance seeded throughout the plaza would pounce on the guards. Others, positioned in the crowd, would fire their rifles at the gun-wielding troops atop the buildings. This would prevent Bernhardt from being shot to pieces along with the Titan.

If Bernhardt managed to slay the Titan, it was Mathias’ turn to act. He would proceed to the front of the plaza and call upon the residents to rise up. He was nervous about addressing a crowd, but it wasn’t a role he could delegate.

Rita, of course, would do whatever she could to obstruct them. They had to make sure she couldn’t act. For this, they had to rely on rifles. She might get injured in the process; depending on the case, she might even lose her life. Mathias found the idea more distressing than the thought of being injured himself, but they needed to go through with this.

Rita was after him with the same determination.

“Hey, old man, you’ll have to show me how to use this someday.” Gabriele gave a couple of hearty slaps on Bernhardt’s back, that is to say, on the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment under his overcoat.

“I don’t see why not. Although I must insist you stop calling me that.”

“You are getting on though, old man.”

“The appellation lacks any hint of glory.”

“Maybe you’re not as glorious as you think.”

“Ah, the gall. Well, I will at least consider teaching you the use of this thing.”

“She still hasn’t shown,” Mathias said, gazing up at the district hall.

The execution had been due to start some while ago, but the window curtains hadn’t so much as fluttered.

Mathias felt a momentary urge to call the plan into motion anyway but thought better of it. They had to kill the Titan in front of Rita. To enable the residents to overcome their fear of her. To show her the true extent of their anger and sorrow. And yet the key element, Rita herself, was failing to materialize.

As the sun started to lose its erstwhile glare, the crowd began to grow restless.

“I wonder if something happened…”

“Like what?” Gabriele scowled, brusquely wiping sweat from his forehead.

“Maybe the plan got out.”

“Everything’s fine. You know, you worry too much.”

“Maybe.”

The moment he’d said this, Mathias heard a series of agitated voices from behind.

“Hey!”

“What the…”

Mathias turned without thinking to see Bernhardt shaking on tiptoes with his eyes rolled up, his chest puffed out, and his arms stretched down unnaturally straight.

The residents around him seemed creeped out and were shrinking away, trying to get some distance.

“Bernhardt?” Mathias made to reach out, but drew his hand back.

The man was convulsing violently, his torso arched like a bow. His face spasmed as though in laughter. He didn’t respond to Mathias; his mouth was open, but the only sound to emerge was a retching from deep inside his throat.

His forehead was suffused with an oily sweat that reflected the sun’s waning rays.

Arching even further, the pose hardly human, Bernhardt’s body teetered backwards.

“Bernhardt!”

Mathias stepped in to catch the toppling form but came up short. Nearly supine, with nary an attempt to cushion the fall, the supposedly resilient outlaw was sinking to the ground.

The back of his head hit the cobblestone with a dull, disconcerting noise. Even then the convulsions continued, and his body lurched onto its side. Blood flowed from the back of his head, and dribble from his mouth.

People were screaming and jumping away.

“Bernhardt, are you okay? What’s going on?!”

Mathias fell into a crouch. He grabbed Bernhardt by the shoulder and tried to get him onto his back, but the fierce convulsions kept knocking his fingers away.

Froth bubbled from the man’s mouth, and he let out a keening cry that sounded more animal than human.

“About bloody time,” Gabriele’s nonplussed voice sounded from above.

Mathias craned his neck to look up at him. “Call for help! Do something!”

“I don’t think so,” the young man said. From near his chest he pulled out a thumb-sized vial. It seemed to have been hanging from his neck on a leather cord.

“Gabriele?”

“Probably should’ve used the whole thing.” He held the vial up to the sun. It was still half full. “Nah, he’d have noticed.”

What is that? Why isn’t he shocked by Bernhardt’s transformation?

“Ah yes, first things first.” Crouching down next to Mathias, Gabriele took hold of Bernhardt’s overcoat and pulled it open. The concealed Vertical Maneuvering Equipment came into view along with the twin blades. “I should probably requisition this─always pays to be careful.” He’d pulled out a dagger from somewhere. Making deft use of it he set about cutting the leather straps that secured the equipment. It came free and clunked on the cobblestone.

Bernhardt’s convulsions were already weakening and feeble. His heart-wrenching cries had subsided, too.

“What on earth,” Mathias barely managed to ask.

Even as he spoke, a number of burly men pushed through the crowd. They approached until they were behind him and reached around from both sides. They grabbed and twisted his wrists and started dragging him away from Bernhardt. The pain was enough to make him whimper.

He was stumped. He realized he should resist, but he was too dazed even to command his limbs.

“Doesn’t it speak for itself?”

He turned towards Gabriele’s voice.

“What do you mean?”

He saw it after he said this. Similar events were happening not just around him but across the whole plaza. He could hear screaming and swearing. Fights were breaking out. At the center of each disturbance, one or two men or women were being set upon and detained by a greater number of men and women.

“They’re all…resistance?”

“Uh huh. A mass arrest.”

“Why?”

“Because I reported what they looked like and where they’d be. Why else?”

The men on either side of Mathias forced him to turn around.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Bernhardt being dragged by his overcoat by two oversized men. He was still arched backwards, but his convulsions had finally stopped. A grotesque smile was pinned to his hollowed-out features. A gap in the overcoat gave Mathias a glimpse of Bernhardt’s groin. It was discolored, black and damp. He had, it seemed, lost control of his bladder.

For whatever reason, that was when Mathias finally understood that the man was dead.

Dragging his corpse and shouting “Make way! Garrison coming through,” the hulking men boisterously waded through the crowd.

Mathias, his hands still in a lock, was also being hauled away. His face ran into people’s backs and shoulders. He didn’t feel any pain, though. He was too bewildered for that.

Gabriele followed from behind.

Cutting a path through the confused crowd, they approached the chained Titan. When they emerged from the throng, they were in an open area in front of the district hall. The soldiers manning the winding mechanisms around the Titan cast nervous looks at Mathias and Bernhardt.

Mathias, who was still being forced along by the men, turned just his neck.

“You betrayed us. You chose Rita, over us.”

“Not exactly.” Gabriele laced his hands together behind his head. “I was never on your side to begin with. Had you from the start. So, not a betrayal.”

“You were serving Rita from the outset, then.”

“Wrong again. Sorry it’s a little complicated.”

Gabriele lifted his eyes, and Mathias stretched his neck to follow his gaze.

Troops were now lined up on the wooden platform─with Rita in the middle. Amanda was there too, farther back and restrained by soldiers.

When had they appeared? Rita was looking down at Mathias, the expression in her eyes inscrutable. Without a doubt, she was aware of everything happening in the plaza.

Mathias was made to walk towards the scaffolding right past the Titan. The monster seemed almost close enough to touch, and he registered its peculiar heat. He could hear it breathing. Once they reached the foot of the wooden structure, he could no longer see Rita.

“You’re a decent guy. I’ll make an exception and tell you,” Gabriele said from behind.

The soldiers yanked Mathias by the arms, and he continued forwards. They proceeded along the scaffolding and through the entrance, between the soldiers standing guard, to enter the cool, dimly lit district hall. The clamor of the crowd was suddenly far away.

“I was lying when I said I came from a small village. And about spending the last six months alone and on the run in the exterior.”

It didn’t make any sense. Gabriele had known where to wait during the daytime to evade the Titans. Together they’d spent a whole day in a narrow gap in a cliff.

“The bit about losing my horse was true, mind. But I didn’t find it outside, I’d had it from the start. I got you good, didn’t I?”

They took Mathias to the staircase. He noticed there were fewer soldiers around him now. Bernhardt had been carried off somewhere.

Gabriele continued to talk as they climbed the stairs. “I may not look it, but I’m a Fuerth official. Young for it, I know, but I do get by thanks to my folks’ connections. You’re from a rich family too, right? Bookstore guy told me. I expect you know all about that sort of thing.”

Could he really be an official? Attached to the royal government? If so, what on earth was he doing here in Quinta?

“I’ll give it to you from the top. Three months ago, one of your friends shows up at our place.”

Indeed, the resistance had sent Jarratt to Fuerth. He was supposed to communicate what was happening in Quinta in order to request immediate assistance.

“We’re at a complete loss. See, we just assumed everyone in Quinta was dead. We aren’t in any position to respond to a call for help. We’re lacking food ourselves.”

“And Jarratt?”

“Hmm?”

“The elderly gentleman we sent. Well-built.”

“Oh, that old fogey?” It sounded as though Gabriele might have received Jarratt’s report in person. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s in jail, maybe they killed him.”

“Why?”

“We’ve got a whole load of evacuees from Quinta. It wouldn’t do for anyone to go around spreading unnecessary talk. Like I said, we’re short on food ourselves. I mean, we’re okay for now, but we definitely don’t have enough going forward. If everyone was like, ‘Let’s help the people in Quinta, let’s bring them here,’ it’d be a fiasco.”

“And so…” they killed Jarratt?

Incredible.

The stairs ended, and they reached the third floor. Mathias was pushed down the hallway to be stood outside a large wooden door.

“Anyway, back to my story.” Gabriele nodded at one of the guards then turned back to face Mathias. “We decide that someone needs to come and check on the situation here, see if this old fogey’s stories are true. It falls on me, as I’m one of their best. Smart, athletic, good at making snap decisions.”

The guard knocked and announced their arrival. The door immediately swung into the corridor.

“So I leave Fuerth and am almost here…when my horse gets hurt and collapses on me. Like I said, even I start to fret at that point. I get here anyway, though. I’m good like that. I spend the day inside our cliff and make my way over to the orchard.”

“Where you found Klaus’ group at night.”

“Yup.”

The guard moved to one side. The two soldiers who had pretended to be civilians guided him into the chamber.

There were shelves filled with papers, a writing desk, some chairs and a table for receiving guests. The room was similar to Mathias’ father Jörg’s study.

They crossed it and stepped through the windows.

Mathias squinted at the brightness. The wind was stronger than it had been below. The balcony before them led to the top of the wooden scaffolding. At its center Rita turned around to study Mathias through the line of soldiers.

Amanda’s hands appeared to be tied behind her back. Although her face was blocked from view by her guards, Mathias could readily picture her sour look.

“I told him the story,” Gabriele called out to Rita over Mathias’ shoulder. “Didn’t think you’d mind?”

“Nope.”

Pushed in the back, Mathias advanced. People gazed at him from below.

The commotion had apparently settled. All around the plaza, resistance members had been detained and pulled away from the crowd.

Rita indicated Gabriele with a glance. “We’ve known each other for a couple of weeks. He told me everything, how he’d entered from outside and fallen in with your lot.”

“Our interests coincided, as they say. Fuerth doesn’t want refugees. Yet you and the resistance want to leave Quinta. This young lady, on the other hand, is of the opinion that all residents should stay here.”

And so he informed on the resistance?

“I refrained from taking immediate action,” Rita divulged. “Instead, I asked Gabriele to keep it up. I had him find out the names of your leaders, the location of your hideout, your next move.”

“You know I had a great time?”

“If it was just arresting the leaders, I could do it anytime. But that alone wouldn’t have meant much. I needed to round up every last member to demonstrate to the people of Quinta that it doesn’t pay to be involved in wrongdoing.”

Wrongdoing─the word choice bothered Mathias, but that was a trifle. “So you knew the whole time. That we planned to rescue Bernhardt and to stage an uprising.”

“Of course. That’s why I arrested Amanda.” She glanced at her former colleague standing beside her. “With such material, I knew you’d play into my hands.”

The platform, not entirely stable, swayed a bit each time the wind picked up. Moreover, unlike the balcony, it had no fence or guardrail. Leaning too far over the edge meant tumbling headfirst into the cobblestones below.

Gabriele spoke again. “As for that older guy being kinda tough, the young lady here came up with an easy solution.”

That was when Mathias finally caught up. “You poisoned him…”

Henning, Rita’s father─adoptive father, to be precise─had seen fit to brew a lethal mixture for residents who wished to take their own lives. It was because this had come to light that he’d been fed to the Titan in that very plaza.

Rita must have kept some of the poison. Gabriele had received it from her and mixed it into Bernhardt’s meal.

“How could you…” Bernhardt had died a dog’s death. Literally, dispatched with poisoned food. “Why?”

Mathias tried to accost Rita, but the guards stopped him before he’d moved one meter. Pain sparked from his shoulder through to the top of his head as they twisted his arm even tighter.

He asked Rita regardless: “Why cooperate with them?”

“What do you mean?”

“Fuerth wants to abandon us. Their only goal is to save themselves. Isn’t that exactly the kind of unforgivable behavior you hate?”

“I’m not forgiving it. But it’s not a problem we can solve by turning up on their doorstep. That would only cost us more lives. I have to put the people of Quinta ahead of my own feelings.”

“And so we reached an agreement,” Gabriele said. “Quinta will be free of royal government interference, a city unto itself. Pretending not to have seen a thing, I return to Fuerth. That’s the promise we made.”

“But that’s…”

Rita was in thrall to the idea of building a utopia where she was. Perhaps she couldn’t maintain her equilibrium any other way.

“That’s impossible, however you think of it. As I said this morning, we can’t subsist within these walls!”

“We’ll use the exterior, too.”

“Things will become unbearable.”

“The exact opposite. They’ll get used to it, soon enough. I’ll make them get used to it.”

“What kind of world─”

“Admit it.”

Rita glanced at the guards, giving them the signal. They took hold of Mathias’ wrists and pushed him forward by his shoulders. The soldiers next to Rita moved out of the way. Mathias was shoved through the opening, to the edge of the platform.

The view opened up before him.

The people of Quinta stood in a ring, a huge big ring. The Titan sat enshrined at the center, below Mathias and slightly off to the side.

It slowly faced up. The chains around its neck emitted a shrill groan.

It looked so melancholic.

“I was right, help is not on the way. No one will aid us.”

“Even then…”

Mathias tried to meet her eyes, but the guards prevented him from doing so. All he could do was face the Titan. Less than three meters separated them.

Nodding at the soldier next to her, Rita said, “Bye.”

Footsteps sounded behind Mathias as one of the soldiers came to stand next to him.

Raising a pale sheet of parchment, he began, “This man, Mathias Kramer…”

The charges against Mathias were read out loud: Breaking and entering with larcenous intent. Murdering a soldier. Partaking in the Night Harvest under a false identity. Disallowing the original participant from fulfilling his duty. Aiding a criminal’s escape. Trespassing on a forbidden area. Assembling with intent to disturb the peace. Amassing weapons…

There were too many to count.

Eyes as large as a baby’s head examined Mathias; to its right and to its left, the plaza Titan had its palms flat against the ground. Its haunches seemed to have risen up a fraction.

It was possible it knew it was going to be fed.

The soldier continued, the list seemingly endless.

The crowd observed. None of them could save Mathias.

He was going to die.

Rita was going to kill him.

He felt a sting of regret. He wanted, there at the end, to be hearing her voice─not the young soldier’s strained tones, but her soft ones.

Then he noticed it.

For some reason the residents were looking away, one after another. Away to Mathias’ left, southward.

Maybe they were getting bored. Hurry up and throw him off, feed him to the Titan! If that was what they were signaling, though, why were they all looking in the same direction? It wasn’t part of the ritual as far as Mathias knew; even he’d have heard of such a thing.

The crowd began to stir.

At first the change was limited to a small part, but it began to spread, like a wave, until virtually all of them had their attention focused southward. Some were pointing up at the sky, interjecting with frozen expressions…

Mathias, too, craned his neck.

Turning to face south as well, the soldiers on the platform had their faces angled up.

In the distance, atop the wall surrounding the district, was a small black lump.

It grew larger until a face, then bare shoulders and a chest, became visible. Walking along the top of the great wall that stretched far to the south was a stark-naked man.

Had a pervert clambered up there without the soldiers realizing? Or had one of the soldiers themselves lost it and stripped bare?

No, that wasn’t it.

“Titan…” the word escaped Mathias’ lips.

Impossible.

A Titan on the small side was approaching Quinta on Wall Maria itself.

The crowd began to stampede to the avenue on the north. Jostled, their clothes pulled, tripping, one after another they fell, to be trampled on by others coming up from behind. The crowd clambered over itself, angry shouts mixing with the screaming.

It was lucky there were no children─no parent wanted their own to see a feeding Titan─but the elderly and weaker women were being thrown aside, knocked down, kicked, and left behind.

Just as Mathias thought it was the only Titan approaching, a second came into view. As they were on a fifty-meter wall, they seemed small, but had to be at least three meters tall. This was clear in comparison to the cannons lined along the way.

Catching its foot on a set of rails there to move the weapons, the first Titan flapped its arms.

“Swords. And the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment,” Amanda’s cold voice rang out.

Everyone on the platform turned to look at her. They were all frozen to the spot, unable to process what was happening. Rita was no different, the color drained from her face, her hands half open and trembling.

“Forget executions and who’s a rebel. Anyone who can use the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment, head out. Everyone else needs to handle the crowd.”

“They’ve come crossing,” one of the soldiers groaned, his gaze fixed on the wall. “They must have climbed up in Shiganshina, then walked all this way…”

Getting up and down the wall was mostly done via a system of ropes, pulleys, and gondola lifts. But perhaps some districts featured staircases, and that was how the Titans had found their way up. Not that they’d actually decided to “use the wall to cross into another district”─they weren’t intelligent creatures. They must have wandered up by chance sometime during the last six months and just carried on walking in search of people, until they happened upon Quinta.

“Who cares how,” Amanda snapped. “Rita. Give the order.”

“Oh. Right…” The acting commander seemed unable to pull her gaze from the south wall.

The first Titan turned west, onto the circular wall that ran around Quinta. The path ahead of it was dotted with cannons, next to which stood small figures.

Soldiers.

“Bad news…”

By now even Gabriele’s voice was shaking. The troops on top of the wall seemed paralyzed, unable to take a step despite the Titan coming their way.

One of its arms reached out.

Long fingers clamped around the head of one of the soldiers and squeezed, instantly pulping it.

The others, caught in the shower of blood, came back to life only to scream and run, in no state to fight back. One disoriented soldier fled in the wrong direction and lost his footing at the edge of the wall. He plummeted towards the ground, letting go of his rifle, his arms whirling in the air. He wasn’t wearing the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment. Nothing could save him from the fall.

Mathias was about to avert his eyes but quickly pulled them back. He swallowed.

The screams in the plaza became even louder.

Another Titan came into view atop the wall. Considerably bigger than the first two, it had to be a seven-meter-class.

The wall was five meters wide at the top. Any Titan under ten meters could traverse it without difficulty.

The seven-meter-class paused near the edge. It looked out at the town sprawling beneath it. Its expression was too distant to make out.

Incredibly, it sauntered off the edge. Still upright, its hair swept back and its arms spread wide, it hurtled down. This was a fifty-meter drop. It couldn’t possibly emerge unscathed.

Sure enough, a boom like cannon fire sounded, sundering a roof and throwing up a nimbus cloud of steam and dust at the point of impact. The vapor was the kind a Titan shed from its wounds. In other words, it had taken severe damage in the fall.

Its bones broken, skewering through skin. Its flesh ripped, squashed, splattered…

That was when Mathias remembered.

A Titan didn’t die unless the nape of its neck was sliced out.

No doubt the creature was quickly regenerating right there amidst the steam and dust.

“So many?” someone rasped.

The cloud had distracted Mathias, but he now saw even more of them atop the wall: a scrawny Titan, an abnormally potbellied Titan, a bowlegged Titan, a hunchbacked Titan… They ranged from three to seven meters.

All were approaching with meandering steps.

Then, tipping forward, a Titan with bedraggled hair that came to its chest fell headfirst off the wall.

“Holy…”

Staggering, Gabriele held onto a nearby soldier by the shoulder.

Another Titan rolled sideways off the wall, another huddling its knees, another extending its arms like wings. Each with its chosen pose, they hurled themselves from the wall without the slightest reluctance as though nothing was more natural.

It looked like a mass suicide.

Thunderous peals continued to ring out, and the endless clouds of steam and dust blanketed the town. The southern limits of Quinta were turning a uniform white.

“Rita!”

Rita’s body shook at Amanda’s razor-edged cry.

A haphazard evacuation was still underway in the plaza below. Many of the residents were in a state of panic. Amongst them, pulled down by the chains each time it tried to stand, the plaza Titan swiveled its head, taking in the scrambling masses with a most melancholic expression.

Rita took a deep breath. She closed her eyes for one second─no longer─then opened them again.

“Fetch Amanda’s equipment and weapons! Gather all civilians before the east gate. Prepare horses, and food!”

“You’re giving up on Quinta?” asked one of the soldiers, stunned.

Rita averted her eyes. “Yes. If those were all, we may have had a chance of winning.”

“Ten or a hundred times as many could be on their way. There’s no guarantee that isn’t the case,” Amanda said, turning to hold out her bound wrists to the soldier as though ordering him to remove them immediately.

The soldier hurried to comply.

Frowning a little, Amanda said, “It isn’t safe here, not anymore.”

“It’ll be dangerous.” Rita’s hand was clasped tight over a hilt. Her knuckles were white. “But we’re all leaving for Fuerth, on foot.”

“Wait,” Gabriele cut in, “what do you think you’re saying? I told you, we don’t want you!”

“The situation’s changed.” Rita pulled out one of her blades. “Fuerth will take us. I won’t let anyone get in the way.”

“Have you gone mad? It’s still afternoon! There are Titans out there, too. You’ll get attacked, all right?! Even if you did wait for nightfall, you can’t travel to Fuerth in half a day!”

“Maybe. But we have to try, even if it means getting wiped out… Wouldn’t that suit you? The royal government, I mean. You want us all to die.”

“Don’t make me spell it out. And…God forbid, you might actually make it…”

“We’ll deal with that when it happens.”

Mathias wanted to swallow but couldn’t. His mouth had dried up completely.

Rita had decided to abandon everything she’d spent the last half-year building. In that scant second she’d had her eyes closed.

How did she do it?

How could she be so strong?

It had to be enough to tear her apart. He wouldn’t have been surprised if her mind had simply ground to a halt.

No, maybe it had.

Maybe she was acting mechanically, like a cog, simply obeying her principle of protecting the residents.

“Let…”

Mathias had opened his mouth and taken a step before he realized. By now none of the soldiers tried to stop him, and he was allowed to walk freely.

“Let me help.”

He looked out over the plaza. People, out of their minds, were tumbling over one another, struggling to get as far away from the Titans as they could.

There was a young woman striking an elderly woman by the narrow exit; a middle-aged woman yanking a middle-aged man out of the way; a woman cradling an infant and trampling over a fallen, screaming youth. The doors of houses lining the street had flung open, ejecting people burdened with luggage who were sucked into the desperate stampede. They flew into a rage when their things were pulled away and launched themselves at anyone in their path.

A thin layer of vapor drifted through the air above them, sparkling in the light of the dipping sun.

“I can help with the wounded. At least let me do that.”

I’m powerless.

It was the truth, and it made him want to cry.

“And set my comrades free. They’ll be willing to help.”

He believed it, too. The members of the resistance─more than anyone─would be willing to sacrifice themselves if it meant delivering the people of Quinta to safety.

“All right. Got it.”

“We’re running out of time,” Amanda said, glaring up at the wall.

She had already been given her Vertical Maneuvering Equipment and was almost done putting it on.

Rita tucked in her chin in the way of a nod and walked to the edge of the platform. Once there she fired an anchor and leapt into the air. The wire immediately whisked her away toward the southern avenue.

Amanda followed along with the other soldiers.

None had wasted a single word on sentiment.

They landed on surfaces lining their path, crouching to cushion the impact and firing their next anchors in almost the same moment. They soared over the fleeing crowd in the opposite direction, with a trajectory like lightning, closing in on the danger.

It had happened all so quickly, in the blink of an eye.

Mathias rubbed his arms. They felt wrong from being held in place for so long. Gabriele was there next to him, cursing and stamping his feet. They were the only two left on the platform.

Mathias pushed the fellow out of the way and began to make his way downstairs.

***

The barrage of falling Titans had eased a short while earlier, but occasionally a new Titan came crashing down.

There was no end in sight, only growing exhaustion. The one saving grace was that none of the Titans were ten-meter-class or larger.

When they fell they wrecked rooftops and smashed through the floors, in most cases bringing the walls and supports with them. Each time great clouds of dust billowed into the air. The Titans’ mangled bodies pumped out vapor as they regenerated.

Some residents had been cooking, and fires had broken out in a few neighborhoods. Columns of black smoke rose from these, too. The cannons bombarding the Titans from above also threw up continuous streams of debris.

It was as though Quinta had been swallowed by a many-hued nimbus.

Visibility was poor, and it was almost impossible to keep her eyes open. They grew moist, and overflowed with tears.

Standing at ground level with a blade in each hand, Rita gritted her teeth and gazed up at the wall. The scene was reminiscent of half a year earlier. Then, too, they had resorted to cannon fire to keep the Titans at bay, destroying house after house and scarring the earth with innumerable craters.

But those buildings had been part of an illegal shantytown. These were different. These buildings were sanctioned, inside the wall, yet under relentless fire. They were being blasted apart.

The day had come. The day they were overrun by the Titans.

Most of the residents had already been evacuated to the east wall. The only things left moving were the monsters and the Garrison soldiers.

Yet another five-meter-class was charging in towards her. It had broad shoulders and greasy hair that fell to its shoulders. Its eyes narrowed in a joyful expression, the Titan leaned in over her and stretched its arms.

Rita adjusted the angle on her Vertical Maneuvering Equipment and fired an anchor upwards. It drove into the eaves of the building behind her. Manipulating the trigger, she set the wire to reel in, weaving a path between the Titan’s arms and rising to the third floor in no time. The Titan raced on beneath her and crashed into the building with an incredible boom. Still hanging by the wire, Rita was thrown against the wall. She hit it, rebounded, and hit it again. She grimaced, fighting to endure the pain.

“Commander?!” one of the soldiers called out to her, looking up from nearby.

“I’m fine!”

She began to lose height, and unpleasantly hot vapors enveloped her.

The Titan’s arm was twisted out of shape and steaming as it lay embedded in the wall, having knocked away part of the building near the corner. The supporting pillar had snapped, and the whole edifice was listing to the side.

The Titan pulled its injured─and rapidly regenerating─arm out from the wall and tilted its head upwards. With the same joyful look, it opened its huge mouth directly below her.

She felt a chill roll down her spine, and her hair stood on end.

“Or maybe not…”

The whole building was tipping now. Rita would be eaten alive if she didn’t do something.

She jerked her wrist and pulled the anchor from the building’s eaves. She purposely fell feet-first towards the Titan’s face.

She threw her legs apart at the last moment, landing with one foot on each of its lips. The Titan’s tongue lashed and wriggled below her thighs.

It tried to snap its mouth shut. Rita jumped, somersaulting and brandishing her blades. As she descended toward the creature’s back, she cut a hunk of flesh from its neck. A fresh blanket of steam flared out. The Titan went limp, fell to its knees, and tipped headfirst into the half-destroyed building. It plunged right through, seeming to merge with the structure.

Rita landed on the ground and shot an anchor before the rush of debris could hit her. The wire carried her all the way to another building.

Another Titan toppled from the wall, just one block away. The roof of a four-story building was blown to smithereens. Yet more debris and steam spewed out.

The soldier who’d expressed concern for Rita started to dash, no doubt to try and take down the newcomer, but he wasn’t wearing the equipment. Lacking the skills, he hadn’t been allocated a set.

“I’ll take this one, so help anyone still stuck here!”

“O-Okay!”

“Go, now!”

Rita lowered her center of gravity, then fired an anchor in the vicinity of the nearest rooftop. As soon as she felt the impact of the anchor burrowing in, she switched the wire to rewind; as though shoved from behind, she floated into the air.

The building’s wall came hurtling in. She pulled the anchor free and kicked off the wall, jumping almost vertically upwards in the direction of the roof. The world opened up, and Quinta spread below her in every direction.

She fired an anchor again, this time at the building next to where the Titan had fallen. Setting the wire to reel in the moment the anchor broke a tile, she pulled herself towards the building, skillfully killing her momentum as she came in to land.

She scrutinized the building ahead of her.

A plume of dust and steam wafted out of a gaping hole in the middle of the flat roof. The Titan in there was relatively small, probably a three-meter-class. At that size, it had plunged through the roof perhaps but not the fourth floor. The moment Rita considered this, a dark shape rose up from inside the steam. The outline began to reshape itself and formed a Titan’s head. It was definitely a three-meter-class, standing with only its head protruding through the ceiling.

She wasn’t in its visual field as of yet.

Running without any conscious thought, she closed the distance between her and the back of the creature’s head.

When she was less than three meters away, the Titan turned to look straight at her. It had tangled black hair and looked awfully sleepy.

Rita stopped herself from hurling a curse and fired an anchor instead. Its end stabbed the Titan between its eyebrows. Its head flinched, moving back a notch.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Rita manipulated the trigger. The wire tugged at the Titan’s head, forcing its throat into the edge of the hole in the roof. Rita, herself, was drawn up into the air and towards the Titan.

It opened its mouth.

She could see the glossy sheen of its teeth.

A split second before they collided, Rita pulled the anchor free. She kicked off the tiles and sailed over the Titan’s head. Before she cleared it, she released the blade in her right hand and took hold of the creature’s tangled hair, dampening her inertia. She let go and landed with both feet on the roof, spun a half-circle, and executed two swipes of the blade in her left hand. The strike severed the monster’s nape.

The Titan’s body turned slack, and its head vanished into the depths of the hole. Moments later steam cascaded out of the opening like a geyser and formed a column.

“Nice.”

She’d taken it down with the bare minimum of effort. It was good luck, and didn’t happen often.

She crouched and retrieved the blade she’d let go of.

A soldier landed next to her─a young girl, still bearing traces of innocence but already skilled with the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment. The mere fact that she was alive richly testified to her prowess.

“R-Reporting in!” The young girl straightened her posture even as her eyes were drawn to the diminishing column of steam. “All the civilians are now gathered by the east gate. We have all the wagons we could find, positioned at the front.”

“How many did you secure?”

“Just over thirty.”

It wasn’t many, but more than she’d initially hoped. She had to be content.

“We prioritized getting the children into the wagons,” the subordinate continued her report.

Rita had given them orders to that effect, but even so… “I’m surprised the adults complied.”

“Ah, um…” the soldier stammered for some reason. Maybe they’d had to take forceful measures to bring people into line. Maybe they’d killed someone as an example, and she was balking at delivering the report herself. Whatever the case, Rita would find out when she got there.

“What about Gabriele?” she asked. She’d thought of a use for him after the fight with the Titans had started and issued orders to a nearby subordinate.

The girl soldier nodded enthusiastically. “We managed to track him down. He’s in our custody now.”

“Next to the gate, I hope?”

“Yes.”

“Good work.”

Soldiers were still engaged in combat close to Rita. Yet, the Titans’ descent appeared to have broken off, at least for now. She could afford to leave the fray without doing much harm with her absence.

“We’ll go there together.”

Rita broke into a run across the roof. Without hesitation she leapt from the edge and into the air, controlling the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment as she did. She fired her anchors at buildings on either side and swung like a pendulum, yanking her anchors free when her height crested and firing them at the next buildings ahead. This she repeated, carrying herself rapidly through the empty streets.

More and more people appeared below her. They eventually turned into a crowd.

A large number of residents were packed together around the district’s gate. Their voices overlapped to give the impression that the earth itself was growling.

In line with her instructions, wagons had been set up in a line before the gate. Some had tarpaulin covers while others didn’t. Small children were packed tightly into the latter.

She stood on a rooftop across the road from the gate. A few of the soldiers noticed and acknowledged her presence with their eyes, whether they were on top of the wall or down on the ground. The troops were busy commanding the civilians to queue up calmly.

She realized something. Many of those helping guide the civilians weren’t wearing Garrison uniforms. A number were people she recognized, from the teachers association, the butchers union. People who’d been arrested and subsequently released in response to Mathias’ appeal─members of the resistance. Scholars, booksellers, many more, were all working hard, hollering at the civilians, urging them to cooperate.

Without the rebels’ help, she doubted they could have assigned the wagons to just the children.

It was ironic.

Rita had claimed that people could live in Quinta forever. She had seen the resistance as subversives who undermined law and order. Yet, now that the Titans were here, it was due to their efforts that order was being maintained.

Maybe that was why the girl soldier had hesitated to report the reason.

It meant Rita had been wrong─and Mathias, right.

No, that wasn’t true, either.

Mathias’ plan had been to appeal to Fuerth for assistance. But Fuerth District lacked any such intention.

Both of their expectations had been proven wrong, and the world was crueler than either of them had supposed.

Rita felt dizzy. She came dangerously close to falling from the roof. She took a hurried step backwards.

She couldn’t die yet.

It wasn’t as though her principles had been proven wrong.

A lanky young man was arguing with one of her soldiers, ahead of the line of wagons, just in front of the gate. The man’s hands were bound behind his back.

Gabriele.

Rita stepped back a little, took a running approach, and leapt into the air. She fired an anchor into the wall that protected the district, set the wire to reel in, and cut straight over the crowd beneath her. As she came back down she kicked both feet off the gate, killing her momentum and coming to rest next to Gabriele.

Caught unawares, he flinched a little. The civilians nearby were watching with wide eyes.

Gabriele threw her a defensive look. “What? What the hell are you planning for me?”

“Oh, nothing too taxing,” Rita said in response. “Just for you to steer one of the wagons. The one at the front.”

“That’s…” He looked over to the wagons, then, realizing Rita’s scheme, turned pale. “That’s impossible. I told you, you can’t come to Fuerth.”

“We can’t stay here. I think the same applies to you. I’m offering you the use of a wagon.”

“As a bargaining chip? You’d give me a wagon, if I took them.” The children inside the wagons were huddled together, visibly anxious. Some looked sulky, others were openly bawling.

“Yes. That sounds about right.”

Gabriele was a Fuerth official and the son of one of the district’s luminaries. It was unlikely they would ignore him or turn him away, even if he arrived with a trail of refugees.

“They won’t open the gate, you know?”

“Who can say? We’ve got refugees living there already, lots of them. Who knows what might happen if they find out their own are being kept out?”

They would probably riot. And that would be high on the list of eventualities the royal government wanted to avoid.

“Damn it.”

“If you arrive ahead of us, request them to send out their elite. To protect the refugees following behind.”

“They’ll never do that, all right?!” Gabriele ploughed his hands through his hair. “And, yeah, haven’t you considered that I might double-cross you? Who’s to say I won’t steal one of the horses and race off to Fuerth by myself?”

“I’ll be assigning troops to keep watch so that doesn’t happen. And to make sure the refugees are safe. Except…” I’d rather trust you on this.

Gabriele was a man who put Fuerth’s interests first─he hadn’t shown the slightest reluctance to poison Bernhardt─but Rita didn’t think he was low enough to abandon a few hundred children stowed in wagons.

“Damn… Damn. Damn!” he swore, then started to make his way to the lead wagon. He’d decided to comply, if only to save himself.

Rita nodded at one of her soldiers. He ran after Gabriele, made him stop, and cut the ropes from his arms with a sword.

That would do, for now.

Rita shot an anchor low on the wall, set the wire to reel in, and hauled herself onto the tarpaulin covering one of the wagons. She used the vantage point to study the crowd.

No praising looks─the people watched her without a word, their eyes filled with anger, hate, resentment, contempt.

It was only to be expected.

She’d been draconian. It had all been to keep them safe. Yet her hopes had vanished into thin air as rapidly as a mirage, leaving behind nothing but despair.

She was overtaken with an urge to say something, but decided against it. She feared she’d start mouthing excuses.

Looking away from her people, she caught the eyes of the soldiers flanking the gate.

“Raise the gate!”

The soldier in charge was flummoxed for a moment, but soon pulled himself together. He turned on his heels and ran into a structure attached to the wall. There came the sound of metal grinding as the chains began to turn; the iron slats that were the gate slowly lifted up.

Light filtered into the dark passageway.

Gabriele whipped his horse before the gate was all the way up. As though waking from a hypnotic state, people began to swarm towards the corridor. None of them paid Rita any more attention. They were all scrambling to get out.

Firing her anchor again, Rita returned to the roof where she’d stood earlier.

The swarm of people moved below her like a turbid stream.

When she looked up, a ghost town lay before her. In the distance, more Titans were diving off the wall. Clouds of debris and steam seethed upwards. Bloody battles were resuming within them.

Rita knew she had to go back, and as soon as possible.

Everything was lost.

The screams, the shouts, the cries of the fleeing civilians somehow seemed so faraway.