Page 67 of Stealing Tink

After several moments, Phoenix’s face goes blank. “There’s no pulse.” Her voice is flat. Lars waits for her to cry, to wail like the women did in his storybooks as a child.

She does not. She just stares. Lars wonders if she feels nothing. Perhaps they weren’t friends after all.

If Lars were in Phoenix’s position, he would not be sad that Venus was dead any more than he would be sad to discover he’d been cured of ringworm.

He leans down to check her pulse.

“I already checked,” Phoenix snaps. “You might be smarter than everyone else, but that doesn’t make the rest of us incompetent.”

Lars had been thinking that Phoenix might be incompetent at checking pulses, but he knows better than to say as much.

“The Nomad will want multiple witnesses that she’s dead,” Lars says.

Phoenix flinches at the word dead, but she moves her hand out of the way. Success.

Lars presses his fingers to Venus’s skin. Waits.

Nothing.

There is, however, a hint of purple coloring the seam between Venus’s lips. Interesting.

“We need to move,” says Acel, who is now standing and looking out the broken window.

Lars also stands. He has to close his left eye to get a better look out of his monocle. In the distance, he sees blurry figures. He doesn’t need to see their insignia. The bland navy of their uniforms tells him all he needs to know.

Phoenix does not move. She remains on the floor, cradling Venus, her eyes wide.

“Phoenix,” says Acel. “We can’t do anything for her.”

He helps Phoenix to her feet. She’s trembling.

Lars thinks it would be best to leave Phoenix behind if she can’t run. He almost says as much, but he also knows that he is more likely to be left behind than she is. And he cannot deny benefiting from Acel’s brawn.

None of them mention Tink and the Nomad.

CHAPTER 28

TINK

Women line the walls of the car. Most are hunched over, hands shackled in front of them, but some have fallen over onto the floor. There are dozens of them, all unconscious. As my vision adjusts, I recognize them, not by their faces, but by their wings. Broken and tattered, like mine.

The Nomad and I share a look.

“No,” he says, reading the grief in my expression. “I didn’t know. They must’ve panicked after the shortages,” he murmurs. “Decided to move them elsewhere.”

I study the nearest faerie—a woman with light brown skin, long silky black hair, and hollow cheeks. Her translucent wings resemble a torn kite. Strings dangling. Edges ripped.

“We need to move on,” the Nomad says softly.

I ignore him, reaching toward her, until he grabs my wrist.

“If you startle her, she’ll scream.”

I shake my head. I don’t have time to explain that girls like this have forgotten how to scream at unwanted touch. So I simply brush my fingers across her forearm. She stirs, but doesn’t wake.

I jump to my feet, searching frantically around the room for a key.

“They’re not going to keep a key in the same room where they keep the prisoners,” says the Nomad. For once, there’s nothing condescending in his tone.