BLUEMANTLE by Karen Langston (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud TXT) 📕

us what to think. Who to believe. Who to blame. They deny alternatives. Erase elsewhere. With no apparent way through, people forget to ask the question. Ursel said that, as long as we keep asking ‘why’, we’ll discover the truth eventually. Others can too. If they’re shown alternative paths, people will realise they’re free to decide for themselves.”

“Can I stop you there?”

“I know, it’s okay. I didn’t understand it at first—” he said, swept away by the rush of revelation.

“No, Chase. You’re talking to the converted. I challenged the A’s narrative. I went to a show because I wanted to make up my own mind. Sure, I was curious. I’d dabbled in drugs a few years back. I was up for giving music a go.”

“So, you get it, then? You know what I’m saying.”

“No! Where’s this leading? I want to salvage the Scene and, crow help me, save Ursel. But banging on about the sense she talked isn’t going to save her.”

Chase slid a piece of paper, covered in pencil scrawl, towards her.

She eyed it from a distance. “What’s this?”

“A story.”

“I don’t believe this. I’ve just risked my neck going back underground while you’ve sat here writing a sodding story?”

“Ursel said the theatre aims to help their audience discover universal truths within a story. So, I’ve written one about the truth she taught me.”

“Oh, this is priceless—”

“Hear me out.” He stared at Wella, the glint in his eyes sharpening with crystalline intent. “The theatre families will be devastated by Ursel’s arrest. Take this to them, explain that I’ve written it as a tribute to her. Suggest they turn it into a play that they perform in the Circus, to raise awareness of her case and raise funds to campaign for her release. They’ll want to do something and, hopefully, this will appeal. There’s a guy on security; he’s helped me before. Explain you’re my sister and you’re there about Ursel. He’ll get you in and introduce you. I would go myself, but I can’t risk leaving here.”

“I still don’t—”

“Listen. If the audience pay attention, they’ll pick something up. An unease. An earworm of doubt. If it works, the story will hold up a few mirrors. Force them to look afresh at what’s going on around them. Actually listen to the broadcasts, rather than dismiss the white noise. Actively look at the murals and posters and recognise the face of their neighbour in the red-eyed rats.”

“This is all very noble, Chase. But you can’t change people’s attitudes overnight.”

“We don’t. They change their own. That’s the point.”

“And this helps Ursel how?”

“Because, in the absence of Bluemantle, we need to find other means of showing the way. The story is a signpost. But it’s only the start. A precursor.”

“To what?”

“My plan to save her.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

With every step up the rocky ascent, Dent Lore struggled to erase the images, feign deafness to the screams that resonated in his head, not reel at the stench of blood, shit and vomit that clung to his clothes. His senses were haunted by determined souvenirs of the last twenty-four hours.

He had escaped having to torture anyone himself, but it was only a matter of time. If he went back.

What he couldn’t work out was why. Does she know about me? he thought. Is this a punishment? Or a warning? All he knew for certain was that Governor Blix had personally insisted that his training in interrogation be protracted and thorough, forcing him to observe the most brutal and inhumane of techniques. Men and women, young and old, children. Even now, he dry-retched at the memories. Foul bile burnt his throat. He climbed.

If he went back… He kept the option open with a token question mark, yet he’d decided the moment Wulfwin rammed the pencil into that woman’s ears. He knew he would forever hear her screams. He would remember, always, the defiance in her face, right up until the moment the first eardrum was ruptured, when everything about her was agony.

He doubted she was still alive. He believed she’d be better off dead.

Whatever her motives, Blix’s intervention had merely expedited the decision that he knew he’d make regardless. He had to find Bend Sinister.

Dent crept up the Heights. He avoided the main trail, knowing it would be teeming with troopers. He also knew Special Forces would be on the south and east sides of Lyun Mountain, guarding the known entrances to the caves, searching for others. Scaling the less accessible north face, Dent finally found the narrow crevice that had led him to the cave the night of the raid. He knew Bend Sinister wouldn’t be there. He just hoped some buried instinct would lead him the rest of the way.

Deep inside the mountain, he found himself in a small stone chamber that gave the impression of a lobby to a far greater space beyond. He faced a wall of rock with a deep gouge in its surface. He stood at the opening and listened. There, hidden by a false silence, he detected breathing. He held his own breath to eliminate the possibility. The faintest of sounds remained, irregular and afraid. “Who’s there?” he whispered.

No response.

“Please. I mean no harm. I’m looking for someone.” The breathing resumed, this time with staccato indecision. “Bend Sinister.”

Hesitation, then a face emerged from the shadows of the gouge. “Who are you?” the young man said, eyes wide and uncertain.

“A friend. Of the Scene.”

“What’s your name?”

Good question, thought Dent. “Grey,” he said, seizing the first word that came to him. “Please, I’ve come to see Bend Sinister. Can you take me to him?”

“If you’re part of the Scene, then you know it doesn’t work like that.”

“I know,” he said, guessing too late the faux pas. “But this is important.” Then an idea struck him without knowing its origin. “I can prove I’m to be trusted.” He stepped forward and turned his left cheek to the man, parting the hairs where the ink lay hidden.

“Why didn’t you say?” said the young man, stepping