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and double-checked all the shutters and then sent the children off to bed. I expected Trina to go tuck them in, but it was Brandon’s voice I heard murmuring to the children from the room on the other side of the screen from the fire. The warmest room, no doubt.
    Trina smiled at us as she finished wiping the bowls and mugs clean. “I’m afraid we don’t have beds for you girls, but it sounds like you’re used to sleeping on the ground.”
    I found myself smiling back. “A dry, clean floor next to a real fire is far more than we were expecting,” I promised. “But it’s only just dusk now, isn’t it?”
    Trina nodded, her smile fading a little. “We usually try to sleep after lock-up. It’s just easier that way, rather than lying awake in the dark, listening for every sound. The truth is that if they come for us, we’ll hear it. Nothing can get through that barrier without making a racket. It’s easier for the children, too. No child should have to grow up knowing that the monsters they dream of in the night are real.”
    My heart constricted. Suddenly the Institute’s methods didn’t seem quite so monstrous. After all, what would I give to feel safe again every day, to know nothing could get me, that my family could sleep safely? How much would I sacrifice?
    My own safety? My life?
    My freedom?

CHAPTER 4
    After Trina and Brandon had gone to bed, I stayed awake, pacing. As the fire died down the air had grown cooler, but I could still feel sweat pooling in the small of my back.
    I’d been given the opportunity to provide my own people with that kind of safety, and I’d run away. Of course, I wasn’t a real Renewable—but at the time, the Institute had fooled me into thinking I was. I believed I had that choice, and I chose to abandon my people. Did it matter that the Institute had planned all along for me to run, so they could follow me? I still made a decision.
    I wished I knew what had prompted Basil to abandon his task. All I knew was that Basil had volunteered to try to find the Iron Wood, and that at some point in his journey, he’d destroyed his pixie and vanished. Had he made the same choice I did?
    I didn’t know whether that made me feel better or worse. A glint at one of the shutters caught my eye, and I backtracked a pace, putting my eye to the crack. I could just see the Star, dim enough now that I could make out its shape. It truly was like a star, or a snowflake—jagged and uneven crystal spires radiating out from its glowing heart. Though the street outside lay in shadow, the Star was high enough up that it was still catching the last remnants of the sunlight.
    The buildings in this city were so destroyed that it was hard to believe only time had worn them down. Some distance down the street, one of the structures was so reduced to rubble that I couldn’t even tell what it had once been. With a jolt, I realized that this city must have been attacked during the wars. That some power-hungry Renewable had targeted it for unknown reasons.
    I wondered if that Renewable had created the Star, fading in the dying light. As I watched, the light dimmed, like magic in a dying machine’s crystal heart. Then it winked out, leaving the city in darkness.
“Can’t sleep?” It was barely more than a whisper.
    I turned. Tansy was sitting by the fire, arms curled around her knees. Nix was nearby, on the other side of the fireplace, wings half-extended as if soaking up the warmth.
    I wondered how long they’d been watching me pace. I moved away from the window and joined them, sitting in the empty space between them.
    “Just thinking,” I whispered back, conscious of the fact that only wooden screens separated the bedrooms from the kitchen where we were.
    “I wish we could do something for them,” Tansy said with a sigh.
    I found my gaze going to the shutters again. “Why do you suppose the shadow people only come at night?”
    Tansy shrugged. “Easier to get people alone? The upper hand when it