Vincalis the Agitator Read Online Free PDF Page A

smile he wore on his face, and this air of excitement that he carried in his step.
    They ran down their street, ducked into their stairwell, and squeezed through the broken window into their hideaway.
    Boxes and crates stacked along all the walls and in the middle of the floor, a dirt floor with a little nest of rags for sleeping
     on, and darkness, always, because they did not dare any light to call the guards’ attention to their presence—this was the
     home that was, to Jess, freedom and life.
    “Where’s Smoke?” Wraith asked, putting his box on one of the crates. “He has to be here to hear this, too.” And without waiting
     for an answer, he handed her something beautiful, and cool, and smooth, and round, and said, “Take a bite. It’s the best thing
     I’ve ever tasted in my life.”
    She took a bite and almost cried. It crunched, and its juice burst on her tongue, and its sweetness seemed to her to have
     not just smell and flavor, but color and sound as well. She took another bite, and the sweetness began to mix with the salt
     of her tears. Smoke would have loved this thing, whatever it was.
    “Great, isn’t it?” Wraith asked, grinning.
    She swallowed around the growing lump in her throat and put the round thing aside. “Smoke is gone,” she said.
    Wraith’s smile vanished. “Gone? The guards found him?”
    “He … he gave up. He said you couldn’t provide for two of us anymore—that we ate too much and that trying to keep us both
     fed was killing you. And he said I was the smallest and I ate the least, so I had to stay, and he would go back. He ran out
     of the door. I chased him, but he runs faster than me, and I don’t even know which of the homes he went into.”
    “When?” Wraith whispered.
    “Right after you left.”
    “Then he’s been asleep for two full days, and then some.”
    Jess nodded.
    “Too long. And he’s too old now. If we tried to take him away from the Way-fare again, this time it would probably kill him.”
    “If we even knew where to look for him.”
    “Yes. That, too. He would still be easy to pick out—he won’t start actually looking like them for months. But where would
     we start looking?”
    “He didn’t want you to find him. He didn’t want to be a burden anymore.”
    Wraith’s face wore anguish. “But I found us a way out. All of us— you, me, and him. I found us a home, a place where the three
     of us can live, where they serve food this good and better several times a day, every day, and where they walk in the streets
     whenever they want, and wear different clothes every day.” He buried his head in his hands. “Why couldn’t he have just waited?”
    “He’s been talking about this for a while now,” Jess said. “He made me swear to keep silent; he worried for you, that something
     bad would happen to you because of us. I’ve worried, too, but I was too much of a coward to do what he did and go back. If
     I weren’t so weak, I would have just gone to Sleep one day, too—and then you wouldn’t have had to risk the gates anymore.
     You could have stayed out there, where it’s wonderful.” She whispered, “But I miss him.”
    Wraith had his knees pulled tight to his chest and his face pressed into them. He sobbed. Jess sat beside him for a long time,
     patting his back and stroking his hair. “He wouldn’t have gone if he’d thought you would ever find a way out of here for us.
     He only gave up because he could see us getting you killed, and for nothing.”
    “Never for nothing,” Wraith said between sobs. “What I do for you is never for nothing. You’re my friends. You’re my family.
     You’re all I have in the world.”
    “That’s why he went back,” Jess said softly. “Because he loved you.”
    He looked up at her. In the dark, she saw the gleam of his tear-filled eyes and the pale blur that was the rest of his face.
     He looked haunted, haggard. Despairing. “I can’t go to get him, Jess. After my brother, I