Read Online The Reader by Traci Chee - Free Book Online Page A

set her jaw. So the impressors were Serakeen’s lackeys. How many boys did he have now? How many boys had died for this?
    These men didn’t have Nin. She doubted they knew anything about the book either. But they were connected, the book and Serakeen’s impressors, by the symbol. And she had to find out how. She checked for Nin’s old lock picks in the inner pocket of her vest and settled down to wait.
    You’ll get more than scavengers tonight
, she thought.
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    O ne by one the fires became red pulsing embers, and the men settled under their blankets. Some of them snored, but most fell into the deep soundless sleep of the exhausted.
    Sefia shouldered her pack and climbed down from her tree, alighting at the base of the trunk like a shadow. Unhooking the safety catch on her knife, she crept forward. The lone sentry, a young impressor with red hair, sat on one of the carts at the edge of the clearing, leaning against the sideboard for support.
    She paused beside the cart wheel, watching the back of the sentry’s head. The handle of her knife grew hot in her palm. She couldn’t risk him alerting the others. She had the advantage. Easy. It would be quick.
    Still she didn’t move. The side of his face was silhouetted in the dying firelight, which passed through the fine fuzz on his jaw, illuminating each thin strand. He was barely more than a boy himself.
    The sentry’s head tipped forward. He began snoring softly.
    Swallowing, Sefia released her knife. She slipped the lock picks into her hand and crept to the crate, looking forlorn at the edge of the clearing.
    Running her fingertips along the splintery edges, Sefia searched for the heavy iron padlock and grinned. It was a simple lock, the sort you could commission from any common blacksmith. She’d been picking locks like this since she was nine. She took a deep breath and scanned the rest of the clearing, but no one stirred.
    She traced the symbol on the corner of the crate. Two lines for her parents, one for Nin. One for her, and what she had to do next. Inserting her picks into the lock, she set to work.
    After a few seconds of tinkering, she released the padlock and eased the door open with one hand. With the other, she grasped her knife. Deep inside, she was still hoping to see Nin, or at least books and stacks of paper, but she wasn’t surprised when a battered-looking boy emerged from the shadows. He was laced with fresh wounds—cuts and bruises on his legs and arms, across his bare back. He peered out from under the crook of his arm, but she couldn’t tell if he was afraid or ready to attack.
    â€œShh,” she murmured, stealing a glance at the sleeping sentry. “I’m here to help you.”
    The stench was awful: a mix of blood and sweat and urine. But she gritted her teeth and whispered in the kindest voice she could muster, “Come with me.” The boy cringed, but she said it again, though her hand didn’t stray from her knife. “Please, come with me.”
    He began to crawl. As he crept into the light, she saw morewounds, scars. The skin around his neck was puckered and white—a scar that encircled his throat like a collar.
    At the sight of it, her sense of the other world washed over her and Sefia staggered back, blinking.
    In an instant she had one of those dizzying visions, like the one she’d had the moment she learned to read. The boy was flesh and blood and bone, yes, but also pulsing with light. Little streams of light circling and expanding around him like a river. For a second, Sefia swore she saw storms, great roiling clouds rolling with thunder, and lightning cracking overhead. There was smoke. Hot wet blood. Teeth. Fists and feet.
    Then, just as quickly, it was replaced by a sense of smallness and quiet. Night. Kerosene lamps, reflected a hundred times. Walking alone on a rocky coast with white-capped waves thrumming against stone. In the dark,